On Sunday, January 26, a group of volunteers ventured out into the upper Sespe Creek watershed to clean up an illegal target shooting site. The site is along a tributary to Sespe Creek, where lead and other microtrash has been accumulating since it first started to be used a few years ago.
Altogether, the group removed over 180 pounds of trash, including 60 pounds of lead ammunition in and around the creek.
The cleanup is part of our ongoing efforts to remove target shooting trash from over 100 unmanaged shooting sites throughout the Los Padres National Forest. The Forest Service has also banned target shooting outside of managed gun ranges.
Most of the trash in the area consisted of broken glass, bullet casings, shotgun shells, and pieces of electronics that had been previously shot. One volunteer even found what was left of a TV.
Because of the lead contamination near a stream, many volunteers focused on locating and removing spent ammunition. The 60 pounds of lead collected at this cleanup was the most we have removed in a single day. This staggering amount will be taken to a hazardous waste facility to be disposed properly.
This is what 60 pounds of spent lead ammunition looks like. All of it was removed from an area about the size of a tennis court.
Thank you to the amazing volunteers who joined us on Sunday. The group included residents of Ojai, Ventura, and Goleta, as well as members of the Environmental Affairs Board at UCSB. We simply cannot clean these sites without the help of our volunteers.
If you want to help out at a future event, you can easily sign up to receive emails about upcoming volunteer opportunities by clicking here.
Bryant is the Director of Conservation & Research for Los Padres ForestWatch, where he manages scientific, technical, and volunteer projects. He is also a naturalist and photographer, spending most of his free time hiking the rugged public lands of the Central Coast region with his dog.
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