It's been another rough spring for the Humboldt Wildlife Federation and Gun Club (HWF).
For the umpteenth time in the last few years, the clubs' gun range has been flooded out.
Although the .22 range is still above water, the road itself into the property is not. So for all intents and purposes, the entire range is effectively useless.
"We're sitting on our thumbs because there's no range to use," noted HWF secretary Lou Pascal. "About 25 feet is all we have left to work with. That isn't even enough for pistol shooting."
While the wet weather of the past few years is obviously one of the main culprits in the gun club's woes, many members are also pointing fingers at their next-door neighbor, REACT Waste Management Systems, feeling efforts to keep the landfill dry have come at their expense.
"They've created a lot of problems for us," Pascal said.
Pascal noted that the HWF built a 12-foot berm two years ago to keep Joe Lake waters from inundating their range. But then REACT built an even higher berm in front of that to protect their own property, and Joe Lake spilled to the south, over the gun range.
The land the gun range is on is actually owned by REACT as well, with the HWF holding a 99-year lease.
"We wouldn't have been flooded out if not for them building that berm," Pascal said. "It helped create a huge lake on the southwest corner. They said their intention was not to flood us out, but they've forced all this water over Joe Lake. They've created a natural flow to the south. Three-quarters of our range is now underwater."
HWF habitat coordinator Mike Volk agreed the problem lies with REACT.
"The higher they put their dike, the more water we got," he said.
"The first time they put their dike up, it flooded out our long-range shooting. So we had to be recertified last year. Then we moved everything to the east, as far as we could, and put up a new berm, so we'd have some place to shoot and keep our certification going. And then they put their berm up (higher) again, and now our berm is underwater - the one we had just built.
"They've engineered the berm so high now that Joe Lake is going out the back and flowing into Bob Pitzel's land, and through Bob's land into Stony Lake (Humboldt Lake). Our hopes were once it started moving, maybe it would move enough ground with it that it would cut a channel and lower the lake. But that didn't happen.
"I don't know what the answer is. It's kind of sad, because we've been there so long."
The gun club has been at its present site for at least 30-35 years, Volk said.
The Humboldt Wildlife Federation and Gun Club has approximately 340 members.
Volk acknowledged that REACT has certainly had troubles of its own with the spring flooding of the past few years. He said the HWF has tried to cooperate with REACT efforts to keep the landfill dry.
Earlier this spring, HWF allowed REACT to cut through the railbed east of the landfill in order to divert spring runoff on the wildlife lands to the north toward Humboldt Lake. The HWF owns the railbed, and plans to eventually turn it into a hiking and biking trail. REACT is supposed to place a culvert in the ditch and then restore the railbed, but hasn't done so yet.
"We're waiting for that to happen," Pascal said.
Meanwhile, Volk wonders if part of the HWF's ongoing problems with REACT are a result of bad blood due to its vocal opposition to REACT's one-time bid to expand onto the wildlife trust lands directly to the north of the existing landfill. The plan was later abandoned.
"We've been having an ongoing battle defending the wildlife land from them," Volk said. "Because they did apply to the provincial government to move to the north. And we more or less blocked it. I think we've been a thorn in their side. We're sort of their conscience."
REACT CEO Wendy Yaworski defended any flood-control actions taken by the landfill operator, noting that they must operate according to strict environmental guidelines.
Keeping the existing landfill cells dry is of paramount concern, because if the landfill itself were to be flooded, the entire site could be lost, Yaworski has said.
Not only could that be potentially disastrous from an environmental standpoint, but also, Humboldt residents would have nowhere to take their garbage.
Yaworski noted that the HWF and Gun Club could apply for Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) funding to address its flooding woes, just as REACT has done. The HWF has not taken that step.
