PORT ANGELES — Clallam County commissioners have shot down a $300,000 budget provision that would have paid for the study of a controversial shooting range at Sadie Creek west of Joyce.
Instead, the three commissioners agreed Tuesday to fund a $50,000 analysis of alternative sites for a gun range.
“I’ve long been a proponent of any shooting range,” Commissioner Jim McEntire said in the first of two public hearings on the draft 2016 budget Tuesday.
“It’s just been stuck for many, many years.
“The spending authority that will be available to next year’s board is simply a means to get the conversation unstuck and concluded,” McEntire added.
“Of course, that conversation is going to be inclusive of ‘Where should we put the thing?’”
After receiving letters and comments from environmental groups and concerned citizens, commissioners Tuesday tweaked the draft budget by removing $300,000 for an environmental impact statement for the Sadie Creek site.
Find another site
The board agreed to put $50,000 into the budget to hire a consultant to identify a site that all parties can agree with.
The $250,000 difference will be returned to the county’s real estate excise tax fund.
A second public hearing on the $36.8 million draft budget was held Tuesday evening after press time.
A final budget will be approved by commissioners no later than Dec. 8.
The draft budget was balanced by the use of $3 million in general fund reserves, leaving a “still very heathy” ending fund balance of $9.2 million, County Administrator Jim Jones reported in the first hearing.
Bob Lynette of the North Olympic Group of the Sierra Club presented a letter requesting the removal of the budgeted $300,000 for the shooting range at Sadie Creek.
He and others have said they would support a shooting range at a less environmentally-sensitive location.
Lead contamination
Opponents have said a shooting range at Sadie Creek, which supports salmon populations, would cause lead contamination because of the presence of wetlands, acidic soils, shallow groundwater and other factors.
The Sadie Creek gun range has been opposed by the Lower Elwha Klallam, Jamestown S’Klallam and Makah tribes, as well as the North Olympic Land Trust, North Olympic Peninsula Lead Entity for Salmon and other groups.
The 320-acre site is owned by the state Department of Natural Resources and would need to be transferred to Clallam County before becoming a shooting range.
“This is a very controversial proposed project that will become mired in litigation and is so out-of-step with our values, and so harmful to our salmon restoration efforts that the reality is that it will never be built,” Lynette wrote in his letter.
“Why waste $300,000 of our taxpayer dollars on a doomed project, when our county has so many worthy needs that go unfunded?”
Lynette also provided the board with a 2010 letter from the North Olympic Peninsula Lead Entity for Salmon to DNR that opposed a shooting range at Sadie Creek.
“We spend enormous sums on salmon enhancement projects,” Lynette told commissioners, “and you’re proposing to spend $300,000 on paperwork for a project that would destroy prime salmon habitat.”
“Please remove this proposal from your budget.”
Last month, Commissioners McEntire and Bill Peach directed Jones — with Commissioner Mike Chapman absent — to add the $300,000 to the budget “recognizing that this is a two-stage process,” Jones said.
“Putting it in the budget just makes it available without a budget emergency next year if next year’s board decide they want to move forward,” Jones said.
“There would have to be an affirmative action on the part of next year’s board to call for bids for the EIS (environmental impact statement).”
Other speakers, including former Clallam County Commissioner Mike Doherty, echoed Lynette’s remarks about the Sadie Creek shooting range as part of their own comments to the board.
Doherty said he has long favored a site in the east county because of the drier climate and because it would serve as a centrally-located gun range for local, state, federal and tribal law enforcement agencies in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
