Early December storms created a gully through the only road leading to the Haines Sportsman’s Association shooting range. Vehicle access to the facility remains impossible until the road is fixed. The shooting range is open to those willing to walk in.
Access to the Haines Sportsman’s Association shooting range has been limited since the private road leading to the facility washed out during the December storms that caused massive flooding and landslides.
“None of the structures were damaged in the storm, but the road is impassable,” sportsman’s treasurer Cheryl Stickler said. Accessing the range now requires hiking in just under a mile, she said.
The sportsman’s association has applied for roughly $30,000 through the state’s public assistance program to repair the damage, which includes road slumpage, shoulder erosion and culvert washouts, association president Dave Long said. The road qualifies for the public assistance program because of the association’s nonprofit status.
The shooting range, which includes trap, pistol and rifle facilities, is the only controlled shooting range in the Haines Borough. The association finished roughly $100,000 worth of improvements to the range last year, according to Long.
The range was closed in the days following the road washout as the creek running through the middle of the road was impassable, even on foot. Now the range is open to anyone who wants to walk in with their gear.
Long said he worries that without vehicle access, people will go elsewhere in the borough for target practice.
“I don’t want people to go do the wrong thing in the wrong place,” he said, referencing the Bureau of Land Management’s efforts beginning in 2015 to clean up contaminants from an unofficial shooting range near 7 Mile Haines Highway. “At the (sportsman’s association) range, we have a good, safe, controlled area.”
Range access is also important for law enforcement training, according to police chief Heath Scott.
“Right now, that’s the only place that we have to do law enforcement-related shooting,” Scott said. Both the state and borough have firearm proficiency requirements for police officers, and meeting those standards on an annual basis requires practice, he said.
“Shooting is a skill set, something you need to routinely practice at to be at a high level of efficiency,” Scott said. He said shooting practice will be challenging for the department until the road reopens as, without a road, they would need to transport equipment including targets, ammunition and a variety of weapons on foot.
The range is also used by groups including the Haines Hot Shots, the youth shooting team, and the Haines Gals Shooting Club. Long said the hot shots have started meeting at the Legion and are using a shooting simulator game to continue training while they wait for the road repairs.
Long said he hopes that if the public assistance funding comes through, the association will be able to raise additional funds to improve the road’s drainage. Disaster funding will only cover the cost of repairs to bring the road back to the state it was in before the flood.
“We want bigger culverts. We want the road to survive the next 200-year storm that’s probably going to come (sooner than that),” Long said. He estimated it would cost a few thousand dollars to upgrade culverts.
Stickler said if the public assistance funding doesn’t come through, the association will need to raise the funds on its own. This could mean tapping into funding that would normally support the organization’s other objectives like its scholarship fund, she said.
On Jan. 29, the state applied to FEMA for assistance funding public infrastructure repairs throughout Southeast in the wake of the December storms. In past interviews, state officials have said it’s unclear how long it will take for FEMA to make a determination about what kind of federal assistance, if any, will be made available. If FEMA funding doesn’t come through, the state will cover the cost of public infrastructure repairs through its public assistance program.