Following the news that a Lynbrook school had to be closed for three days due to the lead levels from the school's rifle range, scrutiny turned to other districts that had rifle ranges within their schools, including Massapequa High School, which has an active rifle range.

According to Robert Schilling, administrative assistant for the Massapequa School District, the superintendent of Lynbrook Schools contacted Massapequa, informally, last Tuesday when they discovered that their elementary school had a high lead level from their rifle range.

Massapequa High School has had a rifle range in the basement for over 30 years and it was re-done in the mid-eighties. At that time the rifle range was equipped with its own ventilation system which vents directly outside and does not intermingle with the ventilation system for the remainder of the school.

On Veterans Day, when the school was closed anyway, the Massapequa School District had an environmental testing company come in to do two types of lead testing. The first test done was an air quality test and the second was a swipe test, in which they wipe the surface area and test the dust particles. They did these two tests both inside the range and in the areas surrounding the range such as the hallway, surrounding rooms, and the area outside where the ventilation system egresses.

According to Schilling the air quality tests, both inside and outside the rifle range came back within the HUD and OSHA acceptable ranges. "The swipe test outside the range came back within acceptable guidelines but, inside, as we expected," said Schilling, "it contained lead above the ranges but it's a rifle range, they use lead shots, we almost expected to find that the dust particles in there would contain lead."

Following those findings, the school district had an environmental cleaning crew go into the range on Saturday morning and clean it up. Schilling said, "It's been re-tested and we're ready to go." The district feels confident that because the rifle range has its own ventilation system the lead particles were not dispersed throughout the high school. "I think that was one of the problems that a couple of other ranges were having is that they don't have that separate kind of system," said Schilling.

The only group that uses the rifle range at the high school is the varsity rifle team and there is only one key for the range.

Schilling said that although he has received calls about the rifle range all week, all the calls were from the media and no calls from parents were received at the central office. "It's a great tribute to the confidence that I guess the community has in the safety of that program and at this point, as much as it's an issue for those other districts, it's not an issue right here, right now," he added.

The season begins for the Massapequa Varsity Rifle team this week. Schilling stressed that the rifle range is safe and the coach, who is also the coordinator for Nassau County Section VIII, will ensure that the other ranges that the team competes at are safe and within the acceptable levels of lead as well.

The Massapequa rifle range is inspected annually by the Nassau County Bomb Squad Unit, so, "Our safety is second to none," concluded Schilling.