Source: http://www.timesleader.com, May 23, 2015
By: Jerry Lynott
As the crow flies, Brian Gallagher lives about 2,000 feet from a state shooting range and the sound of gunshots aren’t far off.
But what’s bothering the former U.S. Navy fighter pilot is lead from the spent ammunition may have gotten too close for comfort and possibly contaminated the ground water that feeds his well and nearby Arnold Creek where trout naturally reproduce.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found lead migrated off site from the State Game Lands 206 range along Patla Round and took water samples from runoff to test for elevated levels of the metal that can cause adverse health effects in people. The results have yet to be released from the water samples taken last month.
Gallagher, 52, who initiated the investigation, watched as the testing was done and followed water from ditches on the range into the nearby woods.
“Before long we’re standing next to Arnold Creek with an unbelievable amount of flow and, like I said, right there is a foamy earplug that had made its way from the range,” Gallagher said last week near the waters designated a Class A Wild Trout Stream by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.
He’s glad for a flesh-and-blood contact with the EPA after his call more than two years ago to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection directed him to a workmen’s compensation client claim line for lead poisoning.
“So I called back and said that’s not what I’m talking about here and I started getting, I call it, getting kicked around like a pumpkin in a stockyard. Nobody wanted to take this and I mean, I wasn’t talking to people and telling them, I was leaving messages and people weren’t even calling me back,” he said.
Citizen energized
Gallagher thrived on the snub. “You ignore a guy like me, and it just fuels my resolve,” he said.
Colleen Connolly, spokeswoman for the DEP’s Northeast Regional Office in Wilkes-Barre, said the department is assisting the EPA.
Calls to Richard Fetzer, the on-scene coordinator for the EPA, were not returned.
The first call to the EPA was made in April 2014 and Gallagher received a reference number for future reference. He checked back about two months later after not hearing anything.
Another two months passed and he called again, this time getting a commitment the agency would investigate.
The earliest anyone could come out was in the fall of that year. There was no runoff on the first visit.
Still, the agency scheduled for a contractor to take soil samples. Gallagher said he asked if he could “reserve the right” to call back the EPA when there was runoff. Given the OK, he called the agency when it happened and someone came out.
“And, like I said, I don’t want to put words in their mouth, but they were astounded too,” Gallagher said.
Revealing research
His research took him to the U.S. Department of Interior’s library where he found “Environmental Aspects of Construction and Management of Outdoor Shooting Ranges,” printed in 1997 by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
“Under certain conditions, lead at shotgun and rifle/pistol ranges has the potential to affect: surface water, ground water and soil (primarily through dissolving in water that runs off ranges or soaks into the ground),” the booklet said.
Protection of ground water, surface water, wetlands and wildlife were among the environmental stewardship ideals to uphold when locating a range, according to the booklet.
He questioned whether the range was sited properly, given the runoff.
During a visit to the range on May 15, he pointed out algae in standing water in drainage ditches and scooped out a handful of the media behind the rifle range target backstop to show it was wet beneath the surface. He also picked up remnants of metal jackets that once encased lead bullets that he said were pulverized when they struck a rock ledge covered by the media.
Advised by the EPA that all water cannot carry lead, Gallagher said he had his tested and it’s within the range that can carry it.
Game Commission
Peter Sussenbach, Land Management Director for the Northeast Region of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, was all but certain the lead stayed on the range. He was aware of the EPA’s testing and said the consensus among experts was lead was insoluble or not able to be dissolved in water.
“The bottom line is this material does not migrate off site,” he said.
But Sussenbach said the Game Commission is a conservation agency, and if there is something that needs to be done the agency will work with its engineering staff to alleviate those concerns.
Wanting to draw attention to his concerns and the disinterest of the state, Gallagher contacted the media and his story first appeared on WBRE-TV on May 11. Before the segment aired he contacted the office of state Rep. Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, whose district contains the range.
Boback returned his call and asked him why he thought he had to go to the EPA.
“Mam, it’s just supposition on my part, but I’m wondering if it’s not a little bit of good old boy state run agency to state run agency. They thought, ‘Oh this Gallagher guy will run away,’” he said.
Boback Thursday said she wrote a letter to DEP and asked for a response. “I think DEP will probably rely on the findings of the EPA,” she said.
Like Gallagher, she wants to know the test results of the water samples. “I’ll be waiting to hear what they are,” she said.