Chabot Gun Club closing in a year

Allen - I am speaking from my experience working at numerous other gun ranges (primarily at military training facilities). I am not claiming to be an expert on the situation at Chabot, but from what I have read it follows the typical pattern of all the other ranges I've been involved with.

My response (2) above is related to this. Yes you can operate a range in a responsible manner. No, that has not always been how it's done. If they are finding that lead is migrating off site from Chabot, it seems their BMPs were not sufficient.

Well, it's not obvious to everyone. That's why I said it. Hell, the fellow who responded before you went as far as to imply that I might toss ethics aside and fabricate data to score a cleanup contract.

Did I suggest data fabrication?

I think it's a huge conflict of of interest to have the same firm both investigating and providing cleanup services.  You already have preconceived ideas based on your experiences elsewhere, of course you're gonna find lead. My question is how on earth would your firm suggest doing anything other than an expensive clean up (that you can provide)?

You call it "preconceived ideas", I call it previous project experience. Much like a dentist might have preconceived ideas about what could be wrong with your teeth.

The majority of folks in my field (myself included) are not in it for the money. We're in it because we care about the environment. If I investigate a site and find its clean, I call it a win and move on to the next. There are PLENTY of contaminated sites to keep us busy.

Also, in most situations the investigation is done, then the cleanup project goes back out to bid.

"...of course you're gonna find lead."

We write up a sampling plan and it gets reviewed and approved by range operators, regulators (DTSC or RWQCB), etc. Then we collect the samples, often under government supervision. The samples are sealed in a cooler and delivered straight to the lab (unrelated 3rd party) for analysis.

It's a very cut a dried process with very little room for bias.

Much like a dentist might have preconceived ideas about what could be wrong with your teeth

I haaate dentiss.  Spesh 1s use ledd fillins.

You call it "preconceived ideas", I call it previous project experience. Much like a dentist might have preconceived ideas about what could be wrong with your teeth.

The majority of folks in my field (myself included) are not in it for the money. We're in it because we care about the environment. If I investigate a site and find its clean, I call it a win and move on to the next. There are PLENTY of contaminated sites to keep us busy.

Also, in most situations the investigation is done, then the cleanup project goes back out to bid.

lol, yeah I call em preconceived ideas.  You're using past work experience and reading preliminary reports about chabot, so I assume you have some idea of what you're going to find and how to scientifically remedy the situation.

Since you're following strict protocol for scientific testing (which I never really questioned) are there similar guidelines or mandates for how to proceed to various levels of contamination or will your firm (not neccssrily you) be giving reccomendations on corrective action?

Range cleanup projects typically move forward one small step at a time. These same steps apply to all kinds of contaminated sites, not just firing ranges.

- Prepare Remedial Investigation (RI) Work Plan: This is the part where a consultant is hired (either by the responsible party/property owner or by EPA in the case of Superfund sites) to prepare a set of plans describing how they will collect and analyze samples to define the "nature and extent" of contamination. The plan then gets reviewed by stakeholders and regulators (DTSC, RWQCB, City, County, etc). The consultant then reviews all comments on the document and makes appropriate changes.

- Conduct Remedial Investigation Field Work: This is where we hit the field and collect samples in the manner described and agreed upon in the RI Work Plan. Samples are sent to the lab under proper chain of custody, and lab results are reviewed and validated by a third party.

-Prepare RI Report: The consultant then prepares an RI Report documenting the findings of the RI. The RI report presents the data collected during the RI field work and compares chemical concentrations found in soil samples against background levels and various other screening screening levels. The RI report also includes a "Conceptual Site Model" that identifies potential "receptors" that could potentially come in contact with the contamination (a young kid wading around in a creek chasing crawdads, a construction worker excavating soil for a foundation, or an endangered bird species). After considering the concentrations present in soil, concentrations in background (clean native) soil, applicable screening levels, and potential receptors, the consultant defines the extent of contamination at the site.

-Conduct Feasibility Study (FS) and prepare FS Report: At this point the consultant is asked to develop and compare several different options for corrective actions. The consultant doesn't recommend a certain remedial alternative, they simply present them and compare costs vs. effectiveness vs. community acceptance vs. state acceptance, etc. For a typical range cleanup, the options might look something like this:

(1) No Action: we are required to include this as a baseline against which we can compare the other options).

(2) Institutional Controls and/or Deed Restrictions: If contamination is not migrating off the property and isn't impacting the public or wildlife, you can place restrictions on how a property is used. Property owners seldom favor this option, because it greatly decreases the value of their land (typically can't redevelop it for residential use).

(3) Some variation of sifting out bullets, digging up the soil, and transporting it to a disposal facility. Even with the bullets sifted out, the soil from target berms typically has screaming high lead concentrations. It typically ends up at landfills.

-The stakeholders, regulators, etc then decide which remedial alternative they would like to proceed with.

-At that point, the project usually goes back out to bid for the actual cleanup portion. Sometimes the cleanup is awarded to the consultant who did the investigation work, sometimes it isn't. Cost-wise, it can be beneficial to keep the same consultant on board through the whole process. Back to my dentist analogy... If you go to the dentist he/she takes a bunch of X-rays, runs a bunch of tests, pokes around and determines that you need a couple fillings. Do you go ahead and have your dentist do the work, or do you go somewhere else because your dentist has "preconceived ideas"?

Long story short... We follow a very well defined set of steps during the investigation, compare our results against established and accepted screening levels, and conduct the remedial actions in compliance with plans that have been reviewed and approved by stakeholders, regulators, and community members.

Allen - I am speaking from my experience working at numerous other gun ranges (primarily at military training facilities). I am not claiming to be an expert on the situation at Chabot, but from what I have read it follows the typical pattern of all the other ranges I've been involved with.

My response (2) above is related to this. Yes you can operate a range in a responsible manner. No, that has not always been how it's done. If they are finding that lead is migrating off site from Chabot, it seems their BMPs were not sufficient.

The owners did offer to pay $1.1M to clean up the site, if the they allowed it to keep operating.  The Parks officials estimated it would cost $4.4M over 10 years.  The taxpayers will pay for it now.

-Allen

Interesting. $4.4M doesn't sound unreasonable to me for a significant range cleanup, but the 10 year timeframe is a little suspect. We recently cleaned up an old trap shooting range in WA for about $3M, but it took less than a year.

Yes, you and I will pay for the shortsightedness of our parent's generation just as our children will pay for our own shortsightedness.

What are the odds that a firm investigating the lead "contamination" has negative findings if there's a potential cleanup profit for the firm?

I can save you guys the footwork.  "We found that the sky is falling.....the solution is to give us a contract."


Lead is just a scapegoat here, I believe there's been a bunch of threads in the past about neighbors not liking chabot.  They just finally won.
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Are you really accusing Alex B of something that amounts to criminal misconduct???

As for lead being a scapegoat, I guess you've not heard anything about the lead in Flint, Michigan's drinking water.  Just clear to this up for you, lead is a poison, it kills and harms plants and animals, including humans, fish, planktonics, and even you, lead persists for longer than any of us will live, it will continue to impact our children, their children, and their children's children, so please let the rest of us discuss this concerning topic without being bullied -- shouting louder than anyone else still does not make you right.

As for lead being a scapegoat, I guess you've not heard anything about the lead in Flint, Michigan's drinking water.  Just clear to this up for you, lead is a poison, it kills and harms plants and animals, including humans, fish, planktonics, and even you, lead persists for longer than any of us will live, it will continue to impact our children, their children, and their children's children, so please let the rest of us discuss this concerning topic without being bullied -- shouting louder than anyone else still does not make you right.

Wow.  Are you really comparing Flint to Chabot?   Neither Flint not Chabot have lead contamination is the water source.  In Flint, the water source had excess chlorine which caused corrosion in the lead pipes.  At Chabot, there have been no positive tests showing lead in the drinking water.

It's the fear of contamination that has led to the closing of Chabot, not actual contamination.  Let's be clear on that.

-Allen

As for lead being a scapegoat, I guess you've not heard anything about the lead in Flint, Michigan's drinking water.  Just clear to this up for you, lead is a poison, it kills and harms plants and animals, including humans, fish, planktonics, and even you, lead persists for longer than any of us will live, it will continue to impact our children, their children, and their children's children, so please let the rest of us discuss this concerning topic without being bullied -- shouting louder than anyone else still does not make you right.

Wow.  Are you really comparing Flint to Chabot?   Neither Flint not Chabot have lead contamination is the water source.  In Flint, the water source had excess chlorine which caused corrosion in the lead pipes.  At Chabot, there have been no positive tests showing lead in the drinking water.

It's the fear of contamination that has led to the closing of Chabot, not actual contamination.  Let's be clear on that.

-Allen

"Unlike many chemicals, research shows no threshold of exposure above which symptoms emerge.[5][6] Every bit of lead has an effect."
Above quote refers specifically to neurological effects of lead on children.

As for lead being a scapegoat, I guess you've not heard anything about the lead in Flint, Michigan's drinking water.  Just clear to this up for you, lead is a poison, it kills and harms plants and animals, including humans, fish, planktonics, and even you, lead persists for longer than any of us will live, it will continue to impact our children, their children, and their children's children, so please let the rest of us discuss this concerning topic without being bullied -- shouting louder than anyone else still does not make you right.

Wow.  Are you really comparing Flint to Chabot?   Neither Flint not Chabot have lead contamination is the water source.  In Flint, the water source had excess chlorine which caused corrosion in the lead pipes.  At Chabot, there have been no positive tests showing lead in the drinking water.

It's the fear of contamination that has led to the closing of Chabot, not actual contamination.  Let's be clear on that.

-Allen

"Unlike many chemicals, research shows no threshold of exposure above which symptoms emerge.[5][6] Every bit of lead has an effect."
Above quote refers specifically to neurological effects of lead on children.

No trace of lead has been found in the lake.

-Allen

What are the odds that a firm investigating the lead "contamination" has negative findings if there's a potential cleanup profit for the firm?

I can save you guys the footwork.  "We found that the sky is falling.....the solution is to give us a contract."


Lead is just a scapegoat here, I believe there's been a bunch of threads in the past about neighbors not liking chabot.  They just finally won.

Are you really accusing Alex B of something that amounts to criminal misconduct???

As for lead being a scapegoat, I guess you've not heard anything about the lead in Flint, Michigan's drinking water.  Just clear to this up for you, lead is a poison, it kills and harms plants and animals, including humans, fish, planktonics, and even you, lead persists for longer than any of us will live, it will continue to impact our children, their children, and their children's children, so please let the rest of us discuss this concerning topic without being bullied -- shouting louder than anyone else still does not make you right.
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Can you point out exactly where I accused anybody of criminal misconduct?

I believe I pointed out an obvious conflict of interest.  One that's become more and more prevalent in environmental science and public policy.  We've had to deal with alot of sky is falling type claims, then of course when we throw money at the problem there's always someone there to catch it and it's generally those that screamed loudest.   

To answer your question, yes, I have in fact heard of flint michigan.....and their ancient water delivery system that's been piping lead tainted water directly into homes and causing mass medical issues amongst the polulation.  Maybe I haven't been watching enough local news, why don't you link me those reports on the rash of local lead cases which have killed or harmed plants, animals and humans.....like myself.

I guess in your world, pouring someone a glass full of lead and having a berm full of spent projectiles buried beneath a couple feet of dirt are the same.  Ironic considering that lead is a naturally occurring element .....that's generally found buried beneath dirt.  Even more ironic that one of the proposed cleanup measures might be to truck the tainted topsoil to a landfill. How much will it cost to clean up once that stuff hits the Milpitas dump and really starts leaching into the bay?

I don't treat every flu case like it's freakin ebola and it's certainly not practical to react that way with every instance of "contamination".  Nobody is out there eating handfuls dirt or growing crops at the gun range so I think we might be in a slightly different boat than those in flint. Humans like myself tend to handle alot of that poison in the form of fishing weights, we've been doing it for decades.....why are we all not dead? Is it possible that minor exposure isn't the end of the world?

If Alex B reports back that kids are in peril (kids from like the next couple generations, not 12000 years from now when the lead has leached into the soil and made its way into the water table in amounts that are actually measurable), then I will stand corrected.

In the meantime, have a glass of OJ. 

In the meantime, have a glass of OJ.