I would like some comment on this issue from @Marina Dimitrijevic and Jason Haas. Why is our County Board continuing to allow this? You need to be protecting our public parkland and lake rather than allowing your tenant to pollute without consequence--and lets also recall how close this is to our drinking water intake. The Club operates from February through November. Its members fire their shotguns towards the lake at clay targets hurled over the bluff from eight trap boxes. By its own numbers 99.9 percent of all the lead shot discharged at the site lands directly in Lake Michigan; 25,000 rounds containing 1,734 pounds of lead shot are deposited into the lake each year. A portion of the shattered clay targets, which contain toxic substances, land directly in the lake. The rest lands on the hillside below the bluff, along with all the plastic wads. Ultimately, rain washes all the debris into Lake Michigan. [...] In November 2014 the Parks Department notified the club its lease would not be renewed, citing “the environmental impacts of lead shot, shotgun wads, and clay targets; and the erosion of the face of the bluff.” In addition the Parks Director relied on a memo from the County’s legal staff recommending lease termination. The memo correctly pointed out that as lessor of the site, Milwaukee County taxpayers could be held responsible for environmental cleanup costs. The Sportsmen’s Club immediately launched a publicity campaign seeking to salvage its lease. Ill informed vitriol was spewed via talk radio and social media. [...] Unfortunately, the fuss raised by the club worked. The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, in the midst of their budget process, responded by tacking a one-year lease renewal provision to the budget without conducting any discussion of the issue or reviewing any information about the extent of the problem. A more recent resolution drafted by County Supervisor John Weishan at the club’s request would grant them three additional 3-year options to extend the lease, thus insuring their presence in Warnimont Park for another ten years.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 16:42:53 +0000
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