County shooting range may re-open

By Jane DeGeorge
Eagle Reporter
Published: May 22, 2008

Officials propose to re-open the county’s shooting range and shrink its usage.

The range, which was first opened in the mid-1980s, was shut down in June 2007 reportedly due to a noise complaint from a nearby property owner.
Following the complaint, the zoning administrator and county attorney looked into the allowed usage of the county-owned property off Route 662 (Shelby Road) where the shooting range is located. Officials determined that the county’s zoning ordinance requires the supervisors to apply and be granted a special use permit in order to operate the range on a portion of the 240-acre agriculturally zoned site, that is also home to the county transfer station and its animal shelter.

The Madison County Planning Commission and the Madison County Board of Supervisors will consider this special use permit application at its next
regularly scheduled joint public hearing set for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 4 in the auditorium of the County Administration Center.

Since the shooting range’s closure, law enforcement officials have been using firing ranges in Luray, Culpeper and Louisa, according to Sheriff Erik Weaver. The sheriff’s office had proposed to include an extra $40,000 in its budget for the coming fiscal year for increased mileage, over-time and equipment costs due to this change, Weaver said.

Officials say they had always planned to eventually re-open the range but thought it would be incorporated into a future “longer range plan for use of the property.”

In April, county officials started looking into re-opening the range partially due to the extra costs associated with its closure. 

Range use expands

The site was initially established to “offer a convenient location where the county’s law enforcement personnel (including staff of the [Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange], which is supported by county tax dollars) could practice and meet standards necessary to qualify under state certification standards,” according to the county’s application for an indefinite special use permit.

Initially the range was only used on Wednesdays, when the transfer station (and former landfill) was closed, however the hours eventually expanded to 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday, according to the application.

Madison County Sheriff’s Office employees were also encouraged to use the range to practice more frequently than the minimum state certification requirements, the application says. Additionally, over the years the range was opened up to other out of county law enforcement officials, including the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, National Ground Intelligence Center, United States District Court/Federal Marshals and Federal Probation Officers, Charlottesville SWAT team, miscellaneous retired law enforcement officers and the game warden, the document states.

County officials have said they had received other complaints about the shooting range in recent years from homeowners living within the nearby area.
In 2006, Shelby resident Debbie Sue Berry – who has lived on a piece of property along an unpaved, gravel road used by those accessing the shooting range for the past five years – complained to officials about law enforcement representatives driving dangerously along this road, she said.

“There was so many people going in and out who were not associated with the county,” Berry told The Eagle, adding that many of the drivers along the residential road would speed past her house, sometimes when her young grandchildren were playing in her yard, which is close to the road. 
In response to Berry’s multiple complaints about speeding along the road, officials eventually put up a sign reminding drivers of the 15 mile-per-hour speed limit and that children were in the area. Berry said the sign was somewhat effective and that most drivers started obeying the speed limit.

Noise levels disputed

However traffic along the access road was not Berry’s only problem, the range’s nighttime hours were also bothersome, she said.
“We hunt and we shoot too, but you have to have respect…people have to work,” she said. The nighttime shooting would often disturb Berry’s husband, who wakes up very early to commute to his job in Northern Virginia, she said.

Berry says the shooting is very loud – something county officials dispute. At the time of the most recent complaint in the spring of 2007, representatives from the sheriff’s office and the county performed sound level tests near the complainant’s property. The tests “indicate the noise levels are not unreasonable during routine training sessions,” according to the county’s special use permit application.

The noise tests indicate that the sound of weapon discharges ranged from 70.5 decibels to 78 decibels from a reading at a curve along the gravel access road, about 1,500 feet from the shooting range (which is about 500 feet closer to the range than the nearest home), according the application. The document says that 70 decibels is the equivalent of face-to-face conversation or a vacuum cleaner and that 80 decibels sounds like an alarm clock.

Madison County Sheriff Erik Weaver had said that during the noise test MCSO employees found that “a cricket [nearby] was louder than the firing blasts,” a comment that Berry says is inaccurate.

“For anyone who thinks the shots are no louder than a cricket, I invite them to come sit on my porch,” she said.

The noise test document also mentions that the range is currently set up with the firing line pointing directly toward the nearby homes and that a realignment of the range will “result in a significant reduction in sound levels at the nearby houses.”

The restrictions regarding use of the shooting range officials have proposed if the county’s special use permit is approved, include:

• Use only by the county’s law enforcement officials and officers of the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange.

• The creation of a policy that would establish specific days and times that the range would be available, keeping its use to “the minimum practically necessary.”

• Oversight and management of the range’s schedule of use by the county’s facilities and maintenance department to ensure coordination with other activities at the transfer station property.

• Continued monitoring of noise levels during training exercises.

A copy of the county’s special use permit application is available for public inspection at the Madison County zoning office at 414 N. Main St. in downtown Madison during normal hours, Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. For information, contact the Madison County Zoning Administrator at (540) 948-7599.