San Leandro Rebuffs Railroad's $80,000 Demand For Firing Range Clean Up

Union Pacific and the San Leandro seem to be on different tracks when it comes to who should pay for cleaning the lead out of the Stege Pistol Range in Richmond, which closed in 1997.

As previously reported the railroad wants the city to pay $80,000 toward what it estimates to be the $3 million cost of environmental remediation for the site, once supposedly used as a target range by police officers from San Leandro and other communities.

But San Leandro City Attorney Richard Pio Roda said the city can find no record of ever having used the pistol range.

Pio Roda said UP has a letter of agreement, signed by a railroad official, that would have authorized city use of the site and would presumably have some bearing on the city's liability to help with clean up costs.

But Pio Roda said no one from the city signed the contract.

After Patch published its initial article, former San Leandro police officer Scott Cagle, now retired and living in Boise, Idaho, wrote in to say:

"I retired from SLPD after working there from 1990-2007. I can certainly say I never went to Richmond to shoot from 1990-1997. The police building was built in 1967 and there has been a shooting range in the basement the entire time. The range was closed on occasion for repairs but we always used the Optimist Club range, Chabot Range, or Sheriff's Dept ranges. All of the old timer photos I have seen of officers shooting they were shooting in the quarry above Bay O Vista. Obviously I can't comment on 1980-1990 but I seriously doubt the City would pay officers overtime or mileage to drive to Richmond."

San Leandro is not the only city that UP has asked for help on the cleanup.

But the railroad has so far declined to reveal which other jurisdictions it has asked for how much money.

UP has issued a statement that says in part:

"Over many years, law enforcement and other security agencies used the shooting range. Union Pacific has asked the city of San Leandro to pay a small portion of the remediation costs that Union Pacific will incur."

A spokesman for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), which is overseeing the cleanup, says property owners are allowed to seek partial reimbursement from parties that may have contributed to environmental issues.

To represent its interests, UP has hired Los Angeles attory David Cranston, who is described on his professional website as expert in helping "companies to recover environmental cleanup costs."