By Dan Verbeck, KCUR News
Independence, MO – The price of scrap metal meets the greening of the Kansas City region. For the first time, The Missouri Conservation Department will retrieve bullets fired at a rifle range: what could become tons of lead and copper.
In a valley of tallgrass east of Independence, ground is broken for a new hunters shooting range adjacent to the old Lake City Range which, for thirty years, has been used by sport shooters and hunters to test their acumen. In the planned facility, slugs will be recycled, not shot and left in a berm of earth as is done at other outdoor ranges including the current Lake City. Former commissioner Anita Gorman likes the ecological aspect, and that Jackson County Parks Department offers the land from its William Landahl Reserve. In her words, it's a good trade both ways. That way Jackson County doesn't have to provide this ,which is worth well over four million dollars. And at the same time this is ground which they can afford to let us have .
The project is within earshot of the former Lake City Army ammunition plant where small arms rounds have been made for military use for a half century. The hunters' facility is set to be done in the fall of 2009.