County eyes purchase of Calverton Shooting Range for trap & skeet facility

The county legislature Tuesday approved initial steps to seek acquisition of the Calverton Shooting Range for the purpose of relocating the county’s trap and skeet range from Southaven Park in Yaphank.

With legislators Edward Romaine (R-Center Moriches) and Jay Schneiderman (I-Montauk) voting against the measure, the legislature voted 13-3 to approve the “planning steps” resolution authorizing a survey, title search and appraisal of the 104-acre parcel off Nugent Drive in Calverton.

The measure was introduced by Legislator Kate Browning (WF-Shirley) whose Third District hosts the county’s current trap and skeet facility. Responding to constituent opposition to the continued operation of the county facility at Southaven Park, Browning has been shopping for other locations.

“I am strongly opposed to it,” Romaine said Wednesday. “I understand Kate Browning’s problem. But you don’t substitute one problem for another,” he said. The Calverton Shooting Range is also surrounded by homes, he said.

The county’s trap and skeet range would be a much more intense use of the site than the current shooting range, Romaine said. The volume of traffic there would increase exponentially as would the noise, he said.

Romaine said he suggested alternatives to Browning that are not near residential areas, including an existing shooting range site near Gabreski airbase and an old sand mine on Speonk-Riverhead Road that needs to be reclaimed.

The legislator said he doesn’t see the acquisition coming to fruition. Considering the shortage of acquisition funds, the low ranking of the site — 25 on a scale of 100, the lowest ranking for a site to be eligible for acquisition, according to Romaine — and the volume of planning steps resolutions ahead of it in the pipeline, the purchase is a long shot at best, he said.

Indeed, the owners of the land aren’t even interested in selling it.

Harry Schmelzer, a partner in the Calverton Shooting Range said Wednesday he had “an inquiry letter from the county about a year-and-a-half ago.”

“I never responded to it because we’re not interested,” Schmelzer said. “It would be stupid to sell it. That’s how we pay our property taxes,” he said.

Schmelzer said he hadn’t heard anything more from the county and was unaware of yesterday’s resolution until informed of it by RiverheadLOCAL.

The proposal is also facing opposition from the Long Island Pine Barrens Society.

The site lies in the Pine Barrens Core Preservation Area, Rich Murdocco of the Pine Barrens Society told the legislature.

“The relocation of the Trap and Skeet Range to this location is prohibited by the New York State Pine Barrens Protection Act of 1993,” he said. “What’s more, this property contains an illegal landfill, which is currently the subject of a NYS DEC enforcement action. It is presently in the hands of the NY. state attorney general. It would thus be improper for the Suffolk County Legislature to authorize expenditure for review of this parcel for acquisition, and the obtaining of an appraisal.”

“Unfortunately the legislature didn’t listen,” Long Island Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper said Wednesday.

“Paying for staff field visits and an appraisal for property that can’t be used for this purpose and is under a consent order is crazy,” Amper said. “And it’s coming at a time when there’s precious little money for land acquisition for legitimate purposes. We have to be extremel careful how we spend what little we have,” Amper said.

Amper said that instead of looking to relocate the county’s trap and skeet facility, the county should shut the Yaphank facility down.

“It’s in the wrong place, located in a special groundwater protection area and in the core preservation area. Just shut it down,” Amper said, arguing that the operator is allegedly out of compliance with his county contract to operate the trap and skeet range anyway.