Environmental Stewardship Plans

Environmental Stewardship: Responsible Care for
Resources Entrusted to You

An Environmental Stewardship Plan is a written plan or "road map" for planning, implementing, monitoring, and documenting the progress of environmental management and improvements at your shooting range. By developing and implementing an Environmental Stewardship Plan, you will document your commitment to the environment and the community, while at the same time protecting the interests of your range. Site-specific Environmental Stewardship Plans are encouraged by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Association of Shooting Ranges, National Rifle Association, and similar organizations as the best and most cost-effective way to minimize the potential for environmental issues to adversely affect a range.

Specific benefits of developing and implementing an Environmental Stewardship Plan for your range include:

• Discouraging legal & regulatory actions against your range. This is especially effective if you have already begun implementation of the plan.
• Providing tangible evidence of pro-active efforts to be good environmental citizens regarding both wildlife management and management of lead. This can be very valuable if a legal or regulatory action is initiated against your range on environmental grounds.
• Maintaining control of your own destiny in relation to actions, costs, and schedule, which will be taken over by the court or a regulatory agency if an environmental allegation is raised against your range.
• Systematically gathering and evaluating the information necessary to determine whether there are legitimate environmental concerns at your range. This record can be valuable historical documentation for your range, as well as helping to defend against environmental allegations.
• Documenting the fact that no legitimate environmental issues are identified, or identifying effective and appropriate ways you can pro-actively resolve any legitimate environmental concerns that may be identified.
• Documenting optimal protection of the environment.
• Demonstrating the need for action, raising funds, and planning expenditures.
• Assisting in making prudent and cost-effective decisions that will maximize your legal and regulatory protection and minimize the cost of doing so.

In addition to the positive benefits of an ESP, the potentially huge costs, long-term liabilities, legal uncertainties, and adverse public relations of dealing with environmental allegations provide "negative incentives" for developing an ESP specific to your range.

Range owners or operators can develop an effective initial ESP for most ranges by following guidance from the National Shooting Sports Foundation. If professional assistance is desired, an effective initial ESP can be developed in most cases for a few thousand dollars. The actual cost for a professionally-developed site-specific ESP can vary somewhat depending on several factors, including the complexity of the site, the amount of information available, whether a visit to the range is necessary or desired, etc.