2017-01-17 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes

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Hawaii Game Management Advisory Commission Meeting Minutes – January 17, 2017 shotgun sports would be arranged around a rather large circle aimed towards the center of that so that central area could be flattened, could be covered to a depth of several feet with fill that would both allow us to treat it chemically to make sure it’s not acidic and would leech lead into the water table and also to recover the lead after a period of shooting because lead while it’s a toxic hazard if it’s not managed – it’s actually an asset if it is. There are companies that pay to recover lead – they will come into your facility, they’ll scoop and sift the, ah, materials and reclaim the lead and I’ve seen some ranges that have gotten checks of $50,000 dollars for allowing that company in to reclaim the lead so that’s a big part of planning any range – we have to have that in place. Now, I will say that there are a number of resources available for that. As I mentioned – the range development operations conference, NRA puts that on two times a year – it hasn’t come to Hawaii, yet, it’s been in San Diego. The one th coming up March 11 thru 13 is in Indianapolis – I went to the one in Cincinnati, I think Don Watson, retired Captain from the Waimea Police Department – one of our board members and our current secretary – he went to the one in Boston, for which I’m eternally jealous, you know. It’s all that good chowder and so they have that available and it’s a great investment because you have as many as two hundred people range operators, military police, people that want to start a shooting range, indoor range, outdoor range – we have experts from every field in the shooting sports, sound engineers, environmental engineers, safety officers, police trainers, you name it. They’re there and it’s four intensive days of not only the course work itself, but, when it’s done and you’re there in the hotel with all the other participants it doesn’t stop for hours, so that’s an excellent resource. Having gone through that and passed that course you end up with one of the NRAs heaviest manuals, which is the NRA Range Source book. TL: I have one question for you, you know, we’re talking about having the county involve themselves in, in developing a range... JO: Yes... TL: So this range conference that you went to, Is this something that whoever, whatever department is being allocated or defined in the county’s needs for this – is that something that they should plan on going to as well? JO: I would say this strongly, that anybody who would consider building a range without having at least the key personnel go through that is taking an awful risk. We’ve had two indoor shooting ranges here that, unfortunately, had not availed themselves of that opportunity and some of the things that happened with those facilities could have been avoided had they participated in it before investing the money. I met a number of people at these conferences that were going, “Oh, goodness. I really 21