Chaos at Camp Bonneville is not just about the FBI violating its contract (“Camp Bonneville shooting range: FBI, ATF and Portland police under scrutiny for usage practices,” The Columbian, Jan. 30). It’s about violations of the transfer documents and the U.S. code that governs Camp Bonneville as a conservation conveyance, and violations of Clark County’s own categorization of Camp Bonneville as a regional natural area to make up for a steep parks deficit when it is not being managed for conservation, but rather as a law enforcement zone for shooting, deployment of chemical agents, detonation and storage of explosives — all proven by documentation provided to the county.
Most disturbing, though, is the county’s lack of concern for the residents near Camp Bonneville and the broader county’s interests. Allowing contamination of this conservation area while planning to clean it up to one day become a park is nonsensical. Yet the county moves to lock us into five more years with the Oregon FBI — an agency we have no obligation to accommodate. The county continues to risk immense liabilities (wildfire in particular) by allowing this behavior to continue, and the fact that they also told the public they were going in the opposite direction these last months is outrageous yet, sadly, unsurprising.
