First lead, now carcinogenic clay pigeons in La Crosse river marsh

DNR demanding study from
gun club’s skeet shooting days

At first, Wisconsin’s natural resources agency was just concerned about the thousands of pounds of lead buried in the La Crosse river marsh.

Now, however, the Dept. of Natural Resources has turned its regulatory eyes to other possible contaminants there thanks to three decades of use and abuse by the La Crosse Gun Club.

The club closed up shop in 1963 but only after dropping an estimated 50,000 pounds of lead shot into the water from its skeet-shooting members.

The DNR wants the lead impacts studied.

Now, though, it is also demanding the city to identify possible contamination from some substances in the clay pigeons themselves that is considered carcinogenic.

That study and the lead study are pegged at close to $50,000 and could last nearly a year.

Meanwhile, warnings about eating fish caught from the marsh remain in place. 

In 2012, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse studied lead contaminants in the marsh paid for, in part, from a $60,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. UW-L also kicked in $5,000 in trying to help determine the amount of contamination.