Meade County Approves GF&P’s Revised Design for North Half of Shooting Range

On March 28, the Meade County Commission granted the Game Fish and Parks Department a license for the south half of its proposed South Dakota Shooting Sports Complex. On Tuesday, June 27, the commission granted a second license for the north half of the project.

Game Fish and Parks has changed the design of the north half of the range from its original 2021 proposal.

The revised plan has a large versatile training bay for law enforcement training and testing and 17 smaller shooting bays, like the original plan. However, the revised plan moves four of those smaller bays to the southwest side of the bay access road. Those four bays are a little closer to the end of the long range proposed for the south half of the project but are still below the ridgeline that runs northwest to southeast on the 400-acre site.

The two most northwesterly shooting bays, numbered 1 and 2, now direct their fire toward the main access road and three other bays, which appear to be less than 200 yards away. We may assume GF&P is building really big berms at the back of those two bays. Bays 1 and 2 are also separated from the rest of the range by a gated branch road. The entire north range will be fenced, gated, and locked with access granted by reservation only; the extra gate to those two northwesterly bays suggest they may be dedicated to use by certain special groups like law enforcement.

The other two small bays placed southwest of the access road, numbered 7 and 8, both point southeast. Thus, shooters in Bay 8 may have fire directed at them from less than 100 yards away in Bay 7. Expect another especially thick berm at the end of Bay 7.

The revised plan does not show the sporting clays course originally planned for the northeast corner of the range. Sporting clays, as GF&P gun range planner John Kanta described it, is “like golf, but with shotguns“: the original plan offered a Y-shaped trail that started at the vehicle turnaround north of the versatile training bay and led shotgunners out to 12 stations where clay pigeons would fly out in different patterns. The sporting clays struck me as maybe the most fun part of the course, offering a change to get out and walk and see the scenery instead of squatting in a dirt box. The sporting clays also appear to require the least earth-moving and expense to build. It is possible that the sporting clays, allowing fire out in open areas, posed a greater danger of stray shot and wildfire than the gunfire taking place in the bermed and ungrassy bays. However, shotgun pellets have less range and, blasting into clay pigeons instead of steel targets, less fire-starting potential than rifle bullets. But, whatever the reason, the revised plan erases that course from the north range and does not add such a feature to the south range.

Speaking of safety, the north range proposal approved Tuesday includes GF&P’s explanation of its planned fire safety precautions:

Staff on site will be trained in S130 and S190 wildland firefighting. Staff will create fire breaks around the shooting areas by removing vegetation in 20–30 feet wide strips down to bare soil. Basic firefighting equipment will be stationed around the complex. During times of high fire danger, water tanks will be filled and on standby. Staff will work closely with the North Haines Volunteer Fire Department to coordinate on wildland fire prevention and suppression efforts. Livestock grazing during spring green up may occur as needed to reduce the fuel load for wildfire. During extreme drought conditions, hours of operation at the complex may be reduced [GF&P, Application for the Shooting Range, Attachment 1, “Additional Safety Measures”; submitted for June 27, 2023, Meade County Commission meeting].

GF&P will try to prevent shooters from lighting up Elk Vale Road, but the department will definitely light up the range. GF&P says it will install lighting “to monitor the complex during nighttime hours”. GF&P will use LED lights with fixtures burning 68 watts or less on poles no taller than 15 feet. Their lighting plan appears to show 12 light poles around the main entrance, shed, and picnic shelter, two light fixtures next to the firing position in each bay, and a couple downrange poles in each larger shooting bay. Neighbors thus will get light pollution at night to complement the noise pollution at day. (Hey, GF&P! How about putting motion sensors on those lights so we’re not blazing up the sky all night long?)

On noise pollution, GF&P says that it will monitor the effectiveness of the berms and baffles it installs to control noise in and around the facility. GF&P will measure sound levels during normal use and bigger shooting events at its property lines and 20 feet from the nearest occupied house.

GF&P says it will break ground at the shooting range this fall, but we still have no word on how the rebidding process is going after GF&P rejected the sole really high bid it got from Jim Scull, the previous owner of the gun range property, last spring.