Opposition To Proposed Shooting Range, ATV Area At Old Ammo Plant Grows

Opposition to a shooting range and an area for all-terrain vehicles at what used to be a large ammunition plant near Baraboo appears to be growing.

The Badger Army Ammunition Plant helped fuel what some call “the arsenal of democracy” for three wars, from World War II through the Vietnam War. But most of the plant’s many production buildings have been torn down in the last few years.

Department of Natural Resources upper managers are working on a master plan for the roughly 3,400 acres that agency is expected to take over once soil clean-up work is completed. The DNR says one option that it’s considering is to add a shooting range and ATV track on part of the planned Sauk Prairie Recreation Area.

Scott Gunderson is the DNR assistant deputy secretary, and a Scott Walker appointee. Gunderson says there’s a need for ATV trails in southern Wisconsin and for a shooting range on public land.

“We know more firearms and ammo is being sold here in the last five years than ever in the history of this country,” says Gunderson. “I think it’s important to have safe, accessible places for citizens to be able to go and exercise their recreational rights to shoot a firearm.”

But Gunderson’s view seems to be running into opposition, including from some hunters. Don Hammes of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation says his group has recently gone on record against the shooting range and ATVs.

“It’s a very important location for migrating songbirds and also for nesting and breeding purposes,” says Hammes. “When you put all that together, it’s just really inappropriate.”

State Sen. Jon Erpenbach, D-Middleton, who represents the area around Badger, says he hopes the DNR Board realizes that firing guns and allowing buzzing ATVs would go against a land division deal for Badger reached a dozen years ago. “I think the board has a responsibility to first work from the agreement that we’ve had from a while ago, which is only low-impact.”

It’s the potential high impact on the land that has re-launched what has been a 25-year debate at Badger over potential soil and water contamination from some of the old weapons chemicals. Joan Kenney, who represents the Army, contends the contaminants are almost under control.

“We’ve been doing environmental cleanup bit by bit,” she says.” Like any elephant, you have to eat it bite, bite, bite. And it’s taken us almost 10 years, but we’re almost done chewing.”

Laura Olah of Citizens for Safe Water around Badger says much of the land and water at or near the old plant appear to be cleaner. But, she says, the DNR may be underestimating the risk to public and animal health if ATV’s starting ripping up the ground. “The army based their cleanup levels on the DNR’s application to the National Park Service. And those uses listed, they were all low-impact.”

Olah and the Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance appear so far to be winning more people to their side. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which uses about 2,000 acres at Badger for a dairy forage research center, has come out against the shooting range and ATVs. So have some local governments near the plant.

Today, at a DNR Board meeting in Baraboo, about two-dozen people spoke against the high-impact uses, while just a few hunters and their lobbyists testified in favor.

A vote by the DNR board may happen next year.

The DNR says Badger land will be open for self-guided auto tours on August 24, and that a public comment period runs through August 30.