Lead and Fools

These people are pathetic. Can't get the Gun Club that they moved in next to shut down, so they hold out to the end about lead poisoning.

Paul Sullivan and Bruce McClure paint a frightening picture: Dozens of buried caches of toxic clay pigeons and hundreds of tons of lead leaching into ground and surface water sources – basically a 118-acre toxic waste yard near their homes.

It’s a frightening picture, but one that isn’t necessarily accurate.

Let's see, the club's been there since 1966, so it's been there a long time. Wonder what they were thinking when they moved in? Or did they bother thinking at all? Guessing the latter.

Sullivan and McClure, both Hollis residents, are convinced the ongoing battle waged before the planning board between the hunter’s club and some nearby residents should be less about noise from the club’s gun ranges and more about the “toxic waste” they say is leaching from expended bullets and old clay pigeons into nearby wells.

That’s not all, the pair says. Nashua residents also should be concerned because, they say, the nearby Nashua River is being contaminated.

His evidence:

McClure is armed with a pile of maps of the property detailing the ranges’ dimensions, where he believes wetlands and buffer areas located, and pictures he’s taken of what he calls pollution on the club’s property.

The pictures show what he says are old lead pellets and shell casings and piles of old clay target pigeons buried around the property’s outskirts. There are more pictures showing where he believes water is running off the club’s skeet/trap range into nearby wetlands and into the ground water, as well as into the Nashua River as storm runoff.

“This is flowing right through Nashua,” Sullivan said. “I’m in complete fear of what’s going in the water. Maybe not today, but it’s on its way.”

Except:

“You can have a shooting range and not have anything in the water, even with a lot of lead shot on the ground,” Liptak said. “There are issues in some areas, but there are other areas where there are no problems.”

Shooting near water isn’t automatically a problem, he said, because lead isn’t very mobile, meaning it takes a long time to leach out of bullets and into ground and surface water.

Whether lead shells on the ground are a problem depends on a number of factors, including the type of soil, amount and intensity of rainfall, the pH of rain and ground water, vegetation and topography, according to the EPA Web site.

And

Prunier said that when Sullivan took pictures of the property, it was shortly after the April 16 floods. It would have been hard to find a place anywhere in Hollis that wasn’t wet in those days, he said.

and

An environmental study by Jaworski Geotech Inc. in July 2004 stated the soil at the club’s skeet/trap range didn’t show high concentration lead levels. The soil near the rifle range did, but the water near that range did not, according to the report.

But a letter from Liptak pointed out where more work and data are needed and asked for more extensive testing at the club’s old, unused skeet range, as well as better data regarding lead levels in groundwater. DES officials also conducted a site walk on the property.

“Given the extent of lead shot in the environment at the site, the department recommends that long-term groundwater monitoring wells be installed,” Liptak wrote. “DES is concerned there is lead shot present at the site, which has potential to be an ongoing source of lead that can continue to leach to groundwater.”

What a surprise the DES didn't like a professional study company's results. I've dealt with this type of auditor in a previous life and they never are beyond forcing you to do something more. Gotta justify that job ya know.

As far as I can see, this is proof that the neighbors are jackass' and they are also idiots. Who moves in near a gun range and ignores the noise and the potential for lead contamination? A major league imbecile, that's who.