Powhatan to fight plans for law-enforcement training facility

Raising the ire of Powhatan County residents and officials, the Virginia State Police plans to build a law-enforcement training facility in Powhatan, including four shooting ranges near a quiet, historic neighborhood.

The Virginia State Law Enforcement Training Facility would be built on 18 acres of state-owned farmland off Old River Trail. The site is adjacent to Deep Meadow Correctional Center, one of several facilities on a sprawling James River property owned by the Department of Corrections.

As planned, the facility -- to be used by the state police, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the FBI -- would consist of four shooting ranges with 81 firing lanes, a "live-fire shoot house," a classroom and a bunkhouse.

"The amount of noise we're talking about is huge," said Powhatan Supervisor Carson Tucker. "The closest home is 1,000 feet away."

Because the site is on state-owned property, the facility does not require county approval and has but two hurdles to clear -- an environmental impact review from the Department of Environmental Quality and final approval from the state's Secretary of Administration.

Incensed that the project was not discussed with them earlier, county leaders have filed numerous objections on various grounds including noise, safety, traffic and lighting. Those concerns have suspended the environmental review until state police can address them.

Tucker held a community meeting Thursday night to inform area residents of the plans and determine a course of action.

"We considered three alternatives: roll over and play dead, try to ameliorate the impact, or fight it. Without a dissenting vote, the consensus was to fight it," Tucker said.

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Mary Clay Smith and her husband have lived for 25 years in a historic 1780s home on Old River Trail 1,400 feet from the proposed firing ranges.

"We are very concerned. Old River Trail is a historic byway, and this would really be a change in our atmosphere and how we've been living in a quiet suburban atmosphere," she said.

Smith also worries about traffic on the winding road, with up to 200 people using the ranges at any one time.

Also nearby is Shiloh Baptist Church, founded in the 1870s by freed slaves. Tucker said church members are concerned about the range, its noise during funerals and functions, and the traffic it would generate.

"This just totally compromises the historical integrity of the entire area," said Shannon Baxter, Smith's daughter, who lives next door.

State police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said the department is working to address the concerns of the county and neighboring residents, and a meeting is scheduled for June 1.

She said the General Assembly approved the capital project in 2009 and that $1.9 million in funding has been set aside for the first phase, which would include one of the ranges and the berms surrounding it.

"We've arranged for evergreens to be planted along those berms to help absorb the noise," she said.

She added that lead ground contamination -- one of Tucker's concerns -- would not be an issue because the ammunition would be collected by bullet traps and disposed of in drums.

She said the facility would be used primarily Monday through Friday after 8 a.m. until about 8 p.m.

Geller said the Powhatan site is desirable because of its rural geography, proximity to state police headquarters in Chesterfield County, and the fact that it was already state-owned.

"It's a best-case scenario," she said. "We built ranges decades ago and, as those areas have built up, we'd have to close them."

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The county's main source of irritation is a lack of communication and involvement.

County Administrator Carolyn Bishop says Powhatan first received word of the project on March 17 in an e-mail from the DEQ, more than a month after the application was filed. The agency informed the county that comments on the application were past due and should be submitted immediately for consideration.

Julia Wellman, the DEQ's review coordinator, said a hard copy of the application was sent to the county in February. Bishop says the county never received that or any word from state police or the Department of Corrections.

"The department of state police was not required to coordinate with the county prior to submitting but, depending on the project, sometimes coordination does happen," Wellman said.

This will not be the first time the county has tussled with the Department of Corrections about use of the property.

In the late 1970s, a 300-acre landfill was proposed there for the city of Richmond and ultimately defeated by the county, thanks to a law passed by the assembly forbidding the landfill.

In the 1980s, a proposal to build a medium-security prison there was also defeated. The prison, which would have increased the number of felons in state corrections facilities in Goochland and Powhatan from 35 percent to 48 percent, was eventually built in Brunswick County.

"We have been promised repeatedly as a county and a community that this would never happen again," Tucker said. "Now we're talking lawyers and sound studies and consultants and all the things we did to fight the prison and the landfill."

"Here we go again," he said.

Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or whester@timesdispatch.com.