Posted on 01/06/2012 7:31:33 AM PST by marktwain
Three neighbors have sued the Ashland Gun Club and the city of Ashland, alleging that lead ammunition is contaminating the environment and stray bullets are striking one of their properties.
Cathy DeForest, her husband, Leon Pyle, and Dr. Edward Kerwin filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Medford on Dec. 23.
They are represented by attorney Tom Dimitre, who is also chairman of the Rogue Group Sierra Club.
The gun club has operated on city-owned land east of the Ashland Municipal Airport since the 1960s. It has a lease agreement with the city for use of the site.
DeForest and Pyle own a 5,085-square-foot 2007 home on 13 acres on Emigrant Creek Road southeast of the Ashland Gun Club, according to Jackson County records.
Kerwin built a 19,045-square-foot house on 56 acres on Dead Indian Memorial Road to the north of the gun club in 2004, according to county records.
The gun club's various shooting ranges generally point to the north and northeast. Kerwin alleges that bullets are striking his property.
Pyle said this week that he can't discuss the lawsuit at this point. DeForest and Kerwin were each out of town and unavailable for comment.
City Attorney David Lohman said he cannot discuss the lawsuit in detail.
But he said city officials worked hard to incorporate environmental safeguards when they renegotiated a lease with the gun club in 2011.
Among other provisions, the lease tasks the gun club with regularly cleaning up lead on the property. It also places the responsibility for final lead cleanup on the club should it cease operations at the site.
(Excerpt) Read more at mailtribune.com ...
I wonder which caused more enviromental harm, the gun club which has been there alongside the airport for 50 years, or the new, enourmous mansion up on the hill.
I thought doctors were going broke, according to a thread I saw earlier.
I guess some of them are doing quite well. Ripping off Medicare, perhaps?
The photographer that lined up a shot with the house below the raised muzzle of a shotgun isn’t going to help.
We've got the same thing happening in Oconee County, SC. Rich yankees moving down South and then trying to impose their yankee rules on us.
Lawsuit will fail.
I suggest replacing the area used for skeet with a thousand yard rifle range.
You can move to the nuisance and still have a nuisance claim, if the character and use of parcels in the neighborhood is changing.
I’m not saying that’s right, but it’s the law.
How about an argument that says that the neighboring parcels are subject to prescriptive easements permitting use by the gun club that’s been sending stray bullets, openly and notoriously, into the neighboring parcels for 50 years?
Oregon ping...
the NIMBY issue. When we had the farm and no neighbors other then farmers all was good - then “they” moved in a did not like the smell of horse poop and tried to change the zoning - ha they lost big time. They knew they were moving in across from a farm - shame on them for being STUPID. Not sure how the lead to damaging property with a 19,000 foot -SQD house on it. The septic system and the CARBON FOOT PRINT and destroyed forest to build the place did more damage to the environment then some lead in the ground. Are the geese eating all this lead a dropping over dead? Hell the cleaning products in the house and the stuff for the lawn are more damaging to the environment then the lead. UGH SCREAM
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