Study to gauge gunfire noise

Opponents of the Clark County shooting park will get what they've been asking for all year: a study to gauge how disruptive the noise will be to neighbors in the desert area near the Sheep Range.

The county will pay an engineering company $10,000 to $20,000 to test whether the sound of gunfire exceeds the 56-decibel maximum at homes nearest the 2,900-acre shooting park, northwest of where Decatur Boulevard ends.

Construction of the park's $64 million first phase is far enough along -- with noise-muffling features in place -- to accurately test the impact on residents, county officials said. This initial facet will include a couple of dozen fields for firing shotguns, a trap and skeet shooting area and an archery section.

The study will be done sometime in the next two months in the areas of the park where the shotgun, pistol and rifle ranges will be built. If the gunfire is measured louder than 56 decibels at adjacent homes, the county will install berms, walls and other sound barriers to further reduce the noise.

One resident who is a fierce critic of the gun park described the sound test as a small victory in a feud that's far from over. Some affected homeowners want their own technician to monitor the tests and study the results to ensure everything is done correctly, said Nich Uchyn, who lives just outside the park.

"I wish I could be more trusting of the county," Uchyn said. "We want transparency in the process."

Uchyn said a neighborhood association aims to take legal action against the shooting park. He declined to give details because the action was pending.

Uchyn is among a group of residents who complain of building their homes in the area unaware that a shooting park, 24 years in the works, was planned. He and others contend the county didn't go far enough to inform home-owners, many of them new to the area, about the shooting range.

That's especially irresponsible, given the project's size, he said. "This is not a utility pole going in. It's like an airport going in."

The county has colluded with politicians, the National Rifle Association and other gun advocates to ramrod the shooting park through, Uchyn argued. Information has been withheld and disinformation has been spread, he said.

Don Turner, the county's shooting park manager, dismissed Uchyn's accusations as the stuff of "black helicopter" spy stories.

"They have a conspiracy theory," Turner said. "I get kind of tired of it. The process has been as transparent as it could be." Turner said he doesn't care whether the neighbors hire a technician to eye the testing, as long as the county's consultant is OK with it.

He insists he told residents all along that the county planned to do an on-site test before the park's first leg, known as the public module, opened next year.

He simply had to wait until the grading, dugouts and dirt walls were most of the way finished, he said, because those features will curb the noise.

Turner said he used findings from a noise study done at the Ben Avery Shooting Facility in Arizona to get a feel for how to design the park. The Arizona study was never intended to be the only research guiding the county's shooting park, he said.

He figured that placing the shooting ranges a mile from the closest homes will prevent problems. He said he was confident the local sound tests will prove this to be so.

As for the pending legal action against the county, Turner said he's not surprised. "They've been threatening to sue us since February."

Uchyn said that if the sound study shows the shooting park falls within the 56-decibel threshold, it would be a good start.

The ideal would be to mute the gunfire to the point that neighbors don't hear even light popping, he said, arguing that no one should have to endure an onslaught of repetitive noise from morning till night.

He noted that Turner was fond of saying that 56 decibels is like a whisper.

"If someone is whispering in your ear for 14 hours, that's pretty annoying," Uchyn said.

Contact reporter Scott Wyland at swyland@reviewjournal.com or 702-455-4519.