Recreational shooters and hunters hoping to sight their guns at state-run shooting ranges in southwestern Pennsylvania will find all but one of them closed until the end of September.

As part of a statewide program to remove toxic lead from firing ranges located on State Game Lands, the Pennsylvania Game Commission last year directed $1 million in state Growing Greener funds to remediate earthen backstops contaminated with decades of lead bullets.

Work is now under way in the commission's Southwest District, which includes nine shooting ranges in Allegheny, Beaver, Washington, Greene, Armstrong, Westmoreland, Fayette, Indiana, Cambria and Somerset counties.

"We're voluntarily doing lead remediation on all State Game Land ranges in the state," said Game Commission Southwest Region Director Matt Hough. "Some of the ranges were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and there's a substantial level of lead built up there."

Of the nine ranges, two have been closed permanently. Of the remaining seven, only a Cambria County site remains open.

Metals Treatment Technologies, a Colorado-based company that boasts some 250 shooting-range cleanups in the past 10 years, was hired to do the remediation.

Most of the lead in the bullet-laced backstops is being screened out and recycled. What's left is treated with a process called Ecobond, which makes the remaining lead fragments in the dirt more stable.

"Lead is stable in the environment, but mined lead becomes unstable and leaches into the water," said James M. Barthel, president and chief executive officer of Metals Treatment Technologies. "What we can't screen out, we chemically treat back to a natural lead mineral that is not leachable."

The treated fill is returned to the backstops.

Barry Zaffuto, land management supervisor for the Game Commission's Southwest District, said lead remediation is only part of the project. Ongoing construction includes work on drainage, side berms, gravel sidewalks, compliance with National Rifle Association safety standards and upgrades intended to make future lead remediation unnecessary.

"We're facing all backstops with a limestone and sand mixture, which stops the bullets," he said. "We'll routinely screen the sand and remove the bullets. In some places, we're putting up blocks of cement mixed with Styrofoam. The bullets stop in the blocks, and we'll periodically replace them."

Statewide, about $355,000 has been spent on the remediation program. Mr. Hough said the commission expects to spend an additional $710,000.

The two closed ranges include a small one with two shooting stations near Blairsville, on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land. Although remediated, it was decommissioned due to minimal use, Mr. Hough said. Another small range in State Game Lands 285 in Beaver County was closed because of excessive vandalism.

In Cambria County, the range on State Game Lands 108 is open.

Mr. Hough said ranges in the following counties and State Game Lands have been remediated and are expected to reopen by the end of September: Allegheny, SGL 203; Fayette, SGL 51; Greene, SGL 179 and 223; Indiana, SGL 248; Washington, SGL 245; Westmoreland, SGL 42.

Mr. Zaffuto said original plans called for the ranges to reopen before September, the traditional start of Pennsylvania hunting season, but "it was a bigger job than we thought it would be."

Mr. Hough said during construction, hunters and sport shooters who usually use the free State Game Lands ranges might pay to shoot at a private gun club range.

Chuck Wainright, secretary of the Allegheny County Rifle Club near Bauerstown, said membership at his group is up and "this pushes more people our way."

Mr. Wainright said his group received a letter from the Game Commission suggesting it work with a certified environmental contractor when remediating backstops at its firing ranges.

The club has yet to act on the recently received letter.