By Paul Gottlieb
Peninsula Daily News
PORT ANGELES — A plan opposed by three North Olympic Peninsula tribes that would transfer state forest land at Sadie Creek to Clallam County for a shooting range will be aired Thursday.
The state Department of Natural Resources information meeting will be from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Port Angeles Senior Center, 328 E. Seventh St.
The 320-acre DNR parcel would become a county park that would be developed, managed and operated by the Pacific Northwest Shooting Park Association.
“This was at one time county land, so basically it’s going back to the county,” DNR spokesman Bob Redlinger said Tuesday.
A public shooting range has been a goal of Clallam County shooting enthusiasts since 1968, when the county closed a shooting range at Salt Creek near Joyce to expand other recreational uses in that area.
The Sadie Creek site is seven miles west of Joyce and includes 70 acres of wetlands.
Environmental concern
The North Olympic Land Trust said in a May 2009 letter to the three county commissioners that heavy metals such as lead and copper generated by the shooting range would likely have a negative impact on salmon habitat and the Sadie Creek watershed, which “supports a high density of salmonids.”
The site also contains threatened marbled murrelet nesting sites, the land trust said.
The North Olympic Peninsula Lead Entity for Salmon also opposed the land transfer in a Jan. 7 letter to DNR.
The Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam and Makah tribes are members of the group that opposes the project, organization coordinator Cheryl Baumann said Tuesday.
The tribes “are not opposed to the shooting range,” Baumann said. “What they are opposed to is the proposed location.”
Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Chairman Francis Charles said the tribe has environmental concerns that “need to be addressed.”
But Don Roberts, chairman of the board of the Pacific Northwest Shooting Park Association, which recommended the Sadie Creek site for a range, said the range would not be in the wetlands portion of the property.
“It’s a bogus issue,” Roberts said Tuesday.
“There’s some wetlands there, and we’re not there. Douglas fir does not grow in wetlands, and we are in solid Douglas fir.”
Redlinger said DNR and the county will review the reconveyance application “in detail” following Thursday’s meeting.
“We’ll talk to them about whether we think there needs to be more environmental study or not,” Redlinger said.
The state cannot require that study, though such a decision may be “negotiated” between the county and DNR, he added.
The transaction would require the county to pay land transaction costs “in the lower five figures,” probably less than $10,000, Redlinger added.
DNR Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark would present the reconveyance proposal to the state Board of Natural Resources, which must approve the transaction, Redlinger said.
More information on the reconveyance is at www.dnr.wa.gov.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
