First steps taken toward moving police firing range from Moccasin Bend

Specially called committee resolves to come up with a workable plan within a year

Instructor Gregg Carson walks with Marty Dunn as he practices shooting targets at the Moccasin Bend firing range. City and law enforcement officials are searching for a location for a new range because it is located adjacent to the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District. The Chattanooga Police Department and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office have used the range for the decades.
Instructor Gregg Carson walks with Marty Dunn as he practices shooting targets at the Moccasin Bend firing range. City and law enforcement officials are searching for a location for a new range because it is located adjacent to the Moccasin Bend National Archaeological District. The Chattanooga Police Department and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office have used the range for the decades.

There are three things that nobody wants to be around, Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher said Friday.

"Nobody wants a firing range, a sewage dump or a mental hospital near them, and, unfortunately, Moccasin Bend has them all," Fletcher said, triggering laughs from 14 people assembled in a City Hall conference room.

The specially called committee was meeting for the first time with the mission of devising a plan to relocate the area's primary police firing range from Moccasin Bend.

The committee informally resolved to come up with a workable plan within a year. The time frame would mesh well with the completion of the National Park Service's management plan for Moccasin Bend, which is already in the works.

"I think our shared goal here is to see a future where the range is somewhere else," Fletcher said to the committee, which includes representatives from the police department, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, the Friends of Moccasin Bend National Park, the National Park Service, the Trust for Public Land, the city and the county.

There will be plenty of hurdles to overcome. Finding a suitable location for the range and figuring out how to pay for it are the most glaring issues.

Potential solutions to both problems were tossed around Friday, but the group decided police should present an outline of a facility that meets their needs at the next meeting before the issues of funding and location are addressed in earnest. The committee is planning to meet again after Thanksgiving.

"We've got to figure out what it is we need and want and where and how, and then figure out how much that costs," said Daisy Madison, Chattanooga's chief financial officer.

A plan to build a $5 million range in the 700 block of East 12th Street downtown was abandoned in August 2014. Law enforcement officials said what started out as a plan for a law enforcement training center digressed to the point that it would have been only a lackluster firing range.

"That's when we realized we were trying very hard to form something that was actually going to move us a step backwards," CPD Deputy Chief David Roddy said. "And we just didn't think that was appropriate."

Police earnestly expressed their willingness on Friday to move from Moccasin Bend - a facility they say is adequate, though dated - but they say it's going to be hard to find the right location.

An outdoor component is essential, according to police, but finding land where neighbors won't be upset by the noise will be challenging. Residents bothered by noise have the right to make the facility move.

"We would have to go to Grundy County to find a place that is isolated and nowhere near development," Fletcher said.

Allen Branum, chief deputy for Hamilton County, reiterated something he remembers saying during past conversations about a new location for a firing range.

"I believe you could come in here and build a garbage dump more easily than you could build a firing range in a suitable location in this county," Branum said.

Police have not given up on the idea of a law enforcement training center that includes classroom and office space, as well as a firing range, but they seemed content with the idea of starting with a firing range and potentially adding the other elements later.

Allowing the range to stay on the Tennessee riverbank at Moccasin Bend would throw a hiccup into the National Park Service's long-term plans for the area.

And the longer the range stays, the longer it will take for the National Park Service to incorporate the 33-acre area into the park, because bullets fired over the site's 40-year history have contaminated the surface with lead.

The next phase of the Tennessee Riverwalk, which starts at Chickamauga Dam, will eventually stretch from downtown Chattanooga to Moccasin Bend, where trails and other recreation opportunities have been proposed.

"The question is how committed are our elected officials?" said Sean O'Brien of the police department's K-9 unit, which uses the Moccasin Bend facility. "National parks and public safety are two issues that elected officials can support, but how much money are they willing to put behind it?"

Fletcher responded in a matter-of-fact tone.

"That's what it comes down to," he said. "If the city and county could afford to do it, we'd have already done it. If the National Parks Service could afford to do it, I'm sure they would have offered to do it. I think it's going to take a village to come up with a financial solution."

Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.

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