Gun range cleanup is essential to good business, employee health, and the environment. While lead is present naturally in some parts of the earth’s crust, accumulation of lead in soils can be extremely dangerous. Shooting ranges are especially at risk for lead accumulation due to bullet fragments that scatter with shooting activity. Most gun ranges are aware of the dangers of lead accumulation: soil contamination, human intoxication, and in severe cases, contamination of groundwater. New technology enables businesses to greatly reduce the amount of lead present at shooting sites, boosting effectiveness of gun range lead clean-up.
Shooting ranges provide a valuable service to citizens looking to protect themselves and their families. Also, firing ranges are essential for training law enforcement officers to make sure they are always ready to protect the community. Well prepared and protected shooters experience little to no danger at most gun firing ranges and environmental safety issues are not generally a concern that most patrons should be focused on. Gun range owners must take soil remediation seriously with methodical and thorough clean-up efforts. While complete removal of lead in soils is not likely, MT2’s soil remediation ECOBOND® technology prevents lead from accumulating within soil particles, stabilizing soil chemistry, and eliminating imminent threat of lead toxicity on ranges.
Toxicity is still a relevant problem for today’s firing ranges, despite available remediation treatment. In 2014, a gun range in North Carolina was found to have had high lead contamination, with soils at 19,700 mg/kg of lead content. This was nearly 19,430 mg past state established limits. An estimated 60 tons of lead had contaminated the clay on-site, but thankfully no children were allowed access to this area. Gun range clean-up was essentially non-existent in a case like this. After discovery of contamination, the range was hard pressed for a massive remediation solution that could have been incrementally implemented over time.
MT2’s ECOBOND® soil remediation treatment allows cost-effective soil remediation that has been approved by both EPA and state regulatory agencies. Not only do stabilized soils greatly reduce the chance of extreme lead leaching into soils, it will reduce off-site disposal costs associated with purely reactionary disposal of soils recently found to be contaminated. We have been helping gun ranges with best soil remediation practices for over fifteen years now. Contact us with questions about gun range lead clean up today.
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