Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks released a draft environmental assessment for the Bigfork Gun Club last week for the construction of an on-site storage facility to replace the old sheds currently used for storing targets and supplies.

L.D. Gross, chairman of the gun club, described the EA as a formality that had to be done in order to receive FWP funding, since the project is no different than building a garage in terms of how it will affect the environment at the shooting range.

According to the draft EA, the range needs a safe and secure storage facility because the condition of the existing storage facilities consist of two sheds and a “U-Haul” truck box, all of which are unreliable and only temporary in nature.

Gross described the storage units currently in use as 8-by-12-foot plywood barns and garden sheds filled with paper targets, target frames, and the metal targets used by groups such as Bigfork’s Cowboy Action Shooting group and the gun club’s other 350 members.

“It hasn’t stood up to the weather very well, and frankly it is a hazard,” Gross said. “When the snow falls, it pushes down the roof and you can’t open the door. They’ve served their purpose well, and they don’t last forever.”

Project plans include site preparation with gravel on a 30-by-40-foot apron with a 5-inch thick 3,500 PSI concrete slab, 12-foot walls with a metal exterior and OSB interior, metal roofing, a 16-by-10-foot overhead door, a personnel door, and eight 2-by-4-foot windows at 9-feet high, evenly spaced and with four on each side. LMR Industries out of Kalispell will do construction near the existing clubhouse and parking lot.

The gun club hopes to break ground and begin construction this week and have the facility weatherproof by October. The estimated cost of construction just through this point is $21,000, but the gun club hopes to take construction further with metal siding as funds become available.

“We’re working hard to make it the premier shooting facility in the valley,” Gross said.

Another reason for the new storage unit’s construction is because membership is increasing at the Bigfork Gun Club. Gross estimates about six new people attend each monthly meeting.

Gross said the gun club received a grant from the National Rifle Association for about $17,000 and raised funds from the club’s members and from donated Elmer Sprunger prints. The club has been fundraising for two years in preparation for the project.

“The NRA grant has a stipulation where we need to have money spent or earmarked by then. That’s what they’re shooting for, no pun intended,” Gross said.

Assuming the draft EA passes through the comment period, the gun club will receive $7,423 in partial funding from FWP.

In order for the Bigfork Gun Club to be eligible for FWP grant assistance, they had to meet FWP qualifications such as having open membership at reasonable prices and make a “reasonable effort” to hold a public sight-in day each September for free or admit the general public for a “reasonable day-use fee.”

Comments on the draft EA can be made at http://fwp.mt.gov/news/public Notices/environmentalAs sessments/recreation/, or by emailing Wayde Cooperider at [email protected] or writing FWP at, attention Wayde Cooperider, P.O. Box 200701, Helena, MT, 59620.

Comments must be received by Sept. 7 at 5 p.m.