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RE: POTOMAC RIVER KEEPERS

Please be aware that this is the group who has shut down the National Capital Gun Club in Maryland. This is not a new organization and has been around since 2000 and is part of a much larger Riverkeepers organization. Gun clubs are a new target and with the success they have had at the National Capital club, I am worried about us. Perhaps someone should speak with Steve Meyers about their club experience with this group? His email address is: northsouth@covad.net and his phone number is 301 838 9167.

The new webpage...but the old site info is still available....

The area they are targeting at this time.....

The power/money behind this organization is found in this article from their old website....

Riverkeeper Launched on the Potomac
Group Seeks Protection and Restoration of the Nation’s River

Alexandria, VA – Citing the continued deterioration of the Potomac River, the Water Keeper Alliance today announced the establishment of the Potomac Riverkeeper, a nonprofit citizens-based organization dedicated to the protection, restoration, and preservation of the Potomac River and its watershed. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President of the Water Keeper Alliance, said, “The Potomac Riverkeeper’s job will be to end the corporate abuse and government neglect of the most important monument in our nation’s capital.”

“After passage of the Clean Water Act, the Potomac River showed signs of recovery,” said Scott Bell, Executive Director of the Potomac Riverkeeper. “However, the river’s resources are deteriorating from overuse and poor management.” According to Bell, urban sprawl, a growing number of large-scale, factory farms, and hundreds of permitted discharges have contributed to a decline in water quality and aquatic resources in the river. “We’re putting polluters on notice,” said Bell, “A major focus of our organization will be improving the river’s water quality and fish habitat by ensuring compliance with environmental laws and regulations and holding those responsible for managing the river accountable for their actions.”

Washington Post
Saturday, February 26, 2005; Page B03
Gun Club, State Sued Over Creek Cleanup

The Potomac Riverkeeper, an environmental group, filed a lawsuit yesterday contending that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources had not cleaned up a creek polluted with lead from a skeet-shooting range. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, concerns Montgomery County's Great Seneca Creek.
In late 2003, the Riverkeeper organization said it discovered as much as three inches of lead shot that had accumulated at the creek bottom, apparently coming from the ranges of the National Capital Skeet & Trap Club.
The suit names the gun club, which has ceased its skeet shooting, and the state, which owns the land that the gun club is on.
A Natural Resources spokeswoman said that the department had not received the lawsuit and that it could not comment. Attempts to contact the gun club were unsuccessful.

Text of the bill that passed dealing with Noise standards; shooting ranges

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1. That § 15.2-917 of the Code of Virginia is amended and reenacted as follows:

§ 15.2-917. Applicability of local noise ordinances to certain sport shooting ranges.

No local ordinance regulating any noise shall subject a sport shooting range to noise control standards more stringent than those in effect at the time the construction or operation of the range initially was approved, or at the time any application was submitted for the construction or operation of the range. The operation or use of a sport shooting range shall not be enjoined on the basis of noise, nor shall any person be subject to action for nuisance or criminal prosecution in any matter relating to noise resulting from the operation of the range, if the range is in compliance with all ordinances relating to noise in effect at the time construction or operation of the range was approved, or at the time any application was submitted for the construction or operation of the range.

For purposes of this section, "sport shooting range" means an area or structure designed for the use of rifles, shotguns, pistols, silhouettes, skeet, trap, black powder, or any other similar sport shooting.