The U.S. Coast Guard has received thousands of comments concerning plans to hold live-fire drills near some of the best perch and walleye water on Lake Erie and elsewhere in the Great Lakes.

With a public meeting planned for tomorrow night in Erie and the public comment period ending Nov. 13, the Coast Guard will decide whether to make the popular "first trench" about five miles north of Walnut Creek off-limits to anglers when it conducts exercises with automatic machine guns.

Of the four zones scheduled for Erie, the one involving the first trench is the largest -- at 133.9 square miles, or 1.3 percent of the lake -- and the most controversial, over concerns about public safety and the environment.

"The Coast Guard didn't do its homework," said John Fuhrmann, president of the Pennsylvania Steelhead Association, one of several groups opposing the plan. "It didn't look at the impact on boaters when it came up with its proposal. Up to 1,000 boats a day can be seen at the first trench fishing for walleye, perch and steelhead. It's the prime Erie hot spot."

Dan Kelly of Buckets Charters and president of the Port Erie Charter Association -- newly formed to address issues such as this -- estimates that 85 percent of the 160 charter trips he conducts every year are in the first trench "because that's where the fish are."

It is one of 34 spots throughout the Great Lakes where the Coast Guard plans to train personnel with M-240B Bravo automatic machine guns -- an upgrade in weaponry from the M-16 semi-automatic rifles and 9-millimeter pistols it used before 9-11, said Chief Petty Officer Robert Lanier, a Coast Guard spokesman based in Cleveland. The M-240B Bravos can fire 7.62 millimeter rounds at about 600 rounds a minute and can be used to hit a target at a distance of just under two miles if fired into the air at a certain trajectory.

"Our efforts and missions have increased since 9-11," Lanier said. "We have to make sure everyone is qualified on the M240s in case they need to be mobilized for anywhere in the country."

In January, the Coast Guard held the first of 24 training exercises so far this year with the new weapons in temporary zones, Lanier said. It is now looking to make the zones permanent, although they would be used just two to three times a year for four to six hours at a stretch. Zones such as the first trench were chosen, he said, because they are convenient and would allow units to interrupt training to respond to local rescue missions and other emergencies.

Although the Ninth Coast Guard District protects the Great Lakes -- which comprise one-quarter of the earth's freshwater and connect ocean freighters to inland farms and industry -- its personnel can be mobilized and sent anywhere in the country in a national security threat or natural disaster, such as Hurricane Katrina, Lanier said.

Fuhrmann said the cost to public safety and to the environment is too high when the Coast Guard could find other places for its drills.

"Deploying people once or twice a year to already established ranges wouldn't put thousands of pounds of lead or copper into the lake with expended rounds," he said. "Think of the long-term effect of heavy metals in the water, the impact on aquatic life."

Although the Coast Guard's heath risk assessment studies claim that expended rounds would pose no elevated danger to humans or to the environment, it acknowledges that nearly 7,000 pounds of lead compounds would be fired into the Great Lakes annually, an amount the Sierra Club calls unacceptable -- nearly twice the amount Ohio discharges in a year.

"Lead in any amount is a hazardous substance," the Sierra Club said in its official comment to the Coast Guard. "The lead shot from a single shotgun shell or the lead bullet from a single round of ammunition meets the definition of a hazardous substance."

Other environmental groups also have expressed alarm about risks to the aquatic food chain as well as migratory birds. But the immediate concern is public safety, Fuhrman said. "How is the Coast Guard going to manage that?"

All of the proposed zones are more than five miles off shore and Lanier said the drills would be conducted "pretty far within the zones." Marine radio, radar and observers will be used to try to keep boaters away, and the Coast Guard is seeking a venue for publishing notification of drills, he said.

"We'll broadcast urgent marine radio messages several days before, as well as the day of, the drills. We can't judge whether someone would wander in or not, but we'd keep a watchful eye out on radar scan and with an observer, and stop the exercise immediately if that happens."

Fuhrman said no means would be foolproof when a zone is near a busy sport fishery. "I'd say one in five boaters at best has a marine radio, which means people would be out there in harm's way ... not through any fault of the Coast Guard ... but because people are people.

"Enforcement is going to be very hard."

Response to the proposal has been so significant the Coast Guard extended its deadline for public comments from September to Nov. 13 and will have held nine meetings in seven states before finalizing its plan. Although zones would be five miles from the U.S.--Canada maritime border, some Canadians have voiced opposition.

Captain Kelly will travel from his McKees Rocks home to Erie tomorrow for the public meeting, where he plans to express his concerns.

"It's wrong for us, wrong for our clients, wrong for the everyday fisherman," he said. "We're already paying a surcharge for the privilege of fishing the lake with that stamp we got stuck having to buy, and now someone's telling us we can't go where the fish are?"