BLM aims to replace three informal shooting areas with firing ranges

Sep. 21—Sports shooters would lose some roadway areas on public lands for target practice but would gain up to three recreational firing ranges outside Santa Fe in a plan the Bureau of Land Management says will be safer, less disruptive to neighbors and better for the environment.

The BLM is considering two sites for firing ranges on Old Buckman Road northwest of Santa Fe and is looking at a site in the Camel Tracks area north of La Cienega for another range.

These venues are intended to fill the gap for recreational shooting after the BLM bars those activities within one mile of roadways on its lands in the Camel Tracks, Buckman and San Pedro areas. The BLM will continue to allow hunting in those areas.

The agency is inviting public comment until Oct. 20 on this action, which would require amending the 2012 Taos Management Plan.

A summary of the proposal was published in the Aug. 25 Federal Register. It states unconfined target shooting near roads in these three areas, which border neighborhoods, raises public safety concerns, creates noise disturbances and degrades the environment and cultural resources, partly from the spent rounds and trash littering the landscape.

Residents repeatedly have complained about how gunshots disrupt what should be a peaceful rural setting, make them feel unsafe and cause wildfire threats, the agency says in the proposal.

"When more than one shooting party is present, the lack of controls in these areas pose safety risks to other recreationalists, livestock grazing permittees and other public land users," the proposal states.

These problems persist despite the BLM's efforts to remove trash and lead contaminants, reduce flammable debris at shooting locations and educate the public, according to the agency.

The lack of public firing ranges in Santa Fe County has led to these areas on BLM lands becoming de facto shooting destinations, it says. The proposal also calls for cleaning up and restoring these areas.

BLM officials didn't immediately respond to questions Thursday, such as how large the shooting ranges would be, how many firing lines they would have and the types of firearms they would accommodate.

A local gun store owner applauded the BLM's plan, saying a Santa Fe shooting range has been a long time coming.

In the early 1990s, Gov. Bruce King did a land swap that shut down Santa Fe's one shooting range, with the aim of opening another range elsewhere, but it never materialized, said Bill Roney, owner of the Outdoorsman Santa Fe.

"So all these years, everyone in Santa Fe has been waiting for a safe and well-organized, well laid-out shooting range," Roney said. "If BLM is actually going to do this, everyone would say, 'Howdy doody! Let's do it.' Because that works for the benefit of everyone."

Kelsey Mahan, the store's manager, said people who want to shoot in a bona fide range must drive to Albuquerque or sign up for a yearly membership at the Northern Rio Grande Sporting Club in Española.

Right now, people in the Santa Fe area are target shooting in loosely managed areas on public lands, so the BLM offering something better structured would be an improvement, Mahan said.

"To have a couple of shooting bays, shooting docks would be beneficial," he said.

In an email, Northern Rio Grande club owner Paul Dowden wrote he's aware of the BLM's plans to close the target shooting areas and respects the agency's decision to intervene if it feels it necessary to protect the environment and the users.

Although Dowden didn't comment on the agency's plan to open new shooting ranges, he noted the advantages of a well-managed range, including for his club.

In recent years, the club has seen an uptick in new members who opted for a more formal setting rather than shooting on a mesa or in an arroyo, Dowden wrote. They expressed concerns about safety and the environmental impact of the "targets" — essentially trash being left behind.

A tightly run range regulates targets, direction of fire and maximum caliber that can be used on the site, he wrote.

"We do everything in our power to ensure that all rounds are accounted for and end up safely in the designated berms," Dowden wrote. "The same can't be said for unsupervised, informal shooting areas."