The premier news source for Snohomish County

SULTAN—The decades-long plan to open a county-owned shooting range near Sultan appears to not be moving forward, yet again, as the project remains unmentioned in Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers’ proposed 2025-2026 biennial budget report.

“We know the Sportsman’s Park is a project that has generated long-term public interest, and we haven’t lost sight of that. At this time, an organization has not been identified to develop and operate a facility and the proposed location has not been deemed viable for this project,” said Rose Intveld, Communication Specialist for Snohomish County. “Considering these factors, along with financial constraints on the county’s budget overall, the Executive’s 2025-26 budget proposal directs our limited funding toward other Parks projects.”

The Executive’s proposed budget is currently working through the County Council review and public hearings process. The budget is usually finalized in November.

Illegal target practice has long been a problem for the area, particularly a site off Sultan Basin Road where bullet casings and broken glass often litter the graveled lot. The Sky Valley Sportsman’s Park was the county’s solution, an approximately 640-acre multi-purpose shooting range managed through a public-private or public-nonprofit partnership.

“[O]rganized ranges with professional maintenance, on-hand staff, etc. are a superior alternative to people shooting in the woods. The sometimes-metaphorical ‘gravel pit’ with no range safety officers or medical aid plan presents hazards from mishaps and a lack of commonly understood acceptable range etiquette or rules. There’s also the environmental impact aspect, with ‘primitive’ shooting areas building up deposits of lead and other heavy metals that are not mined out or recycled,” said Brett Bass, local firearm safety instructor. “At a formal range, these downsides are mitigated significantly. So, while some in the public may want to prevent people from shooting due to their dislike of private firearms ownership, the alternative is people shooting in less safe locales with more negative second- and third-order knock-on impacts.”

The Sky Valley Sportsman’s Park would be an outdoor shooting range that would consist of a series of archery ranges (including competition, broad head, and 3D), pistol ranges up to 100 meters, rifle ranges up to 600 yards, shotgun ranges (including competitive, trap and skeet), as well as a pro shop, education center, on-site caretaker, and RV parking. The park would also have proper ricochet zones for safety.

Discussions of opening a county-owned shooting range date back nearly 40-years ago when the County’s 1986 Comprehensive Park and Recreation Plan first noted provision of a shooting and archery facility as a long-term goal. This goal continued through the County’s 2001 and 2007 Comprehensive Park and Recreation Plans as well as the 2015 Park and Recreation Element.

In 1994 the county settled on the Sultan Basin site—a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) owned parcel—as the most reasonable location to open a shooting and archery range after a consulting firm submitted its findings from a conducted feasibility study that July.

The county led an extensive public outreach process from 1997 through 2002 including a Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which was finalized in April of 2022. Through that process the county received both strong support and vocal opposition to the project with residents living nearby raising concerns about noise, increased traffic, and environmental impact.

The reconveyance of the site, from the DNR, was completed in December of 2011. Since then, the Parks Division developed a master plan laying out how the plan could be maximized while protecting environmentally sensitive areas and reducing sound impacts for surrounding properties. A team led by Bruce Dees and Associates, L.L.C. was selected through a Request for Qualifications process for this work out of a pool of three candidates.

In its early design stages, a wetland was found during a Critical Area Study so contract design work was halted. In 2019 the Parks Division and DNR identified a new parcel across the road that was deemed more suitable and work continued.

A noise study was conducted in 2021 by Stantec. The site was, and is still, zoned as F for forestry and is considered rural, as is the case with all the surrounding properties. Areas zoned as rural in the county allow for a maximum decibel level of 49 during the day and 39 during the night. The study did, however, find that that the decibel levels of the proposed shooting range could exceed the allowed levels by 5-15 but lasting no more than 15 minutes in any hour.

The cost of design and planning services for the project’s master plan was originally contracted at $287,778.00, which fell within the park’s then-current budget of $204,555.00. As of 2021 the project’s engineer estimates the total cost of the project could run $47 million and construction could span several phases.

While the project is not currently set to receive funding in Executive Somers’ proposed biennial budget, the County Council still has the opportunity to offer amendments during its review and subsequent County Council meetings.

According to Rose Intveld, Communications Specialist for the County’s Parks Department, whether the project moves forward or not will be officially decided this November.

“All aspects of the Sky Valley Sportman’s Park Project are being reviewed for project viability by Snohomish County Parks management through the county budget process. The timeline for recommendations on project viability is estimated to be by the end of November 2024,” said Intveld.

The county says management and operation of a shooting and archery facility is not a core competency of the Snohomish County Parks and Recreation Division so are also considering soliciting a management and operating partner.

A recent Supreme Court petition out of Michigan, Oakland Tactical Supply et. al. v. Howell Township, also involved a site which was used as an independent shooting range for years until Oakland Tactical Supply took notice of this and purchased the land to be used as a commercial shooting range.

However, the town of Howell Township did not want a range in their jurisdiction and rezoned the land so that it could not be used as a commercial shooting range. The plaintiffs of the lawsuit, which included the Firearms Policy Coalition, in this case made it all the way to the 6th Circuit where the question of “whether the second amendment presumptively protects against restrictions burdening the right to train with firearms commonly possessed for lawful purposes” was posed.

The plaintiffs lost with the court ruling that the “panel refused to define Petitioners proposed course of conduct as simply training with firearms that are in common use,” instead the panel insisted that “Petitioners could prevail only by demonstrating that the Second Amendment’s text protects the right to train at a commercial facility anywhere in the Township.”

With state and federal agencies cracking down on stricter gun laws, with some proposing proper training and certification conducted at a certified shooting range, paired with municipalities’ ability to rezone commercial shooting ranges, it may at first appear that the power to rezone could be misused to supersede second amendments rights but, according to local firearms instructor Brett Bass, there are other ways around that.

Bass’ shooting range, Bellevue Gun Club, experienced something not unlike what transpired in Michigan recently. A part of why it’s a membership-based club as opposed to a range with day use options, he informed the Lynnwood Times, has to do with the zoning of the property.

“[T]he place is technically zoned as light industry as opposed to commercial. As a result, it’s technically an athletic club with a pro shop as opposed to a gun shop with a range. Kind of a distinction without a difference, but the alternative was to pursue putting the range into the nearby mall, and the city wasn’t into that so much,” said Bass.

Just this passed legislative session, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed stricter gun laws that went into effect prohibiting open carry in libraries, zoos, aquariums, and transit stations and facilities.