The Capital Regional District's parks committee is taking aim at an estimated $700,000 bill to clean up the site of an old pistol range at Thetis Lake Regional Park.

Reopening the shooting range for use by police makes more sense than spending up to $685,000 to rehabilitate it, says Metchosin Mayor John Ranns, who convinced the committee to have CRD staff take a look at options.

The 0.75 hectares used as an active range are heavily contaminated with metals such as lead, copper and zinc and the area is registered as a contaminated site.

"For less than $100,000 you could completely enclose that entire area with a three-foot-thick concrete block wall. That would enclose all four sides," Ranns told the CRD parks committee this week.

"I suspect for $700,000 you could probably have an indoor range. You could put one back in here. So in effect, we could restore the police ability for everybody in this region to have a guaranteed place to qualify and train essentially for what it's going to cost us to take that thing out of there."

Ranns said when development pressures in View Royal forced the closure of the range a decade ago, it cost all local municipalities in extra policing costs because officers now have to travel to practise and qualify with their sidearms.

He said spending the money on remediation when there is no evidence of migrating contamination, "is shortsighted."

"Finding a place to build a range is an extremely difficult thing to do because nobody wants one in their backyard," Ranns said. "This one was a range and has historically been a range. The objections to it are noise and safety and those can both be addressed fairly easily."

Even if the berm were to be cleaned up, the cost should reflect metal recovery, he said.

"There's 100 years of lead in that berm," said Ranns, adding that lead is a high-priced commodity.

"I know there are businesses that rehabilitate areas just like this just for the cost of the lead -- what they can get out of it."

The 7.2-hectare site, which had been used as a training ground for Greater Victoria police since the turn of the century, officially closed in 1999 after many a battle between the Victoria Police Revolver Club and developers anxious to build in the area.

Ownership and management of the land were transferred to the CRD in 1994 as part of Thetis Lake Park.

The CRD has been monitoring the site at a cost of about $5,000 a year to ensure there's been no migration of contaminants. Staff say it's stable. In the meantime, the CRD has been building a fund for remediation.

Victoria Coun. Philippe Lucas, a parks committee member, said having a shooting range in a regional park is inappropriate.

But others, like Sooke Mayor Janet Evans, said the estimated $560,000-to-$685,000 remediation costs seemed too high.

"If there is no environmental damage and we're monitoring it at $5,000 a year, especially with the current economy and the tax increases that all of our municipalities are going to experience this year, I can't support spending up to $700,000," Evans said.

Juan de Fuca director Mike Hicks said parks are used for "all kinds of things" and Ranns' suggestion made sense.

Ten years ago, when the range was decommissioned, there was a suggestion that a portion of the property be sold for development so remediation costs could be covered through that sale.

Committee chairman Christopher Causton said he wants to know if that sort of potential still exists.

The notion of removing the range from the park was rejected in 2002 by an advisory group, which found the 6.45 hectares used as a buffer to the range had features including forests more than 240 years old and three rare and fragile Garry oak ecosystems.

The parks committee asked for further examination of all options by staff.

bcleverley@tc.canwest.com