GARDINER — Joe D’Amico carries a decibel meter to measure the sound level of gunfire as he walks behind a row of camouflage-clad trainees firing at targets while laying on their stomachs.
The Department of Defense trainees shoot at red dots on targets at the end of a 50-yard range cut into the forested hillside of Fort Discovery Training Center’s more than 3,000 acres.
Sound from semi-automatic rifles, which has disturbed Discovery Bay neighbors in recent weeks, is something D’Amico calls a recent “anomaly,” caused by conditions he is still trying to determine.
Nonetheless, the 39-year-old, fourth-generation North Olympic Peninsula native aims to monitor and muffle the sound as best he can.
That’s why he voluntarily hired carpenters last week to begin erecting sound walls and baffles around two shooting ranges at the training center, which turns out a number of specially trained soldiers for hire in the war on terrorism.
‘Huge learning curve’
“I’m in a huge learning curve from the standpoint of sound here,” D’Amico admits, holding the meter toward the sky to measure the decibels coming from a plane flying overhead.
The center’s property, which D’Amico leases from Discovery Bay Land Co., is between Gardiner and Discovery Bay.
The first attempt to blunt the sound includes a 16-foot wall of plywood and 2-by-4s that will be padded with an 18-inch foam baffle at the top to direct sound inward rather than out and around the bay.
Another wall is under construction at a second shooting range and more sound-suppression work will go up as is necessary, says D’Amico, who has been driving and walking around the bay checking sound levels for more than a week.
Attempts to muffle the sound of gunfire, which carries across the water to luxury shoreline homes and other neighborhoods, came a week after noise complaints peaked at the Jefferson County Courthouse and Sheriff’s Office dispatch center.
Jefferson County commissioners and county planning and zoning officials have come under fire as well, with residents demanding that they do something to stop the intrusive noise.
D’Amico, who reports that no machine gun fire or other explosives have been used in recent months, says he believes residents are mistaking repeated semi-automatic gunfire for automatic.
However, D’Amico says the sound of gunfire ultimately means homeland security to a nation threatened by terrorism.
“It’s a small price to pay for freedom,” says D’Amico, a soft-spoken man with a large framed portrait of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hanging prominently in his office.
