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VPC - Poisonous Pastime - Section One Page 13 of 16 However, a range that is closed or abandoned triggers specific liabilities for lead and other toxic materials deposited on the land during shooting operations, since it is then considered to be "abandoned waste.i78 The reported transport of lead waste to landfill dump sites by some range operators also could subject them to any future "superfund" liabilities of the disposal sites, according to the NRA's range development manager.79 Cleanup costs can be substantial: New York City reportedly paid a Canadian company $25 million to clean up a police shooting range in the Bronx. Company officials found the prospects of such work in the United States "promising," estimating that there were about 28,000 such potential cleanup sites in the country.80 The cost of cleaning up abandoned ranges often comes as a shocking surprise to new owners or to government units that operate or sometimes inherit the property in question. In some cases, governmental units simply continue the fiction that the abandoned range is still "in service" in order to avoid paying the costs. The following are representative examples of cleanup cases: • As part of a consent decree, current and past owners of a former Playboy Club property in Wisconsin agreed to pay the U.S. government $1,000,000 in cleanup costs for contamination from a trap and skeet shooting range. The contamination at the abandoned site was discovered after 200 geese died of lead poisoning. The federal government was reported to have spent $1.75 million for cleanup as of the time of the agreement.81 • The State of Massachusetts inherited a cleanup problem when it acquired a former resort that included a skeet shooting range.82 • Port Richey, Florida, was hit with a $50,000 cleanup bill after it learned that a children's play area called Totsville had been designed and built by a well-meaning volunteer on a site that had formerly been a city firing range.83 • Port Salerno, Florida, was stuck with a $400,000 cleanup bill when tests of a proposed development site revealed contamination from an abandoned shooting range formerly used by the sheriffs office.84 • Crystal River, Florida, dodged cleanup costs by simply fencing off a shooting range area, keeping it in limbo between its former use as a pistol range and any new use. Should the city decide to make use of the parcel, which one council member compared to an abandoned nuclear site, it would have to pay for the cleanup.85 • Brea, California, was sued by the owner of a parcel of land it leased for use as a firing range. The owner complained that the property lost value and that 165 tons of soil had to be removed as a result of lead contamination after 25 years of use.BG • Bay Village, Ohio, city officials abandoned cleanup plans when they saw a price tag of $600,000 to clean up an estimated 150 tons of lead blasted into Lake Erie over several decades by a private gun club. The federal EPA looked the other way. "Why invite trouble?" said one city official, who admitted he was aware of the court ruling in the similar Connecticut Coastal Fishermen's Association case.87 These and other abandoned range cases pose a serious question for communities with existing or newly proposed range operations: who will pay the cleanup bill when the shooters have moved on? 88 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) established a national scheme to control and minimize the impact that federal government actions —including tax -subsidized activities —have on http://www.vpc.org/studies/leadone.htm 2/5/2014