Yorktown Naval Weapons Station is seeking to build a shooting range for rifles near the western edge of its base at a site less than a mile from the Grove Interchange.
The new rifle range is part of an expansion at the base for 800 to 1,000 Marines who are moving to the base. The Marines are members of the U.S. Marine Corps Marine Fleet Anti Terrorism companies currently being consolidated into a Marine Corps Security Force Regiment for Yorktown. Those Marines will use a pistol range already on the base as well as the new rifle range, said Mark Piggott, a spokesperson for the base.
Piggott said activities at the rifle range will not affect anybody outside the fence line of the base. An open area will be used, where a barrier will be set up to absorb the bullets. The range will not be visible from outside the base.
He said the proposed site for the range is currently undergoing a study to ensure there is not anything in the environment that would prohibit the range from being built. The new range will allow the Marines to practice rifle shooting on the Peninsula. Currently, they must travel to Dam Neck Fleet Training Center in Virginia Beach to use rifles.
Piggott said other government agencies will also use the range, though it will not be in use all day, every day. The new range would be built close to 650 planned residential units at the Marquis at Williamsburg, which abuts the base.
In October, YNWS Capt. Lowell Crow wrote a letter to the York County Planning Division as the planners were considering the proposal for residential units at the Marquis. He said the U.S. Navy does not object to residential construction in the area, however he noted the existing pistol and Explosive Ordinance Disposal ranges could generate up to 115 decibels near the Marquis. The military is exempt from York County’s noise ordinance.
