The party also wants to make those responsible for any contamination issues to pay for damages and remediation.
"The Big Boot shooting range in South Granville opened without a development permit and an environmental impact assessment which led us to examine provincial legislation and the impacts gun ranges have on the environment and human health," said Green party leader Sharon Labchuk.
"What we've found is alarming. Shooting ranges are essentially hazardous waste sites. Citizens oppose gun ranges everywhere and many have been shut down because of lead contamination, noise and stray bullets."
Labchuk says that the B.C. Ministry of Environment recently ordered a shooting range to conduct a contaminated-site investigation and deal with existing lead contamination because of groundwater pollution fears. According to the US government, outdoor shooting ranges put more lead into the environment than any other major industrial sector.
"Dr Corinne Rooney, author of Contamination at Shooting Ranges, says it is the norm that gun ranges world-wide are contaminated with soil lead levels exceeding 33 times the allowable limit," said Labchuk.
"Other toxic metals are present as well and when the shot or bullets degrade, the lead and other metals become mobile and can move through the soil into the groundwater. The only way to prevent lead and other heavy metal contamination is to keep bullets from contacting soil in the first place. The Big Boot shooting range fires directly into soil berms."
"What we've found is alarming. Shooting ranges are essentially hazardous waste sites. Citizens oppose gun ranges everywhere and many have been shut down because of lead contamination, noise and stray bullets." - Sharon Labchuk
Labchuk said that lead is known as one of the most deadly toxins on the planet and is especially dangerous to unborn and young children causing permanent brain damage, among other things. Countries have made progress to get lead out of the environment by banning it from products like gasoline and some paints. No level of exposure is considered safe and it's listed as a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
"An outdoor shooting range closed down in Caledonia last year and I've heard there was one in Hartsville. Government apparently has no registry of old shooting ranges," said Labchuk. "People have a right to know if their drinking water is threatened. These sites should be fenced to keep people out and nearby residents alerted to test their drinking water. The threat to water, if the sites aren't cleaned up, can continue for hundreds of years. Any risk of lead-contaminated soil blowing around on the wind should be dealt with immediately."
Labchuk said shooting ranges are not even on the radar screen of the Department of Environment. Her party will be pushing for legislation to restrict the ability of gun ranges to pollute the environment and threaten public health.
JAMES: You mis-read my post and then went off the deep end with your leftist agenda. I did not say no one has ever contracted lead poisioning, I said I have yet to meet anyone that has been poisoned by range activity in their area. I've been to a lot of ranges in different province's in the last 30 years, I have met a few kids in the 70's that got poisoned from a lead pencil, I have never met a sole that got it from a shooting range. Your left wing american websites have no relevency here in Canada. That's why I had said in my post I would like to see a credible Canadain statistic showing how many people have been contaminated in Canada by lead because of ranges in the last 30 years. I have many friends in the TEA HILL area, some own property on the outskirts of the range and have so since the '50's and not one has ever had lead poisoning, not then and not now, nor have any of their neighbors. This new range won't see a millionith of the artillery that Alexandria point has over the years. Also there are certain types of ammunition that are lead free, not every trigger pull at a range is going put lead into the earth. A word of advice to you JAMES, not everything on google is the truth, and your left-wing scare tactics and Labchuk's whinning won't be effective here on PEI. Islander's have nothing to fear from this new range or any of the other ranges located on PEI, I am sure that a credible source will prove so, using solid science and not internet search engines.