Island Lake Recreation Area

[Rob]

There is an effort under way to close down this newer public range in the Brighton Area due to noise complaints from neighbors (the nearest of which lives a mile away, according to the DNR.) The range has 50 covered shooting positions for 100 yards, 25 for 50 yards, and 25 for 25 yards and free targets. Noise buffers have been installed to help keep the peace but the opposition continues.

Please contact the following people and voice your polite support for this range:
Kirsten Simmons (517-335-0153.) She is with the governor's office and is handling the Island Lake Issue.
chrisward@house.mi.gov
SenVGarcia@senate.michigan.gov

Department of Natural Resources
Executive Division
Attention: Teresa Gloden
P.O. BOX 30028
Lansing, MI 48909
517-373-2352 GLODENT@Michigan.gov
Mary C. Brown (269-344-3738) DNR Commissioner

Keith J. Charters (231-947-7566)DNR Commissioner, CHARTERK@Michigan.gov

Bob Garner (231-779-9866)DNR Commissioner GARNERB@Michigan.gov

Gerald R. Hall, Jr. (989-271-9001)DNR Commissioner

John Madigan (906-387-4468)DNR Commissioner MADIGAJ@Michigan.gov

William Parfet (616-668-3336)DNR Commissioner PARFETW@Michigan.gov

Frank C. Wheatlake (231-832-2258)DNR Commissioner WHEATLAF@Michigan.gov

News article can be found here: http://www.detnews.com/2004/livingston/0401/12/b06l-32241.htm

A petition can be found here: http://home.comcast.net/~cpltrainer/Island_Lake.pdf

[Barbara]

Last nights meeting was attended by 3 antis and myself, John Johnson, Robert Flowers and a young man named, I believe, Mike Boord.

Tonight..same 3 antis, a new one with incredibly uninformed notions about firearms (I think she claimed at one point, gun owners covered 13,000 square feet in lead.) Me and Dawn Matti.

The DNR meeting is coming up 1st week of March.

[Dan]

http://www.hometownlife.net/Brighton/News.asp?pageType=Story&StoryID=17771&Section=Page%201&OnlineSection=Page%201&SectionPubDate=Thursday,%20February%2019,%202004

Story on some of the antis in the county Press and Argus

[goldwing2000]

I keep reading conflicting stories. Some say that the range has been there three years, some say it's been there since the early-to-mid nineties. I can't find anything on the State web sites to say either way.

Anybody know for sure???

From the story:
How you know her (Jenness Wiegand): Brighton Township activist who is trying to get the noise reduced at the Island Lake State Recreation Area shooting range. She used to work as an interior architectural designer.

Great. A pissed off yuppie with nothing but time on her hands.

[Roger Roney]

Goldwing,

It was posted elsewhere how long it has been open, but I cannot recall where. The best I remember is 3 or 4 years.

FYI; the plans to put in the gun range and an off-road vehicle area date back to the late '70's or early '80's when the State acquired several hundred acres of a mined out gravel pit. The ORV area lost when "they" complained about potential noise, even though we proved by a sound test that there would be "none." We lined up 30 ORV's on a hilltop along what would be the closest fence line of the area, exhaust facing the nearest home, two were over the 90db limit, we revved the heck out of everything and pulled a few hole shots, and the DNR meters on her front porch could not really discern us from general ambient and road noise! It boiled down to the NRC not having the guts, by one vote I think, to give us what they had promised when they closed the "Brighton" ORV area.

[Barbara]

Ms. Whatshername is in quite a snit about the whole thing. They were at last nights meeting, too. 4 of them, and me and Dawn Matti from our side. Three of them seem to have the the "complain about the range" road show, as they were the same ones from the meeting the night before, but of the three of them, she's definately the one that wants the range shut down. The 4th had some bizarre little rant about people taking their babies to the range and letting them play with bullets and then went off about how the range never tests for lead.

[Barbara]

Also, there was a sound test done for the new Kohl's/Costco project..the results can be obtained through FOIA. Anyone willing to stop into Green Oak Twp. and get those? Otherwise, I'll write. Would be interesting to compare that to the results from Green Oak's own testing (which showed ambient noise louder than shots almost every time,) and the testing the DNR commissioned last month.

[Dan]

When is the next meeting? I wish I had advanced notice so I could make it since I live at least in the county.

As for the lead complaint thing, that's a VPC talking point commingly used by gun grabbers.

The trouble the range has is that it isn't an old range since the best arguement then is the "You flatlanders knew it was here - go back to Ann Arbor"

Unfortunatly, some of the flatlanders here actually beat the range. The range came out in the late 90's(I think) and the flatlanders have been moving out here around the same time.

At least there's something like 6000 NRA members in our county.

[Dan]

Also, there was a sound test done for the new Kohl's/Costco project..the results can be obtained through FOIA. Anyone willing to stop into Green Oak Twp. and get those? Otherwise, I'll write. Would be interesting to compare that to the results from Green Oak's own testing (which showed ambient noise louder than shots almost every time,) and the testing the DNR commissioned last month.

I'll see if I can stop in later today. I'm about 15 miles from there.

[Dan]

I put in a FOIA request.

[Barbara]

Thanks, Dan. Can I get a copy when you get them?

Oleg and I stopped by there today and shot some pics..it was a nice day and things were pretty full. Still, I was surprised by how few of the people we talked to knew anything about what was going on. I'll post the pics if I can ever get them to open..might have to wait to get a new set from him. :(

The Brighton Twp. meetings are the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each week and the Green Oak Twp. meetings are the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each week. I can make at least one or two a month, although I can't do both in a row anymore..too much time away from the kids and its 1.5 hours from my house..still, if we can make sure we have people there at every meeting, that will help. That traveling circus of antis makes sure they are there at every meeting, thats for sure.

[Barbara]

http://www.firearmsalliance.org/IslandLakePhotos.htm

[Barbara]

A big bump. From today's "update:"

This week's projects will involve *Island Lake*. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. We need volunteers. Tuesday, we need people to show up at *Brighton Twp*. hall, at 7:30 pm. Wednesday, we need people to show up at Green Oak Twp. at 7:00, although those appear to be long runners and if you're late, you won't miss much, if you don't live there, unless the one I attended two weeks ago was unusual. The antis show up at *every* one of these and when we're outnumbered, it looks like we don't care..we know thats not the case, we just have jobs and families, etc..but still, its a good use of your time. We don't want to lose this range and even more so, we don't want to set any kind of precident for state ranges being shut down by unreasonable complaints from people who don't like the idea of shooting sports.

Then Thursday is the big one..the NRC meeting. I'm going to take off from work a little early and get up there..I hope to see a lot of you when I arrive, especially those of you who live close..the public portion appears to begin at 4:30 pm..below is from their website:

"If you are unable to attend the Natural Resources Commission meeting but wish to submit
written comments on agenda items, please write to: Natural Resources Commission, P.O. Box
30028, Lansing, Michigan 48909. If you would like further information on agenda items or would
like to address the Commission, please contact Teresa Gloden at 517-373-2352, or e-mail:
glodent@michigan.gov."

[WhoIsJohnGalt]

Please try and attend either the Brighton Township Hall meeting on Tuesday 3/2 at 7:30 or the Green Oak Township meeting Wednesday 3/3 at 7:00 p.m. to support the Island Lake Range that is under peril from a handful of anti's with media supporters.

We need our side's supporters to exceed the anti's at these meetings folks!

Thanks and see you there!!!

[Barbara]

Dan Wholihan was there and I'll let him fill you in but I just popped in to encourage anyone who can to show up at the meeting tomorrow night at Green Oaks..things are getting nasty.

[WhoIsJohnGalt]

Good to see you again, Dan! Yeah, the anti's went dumpster diving for shell and cartridge boxes and put them in big clear plastic bags in front of the Brighton Twsp members to show them the horrific amounts of lead poison being dumped onto the soil every day at Island Lake. Pitiful, but the board members seemed impressed. :?
Apparently, the anti's have determined the sound issue won't work and are now using the environmental angle of lead poisoning as their gambit.
:roll:

[Dan]

We need to get some lead research going ASAP. I kept quiet since I didn't have enough information that I could rely on to make my case.

Things I noticed.

That address used on that board for lead is from an anti-rights source in DC. I know that address and the font used. I'm not sure WHICH one. I THINK it was Brady.

I talked to two of the anti's afterward. Both were polite to me. One I think was extremely anti-gun. The other was simply irked on the noise from the range. One of them lived on the other side of Kensington's nature trails. They ALL said that they could hear it clear as day from Kensington's trails on the weekend. I've never heard it myself on the trails I walked, but I will take another walk during an active shooting weekend. See for myself. If I can't hear it on the trails, I'll know if it is a legit or a bull complaint.

I also talked to John Rogers, the supervisor after the meeting. He said that he wasn't happy with the noise caused from the skeet range and that needs to be taken care of. He also said that the DNR mislead him about what was going to be at the range after what they told him originally was going to be there, and that the structure in the proposal was much different than is there now.

He said he didn't want the whole range shut down, but wants the noise to drop from the skeet/clay areas.

I'm still waiting for a call from Green Oak on the noise tests.

[Dan]

I don't know if I can make the Green Oak event.

That said, if anyone mentions a "Violence Policy Center/VPC" 'study', I'd certainly attack the 'agenda orientated' attack from them. The "environmental working group' study was WITH VPC, so it's the same thing.

http://www.vpc.org/press/0004zoo.htm

VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann states, "Yesterday's shooting at a major tourist attraction in the nation's capital provides stark proof that no one is safe in any public place—not in school, in church, or at the zoo—until we deal with our nation's gun problem. And the only rational response is a national ban on handguns."

[goldwing2000]

Re: The VPC article

It's amazing how stupid and narrow-minded these people are. Definitely looking through the wrong end of the telescope!

[alex-vitek]

We need to get some lead research going ASAP.
I think that it would help to get a definition of organic vs inorganic lead to see if this makes a difference.

Recent cast bullet discussion brought this point up when there were people mentioning that they had never had an elevated lead level. This was based on results of blood tests conducted by their employeer who happend to be a lead mining operation. Same sort of results from people who worked for lead smelters and battery manufacturers.

[Barbara]

I have a copy of the official, raw report from the lead testing that was done. The NRC has asked the company to prepare something in layman's terms, but if anyone has the time or knowledge to interpret this, I'd be glad to mail you a copy. Just let me know.