Emilie Travel Livezey wrote an article called “Hazardous Waste” for the Christian Science Monitor back in 1980. She coined the term, “NIMBY” – an acronym for “Not In My Back Yard”. At the time of the article, it referred exclusively to the location of hazardous waste dumps.
The poster child for the impact of hazardous waste dumps is Love Canal in New York. It was a planned community that was built on top of an old rubbish dump. Mitchell opened a new landfill not all that long ago and began the process of reclaiming the old landfill. What that old landfill will be used for in the future is open to question. Love Canal began development in the 1890’s but was not fully completed as a planned residential community. In the 1940’s the Hooker Chemical Company acquired a portion of the adjacent land to Love Canal in order to dump chemical wastes generated from the production of perfume, dyes, rubber and solvents etc.
The Hooker land was later acquired by the local Love Canal school district in the 1950’s. Eventually, homes were built on top of what we would now call a toxic waste dump. Cue the cancer and other illnesses of the residents of Love Canal. Lawsuits followed. Superfund legislation was introduced in Congress, inspired by the events at Love Canal and NIMBY was born in spirit if not quite as an identifiable moniker yet.
NIMBY can be seen across all kinds of human activity. The things protested are necessary, even desired by many – perhaps the majority – except for those who have to live next to them. The examples are endless. All of us want to get rid of our garbage but nobody wants to live near, let alone next to, the landfill. Most of us enjoy bacon, ham and other pork products but we wince at the smell of a hog farm and thank our lucky stars we don’t live in the vicinity. Storage sites for the disposal of atomic waste, or chemical waste or medical waste are vital, but no one is pining away to have one located near them.
Often “undesirable” activity for some is economic development for others. Mitchell is welcoming a new soybean plant and hopes it will bring jobs working in the plant and economic prosperity for area farmers and markets for their crop. Still, there are those who are concerned about noise, traffic, water usage, cost to townships for maintenance and upkeep etc.
Medical marijuana was legalized, and recreational marijuana almost made the cut as well. Dispensaries mean jobs, tax revenue and “economic development” but no one seems to be too keen to have one in their neighborhood.
The old landfill in Mitchell was used past its “replacement date” because of the difficulty in fixing a location for a new one. Everyone agreed a new landfill was necessary – just someplace else from proposed sites, another example of NIMBY.
Homeless shelters, low income housing, prisons, power plants, windmill and solar farms, chemical plants, towering structures and airports are among other projects that people welcome in general but NIMBY. The latest example is a new gun range in Mitchell.
We are outdoor people here. South Dakota has the second highest number of hunters per capita, just behind Wyoming, of any state in the United States. Wyoming also tops the list for the most guns owned per capita at 245.8 guns per every 1000 residents, followed by West Virginia in the second spot (92.8 guns per 1000 residents) and South Dakota is third (72.2 guns per 1000 residents). That “per 1000 residents” includes people like centenarians in nursing homes and my not yet one year old grandchild, folks unlikely or incapable of owning guns. Most of us have fired a weapon, hunted or otherwise interacted with firearms – if not currently then at one point in our lives.
We’d like people who own and use guns to be proficient in their use. I’ve often said I don’t want to be the innocent bystander. If I’m shot, I’d like to be the target rather than the poor sap hit by gunfire from some moron who couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, even if he were standing inside it.
Shooting is a skill. It is a skill that erodes over time. If a person doesn’t regularly practice, then their ability to be accurate deteriorates. That can mean accidents and tragedies out in the real world. We currently have a shooting range that used to be “outside of town”. Then, the town grew to meet it and even though it was there “first”, the current gun range is under pressure and criticism.
Recently, the Mitchell City Council had an opportunity to avail themselves of funding through the Game, Fish and Parks to convert City owned land, located in the jurisdiction of Davison County, to build a shooting range. People shoot for sport, trap shooting for example. People shoot to hone their hunting skills; again, as an example, trap shooting is excellent practice for bagging pheasants. People shoot to familiarize themselves with their weapon and to gain proficiency. People shoot to maintain their professional status and their jobs – most notably law enforcement officers and security guards. People shoot to maintain their proficiency and to ensure the integrity of our Republic – folks like those in our Armed Forces. In short, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to own a weapon, shoot that weapon and to want a gun range that have nothing to do with being a “gun nut” or perpetrating a crime, mass shooting or an act of domestic terrorism.
The question is, where to locate a gun range? The desirability and need for a gun range is obvious to hunters, to those learning to use their personal firearm and to general gun enthusiasts. My philosophy of gun control is this; if you are not a criminal or mentally ill, if you are an adult (18 and older) you should be able to own a weapon with no further red tape or government interference PROVIDED you can demonstrate to a qualified authority (a law enforcement officer, a Game Fish and Parks official – like a Conservation Officer, or a gun instructor certified by the NRA) that you know how to properly take care of your weapon – disassemble it for cleaning etc. – and you can hit what you aim at. The latter qualification requires practice and a place to do it.
Having said all that, the Davison County Planning Commission (that may not be the official title of the body but that is their function) denied the use permit for the land that would have been converted for use as a new gun range. The City of Mitchell asked the Davison County Commission to delay their final vote on the City’s request until the City could evaluate their options and consider the opposition. The City eventually agreed to pull their request for a new gun range and the issue is now dead – at least at that disputed location.
The Opponents were concerned about the distance bullets can travel and the relatively close, given the power and range of some weapons, proximity of their homes to the proposed new gun range. It is not an unreasonable concern especially considering that many of the users of the range would be people either just learning to shoot or scraping the rust off dusty shooting skills.
NIMBY worked in this case. I think the City and County were correct in their decision to heed the concerns of effected citizens and to abandon this location. That doesn’t mean a new gun range is a bad idea nor does it mean a new gun range isn’t needed. I hope some accommodation can be reached for a new location. Shooting skills are important to keep our State’s, more than a century long, hunting and outdoors traditions alive. A place to practice is in the best interests of all of us, sportsmen and non-sportsmen alike – just Not In My Back Yard.