Audio clip
Zach Wamp
U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said he is requesting $500,000 in federal funding to help move the law enforcement shooting range off Moccasin Bend in anticipation of the upcoming National Archeological District there.
“(I) don’t know if I can get it, but I’m going to try because I do think the federal government should share in responsibility of relocating the firing range off the bend,” Rep. Wamp said last week.
He said the firing range is incompatible with having many guests at the archeological district, where he said an interpretive center is scheduled to open in 2011. Once the park is set up, he said, he hopes the firing range will be gone.
But Chattanooga Police Officer Jim Brock, range master of the Moccasin Bend facility, thinks the shooting range will take much longer to relocate.
“We’re not moving for about 20 years,” he said. “We have nowhere to go.”
The Chattanooga City Council last week approved a resolution granting the acceptance of federal funding if it is appropriated for range relocation.
However, local officials could not provide details about the location of a new firing range or what a new facility may include.
“Where (the range) goes and how much of a police training center is built up around it, we haven’t yet defined,” Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield said last week.
Rep. Wamp said officials met with Collegedale representatives a couple of years ago about a potential regional law enforcement shooting range and training center. He said the cost floated for that prospective facility was between $2.5 million and $3 million.
Collegedale Police Chief Dennis Cramer could not be reached for comment.
Dan Johnson, chief of staff to Mr. Littlefield, said the next step is to find a place for the shooting range and put together a site plan for it.
“We just know it’s got to be moved,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re not ready to say what is considered and what isn’t considered right now.”
Sgt. Max Templeton, spokesman for the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department, said the firing range jointly is owned and operated by the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County. In turn, he said, both governments will be involved in the process to move the facility.
“It’s nothing that’s going to happen overnight,” he said.
