PAYSON, Utah (KUTV) — Two months of discussions and meetings have paid off for the West Mountain community, as the plan to build a 200-acre shooting range in their backyard is now a thing of the past.
The Civilian Marksmanship Program Board of Directors voted unanimously to withdraw this week.
“I think they realized as a board that this wasn’t the best place for it,” said Alex Lathrop, who lives in West Mountain.
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KUTV first learned about the plan from the community in June.
“It will sound like a little war in our backyard,” Jon Cheney said in June.
They were initially angry because they were not given a chance to voice their concerns.
“We had to be pretty aggressive because by the time we found out about it, the public comment period was only a week or two long,” Lathrop said.
Their wish was soon granted and a public meeting was held in July where they were able to ask questions to a CMP representative.
2News was also able to ask him some questions, such as whether he would mind having a shooting range like the one proposed by CMP in his backyard.
“I mean, there’s going to be noise in everyone’s backyard,” Greg Raines responded at the July meeting. “That’s one of the questions that’s been asked a thousand times. I wish somebody had given me a microphone and I could have stood up and said, ‘Hey, there’s going to be noise in your backyard.’ Yes, if it was in my house, there would be noise in my backyard, yes.”
In a statement, BLM said: “CMP has decided not to proceed with the project for administrative and financial reasons.”
“We don’t care why they withdrew, we’re just glad they did,” said Julianna Westberg, another West Mountain resident.
Despite the frustration and hostility throughout the process, people in the community praise CMP for the decision.
“I think they really listened, took our concerns to heart and decided to move to another location,” Lathrop said.
People in the community said the fight against the shooting range has brought them together as a community, and they are currently working on plans to clean up the area where the shooting range was originally supposed to be.
“As a community, we knew the shooting range couldn’t be here,” Aaron Westberg said.
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