Inside the long and partly open gunner’s building, the flashes are stacked along the wall. Empty casings are scattered on the brick floor. It’s as if someone has just been training and not cleaned up after themselves. But it has been several years since the shooters came to shoot at the Kurud pistol range in Nordre Follo. When the course was shut down, the shooters went off without their blinkers. Photo: Hallgeir Braastad / news The range, which is located in the forest by the lake Gjersjøen, was closed after a noise conflict in 2019. Now it is one of 917 closed civilian shooting ranges in Norway that have been mapped for another environmental problem: lead. – There is a risk that lead pollution from disused shooting ranges could spread to nearby water, says Kjersti Gram Andersen in the Norwegian Environment Agency. – And lead is acutely toxic to aquatic organisms and mammals, adds the section leader. Kjersti Gram Andersen in the Norwegian Environment Agency. Photo: hallgeir Braastad / news For humans, lead is toxic and can cause health damage in small quantities. Chronic lead poisoning can lead to damage to the nervous system, increased blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and kidney damage. For children, lead can also cause lower intelligence. 23 ranges are extra risky 23 shooting ranges across the country have been put on a list of ranges with high risk. The pistol range in Follo is one of these. The list is topped by the Overvoll-stranda shooting range at Stranda in Møre and Romsdal, Hannås in Evje and Hornnes in Agder and Stødalen in Øksnes in Nordland. Some bullets are left on top of the ground, such as these pistol bullets. Photo: Hallgeir Braastad / news – A lot has been shot at these courses, over a million shots, and then they are located in areas where there is a risk of spreading, often a bog, says Petter Snilsberg. He has led the mapping that Asplan Viak has done on behalf of the Norwegian Environment Agency. In marshes, the lead ammunition can disintegrate and be spread further, he explains. Snilsberg says that the courses that came out worst are also located in places where the contamination can end up in drinking water or where there is a risk that people could ingest it in other ways. Needs to be investigated further Information about the ranges has been received from municipalities and various shooting organisations, but the shooting ranges have not been further investigated. Investigations must therefore be carried out afterwards to determine the extent to which the lead is a threat to the environment. For the pistol range in Follo, the concern is the lake Gjersjøen, which lies a few hundred meters below. The water is a source of drinking water for residents of Nordre Follo. Below the Kurud shooting range is Lake Gjersjøen. It is not clear whether some of the lead from the shooting range could end up in the drinking water source. Photo: Hallgeir Braastad / news Lead flowed out with a stream from a bog The demand for a national survey of old shooting ranges was raised a few years ago when it turned out that ammunition poisoned several streams in Bærum. 70 years of shotgunning had led to around 800 tonnes of lead ending up in a bog. There, the lead was taken by stream into a hiking area. Many hikers were unaware of the danger. They filled the water bottles and drank from the water. The bog water at Løvenskiold shooting range in Bærum is clearly discolored by rusty steel balls. But there are also huge amounts of old lead in the water. Photo: Dag Aasland / news Norges Skytterforbund was required to put up signs warning people not to drink and had to build purification ponds that remove much of the lead. Hikers on Skytterkollen west of Oslo are warned that there is lead in the stream and that the water must not be drunk. Photo: Dag Aasdalen / news The new report shows that lead can be a hidden problem in several places. – We generally think that it is serious that there is such a large number of disused civilian shooting ranges that there is a risk of pollution, says Kjersti Gram Andersen in the Norwegian Environment Agency. – Must be investigated. Near the Kurud pistol shooting range, the news hits like a bomb. – I knew there was a shooting range up there, but I wasn’t aware that there was a lot of lead, says Gabrielle Drageseth, whom we meet on the golf course next to the disused gun range. Now it should be investigated whether the lead from the shooting range is a danger, believes Kjell Arne Bratli, general manager of Gjersjøen Golfklubb. – This is an area where it is also possible to go for a walk. The closest neighbor to the pistol range is Gjersjøen golf. The general manager believes that it must be investigated whether lead is leaking from the shooting range and down towards the source of drinking water. Photo: Hallgeir Braastad / news And if there is leakage, it can go into drinking water and it is clear that it must be investigated, he states. The golf course, which is also next to Lake Gjersjøen, is required to take frequent water samples within its area so it is certain that they do not contaminate the drinking water source. They are also not allowed to use toxic pesticides on the field. The follow-up is not clear What kind of consequences the report will have has not been decided. – Now the knowledge base is there and then we have to take a closer look at how we are going to follow this up, very concretely. So it will be a job we have to do going forward, says Andersen. She says that the overview they now have of old lanes is useful for the municipalities anyway. They now know where there may be a need to conduct investigations. What lead does to your body Lead has many serious effects Lead is a heavy metal that is acutely toxic to aquatic organisms and mammals. Chronic lead poisoning can damage the nervous system, kidneys and blood-forming system in warm-blooded animals. Lead and lead compounds can damage fertility and cause birth defects. Children are particularly vulnerable to exposure, and we suspect that lead can affect children’s intellectual development. We know no lower limit for the levels that can cause such damage, and the amounts children are exposed to via food and other sources exceed tolerable levels that can cause serious effects. Birds can be poisoned by the remains of lead shot, because they ingest lead together with pebbles and gravel when they eat. Predators or scavengers can ingest lead shot if they eat animals shot with lead ammunition. Lead from ammunition can also spread in meat and be transferred to humans when we eat it. Source: Norwegian Environment Agency Hello! 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Lead from shooting ranges can leak into nature in many places – news Oslo and Viken – Local news, TV and radio
