CUSTER — Greg Kendall, lean and weathered from a lifetime of hard work, draws a circle in the gravel around a nearly intact 9mm bullet on his property.
Situated below high-voltage lines and bordering Whatcom County’s most heavily used shooting range, Custer Sportsmen’s Club, Kendall’s land is a maze of unfinished projects, tomato trellises, wood products and vehicles in various states of disrepair. It’s also where 70-year-old Kendall and his wife built their home about 25 years ago.
Kendall writes the day’s date on a ribbon and takes a picture of it and the bullet. For more than a year, he has meticulously documented every bullet and scrap of lead found on his roughly 6-acre property to build a case to stop ammunition “raining down” on his property.
It hasn’t.
On Jan. 9, he called 911 — clearly shaken — describing the zing of a ricochet whirling across his property quickly followed by a second round that he said flew right by his head.
“I’ve seen just about every part of a smashed-up bullet you can see,” Kendall said. “Some of them, you know darn good and well, that if that hits you, it’s going to do you bodily harm.”
Neighbors say hundreds of lead ammunition fragments — and some bullets scarred only by a barrel — are either hitting targets and ricocheting out of the 17-acre Sportsmen’s Club, or simply missing the targets and sand backstop berms altogether. Kendall told CDN he’s found ammunition on his land since 2000.
[ Read more: Trace levels of lead in wells worry shooting range neighbors ]
Rural residents are frustrated, fearful of being struck by a bullet or lead contaminating their water and fed up with a regular barrage of gunfire that can sound like a “war zone” at times. They blame government officials, shooting range operators and law enforcement officers, many of whom train at the range, for failing to take actions that would stop the continual flow of ammunition.
The increased use of the facility, and law enforcement’s reliance on it for training after dark, has escalated health and safety worries, they told CDN. Bellingham Police Department was one agency that switched to Sportsmen’s Club after the closure of the Plantation Rifle Range in 2022.
Sportsmen’s Club, established in 1938, has transformed from a rustic front line and a rudimentary skeet range to a major regional shooting center holding contracts with more than 20 law enforcement agencies in 2025. It boasts covered firing lines, a clubhouse, action bays, youth programs and 2,000 memberships.
The operations of the not-for-profit shooting range have faced little to no state or county oversight. The facility predates land-use regulations in the county, which means it has been “grandfathered in” and there is no initial permit for the operation that would restrict use on the property.
“It just stands to reason that there needs to be an official department — government, if you will — overseeing what happens at that gun club,” Kendall said.
While the vast majority of the lead appears to be landing on Kendall’s property, which runs along the western edge of the range, fragments and whole bullets have also been found on the metal roof of the private property across Birch Bay Lynden Road. A Cascadia Daily News reporter observed a handful of fragments on a walk around Kendall’s land.
Custer Sportsmen’s Club President Todd Epps told CDN in September he was “unaware of any allegations of ricochet ammunition leaving the facility.”
But ricochet bullets are an issue Kendall said he’s raised on multiple occasions with previous gun club presidents and Epps.
When presented with an internal Whatcom County report alleging that, if left unaddressed, the issue had the “potential to lead to serious injury or death,” Epps stated in an email: “’Ammunition’ escaping allegations are just that — allegations — as far as we are aware.”
Epps said that the organization was not aware of any intact projectiles being recovered and that small fragments are “not immediately dangerous to property, life or health.”
He said that Kendall “has a biased and vested interest in seeing CSC shut down” due to a legal dispute. Kendall filed a lawsuit, which is ongoing, against the Sportsmen’s Club over an easement road that runs through his property.
But other neighbors also said they were frustrated and worried about bullets flying out of the range and the increased noise pollution.
Jeff Creasey, who built his house across the street from the range after it appeared to be unused in the mid-1980s, said he’s found 10 pieces of ricochet bullets in various conditions on either his porch roof or in his gutters.
“I’m not anti-gun. I own guns. I’ve hunted my whole life. I understand that people need a safe place to go and shoot, especially nowadays,” Creasey said.
“The problem we have is, to a degree, they’re polluting our ground around the neighborhood with lead, there’s no two ways about that, and the danger of the ricochets,” he added.
Creasey alleged law enforcement agencies were ignoring his and Kendall’s concerns because deputies train at the facility.
Records from the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office show that a deputy visited Kendall’s property on Jan. 5, 2024, but collected no evidence and recommended no follow up.
Roughly a year later, documents show a deputy was dispatched to Kendall’s in response to another report of stray bullets. That deputy reportedly “contacted the Custer Gun Club [sic] and asked them to inspect the berm surrounding the back shooting bay to determine if any adjustments were needed to prevent future incidents.”
“It’s a danger to us,” Creasey said, recalling the first time he heard the distinctive whirring of a ricochet coming through his property decades ago. “Everybody around here has this problem. We complain to the county. We complain to everybody. Everybody kicks the can down the road.”
Ecology informed CDN on Tuesday, Jan. 28, it was meeting with the range this week along with Whatcom County Health and Community Services.
Internal report: ‘Potential to lead to serious injury or death’
In December 2023, two officials with Whatcom County Health and Community Services visited Kendall’s place to follow up on a complaint.
In an email to his supervisor, environmental specialist Arend Meijer wrote, “I am writing this report out of concern that if what we observed at Mr. Kendall’s property is accurate, and remains unaddressed, it has the potential to lead to serious injury or death.”
“There is an impact berm that surrounds this range, but I did not observe and am not aware of any additional engineered controls to prevent ricochets and/or off target rounds from escaping the intended impact area and landing on Mr. Kendall’s property,” he continued.
The distance between the berm and where Meijer found rounds was about 150 feet. Meijer, however, noted that the safety concern was likely outside his authority to address.
About three months before Meijer’s report, Creasey had met with Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu to discuss the lack of oversight and rapid fire machine gun noise, among other complaints. A public records request revealed a handful of emails between high-level county officials discussing complaints about the range.
The most recent email obtained by CDN, dated Feb. 21, 2024, sent by Whatcom County public affairs and strategy manager Jed Holmes to then-Deputy Executive Tyler Schroeder, floated two suggestions: getting the sheriff’s office involved or taking enforcement action based on Meijer’s report.
However, no one replied to the email.
“Our staff are not ballistics experts. We lack the expertise and authority to investigate the public safety risks associated with a person being hit by a stray or errant bullet,” Marie Duckworth, communications specialist for Whatcom County Health and Community Services, told CDN in an email on Jan. 27.
“Our role is to reduce the human health risks associated with high levels of lead in the environment,” she explained.
Duckworth said staff have spoken with leadership at the shooting range, as well as advised property owners on safe ways to dispose of the ammunition fragments found on their property.
Training for law enforcement jumped
The 2022 closure of the county-owned Plantation Rifle Range — previously home to an outdoor high-power range and an indoor pistol range — due to lead contamination has increased law enforcement reliance on the private Sportsmen’s Club, though many already had contracts with it.
Bellingham Police Department officers train at the range 60–80 days a year for about two to four hours per day, depending on the type of training, a BPD public information officer confirmed.
Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office has been using the club facilities since at least 2007, said Public Information Officer Deb Slater.
“For deputies to be safe they need to keep these skills as sharp as possible,” Slater said.
Slater confirmed that deputies have used the range after dusk to train for low-light shooting, which involves using flashlights in conjunction with their firearms. Previously, the state-mandated training was conducted at the Plantation range south of Bellingham.
Epps confirmed the range actively upgrades its facility and services to better meet the needs of law enforcement agencies. The not-for-profit also did a compliance review in 2022, Epps said.
Neighbors have complained about the heavy activity at the club, as well as the type of guns being fired. Creasey said 50-caliber weapons now regularly echo through the rural neighborhood.
“It was really minimal use,” Creasey said, describing the facility pre-2000. “I’d give anything if it was like that now.”
The noise from the club, while somewhat unsettling to Kendall now, was part of the reason he was able to secure the property for his tree service business about 25 years ago. He said the county figured nobody would complain about the noise of chainsaws running for hours if there was a shooting range next door.
Residents still seek official oversight
For more than two years, Kendall and Creasey said they have bounced between departments and agencies searching for who has the authority to prevent lead fragments and ammunition from littering their properties.
Kendall called 911 on at least four occasions in 2024, according to emergency call logs obtained by CDN.
Kendall recalled one interaction with a deputy who told him bullets landing on his property was a “civil matter.” Kendall said the deputy told him that unless he thought members of the range were shooting at him on purpose, it wasn’t an issue the sheriff’s office would investigate.
Slater clarified to CDN that while there might not be criminal intent in such a situation, an investigation could reveal negligence or reckless endangerment, both of which are potential criminal charges.
The Whatcom County Planning and Development Services staff conduct code enforcement when complaints are filed with them, explained Steve Roberge, who was the assistant director of services at the time CDN spoke with him in September. He no longer holds that position with the county.
Roberge said that while formal complaints about the Custer Sportsmen’s Club were filed more than a decade ago, none have been filed in years, though there have been some phone calls.
“Our code enforcement folks have talked to people more recently, but no one’s actually filed a complaint with us,” Roberge said.
Kendall was certain he had filed a formal complaint and was surprised when he learned that the department didn’t have one from him.
If a formal complaint was filed, the department would open up an investigation, Roberge said. The county would then review the setup of the range, including whether or not there has been any expansion or changes in the use or intensity of use.
Proof from a ‘Silver Bullet’
In January, when a CDN team returned to Kendall’s property there were fresh bullets on the ground, bright copper wrapped around heavy lead.
Feeling ignored, Kendall said it was up to him to prove that the ammunition scattered across his property originated from the shooting range.
“It’s going to be up to me to find what I call the silver bullet, a bullet that can be, without a doubt, proven that it came from across the property line,” Kendall said, aware of Custer Sportsmen’s Club stance that his complaints are only “allegations.”
Kendall reiterated that he wasn’t trying to shut the facility or stop people from using it. He said he simply wants the organization to make the necessary upgrades to prevent ammunition from ending up on his property.
“My wife said I’m getting really jumpy. [I] used to be a guy with basically nerves of steel — you got to have sometimes, doing what I did,” said Kendall, whose tree service work required a certain amount of calculated risk. “We’re just two fuddy-duddies trying to get through life and protect what we have.”
A previous version of this article used the incorrect pronoun for Arend Meijer. The story also misstated the timeframe for the meeting between the Department of Ecology, WCHCS and the shooting range. This article was updated at 3:00 p.m. Jan 31. 2025 Cascadia Daily News regrets the error.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.