robdaviswrites

They are where National Guard soldiers store their weapons and meet for monthly drill weekends. In hundreds of towns across the country, they're also community gathering halls, rented out for weddings and other public events.

Thank you. Taking those point by point:

• No one's suggesting that soldiers not train with guns or go to war without guns. This is a story about the failure to clean up lead amid the many, many warnings from safety inspectors who told military leaders that lead was spreading in the buildings. (Worth noting that lead also resulted from burning leaded fuel indoors, weapons cleanings in public spaces and deteriorating lead paint -- though the ranges were the predominant source.)

• I had a pretty clear mental checklist and phases to the reporting, which helped it stay on track. Frequent story memos to my editors keeping them abreast of the progress were also helpful.

• Reporting this was slightly easier. Pulling the threads from what ended up being 23,000+ pages of documents was a challenge.

I'll start by answering one question from The Oregonian's Facebook page: Where did the lead come from and doesn't the military use full metal jacketed bullets?

The indoor firing ranges in National Guard armories were used for a variety of weapons training -- handguns, shotguns, etc. Many ranges did not support .556 combat rounds.

Unless they are specifically described as containing a 'lead-free primer,' cartridges typically have lead compounds like lead styphnate in their primers (it's an explosive that ignites the gunpowder, which propels the bullet). The numbers I've seen put it at about 10 milligrams of lead per bullet primer. This vaporizes into fumes when it explodes and poses an inhalation risk to shooters.

Also worth noting that the Guard's ranges were not only used by soldiers, but also local police, security guards, community members, etc. So it's hard to paint the type of cartridges fired with a broad brush. It's a bit of a mishmash from range to range, state to state.

I had a huge amount of support from my editors during this investigation. They encouraged it from the start. It wouldn't have happened without them. Mark Katches, our top editor, will tell you that The Oregonian is absolutely committed to this work -- our watchdog team is larger than it's ever been.

Oregon estimates it'll cost $21.6 million to clean the firing ranges in its armories and convert them to other uses. It spent $2M cleaning one armory that was grossly contaminated.

Can't tell you offhand what the O&M budget for an armory would be annually. But this is a sizable chunk of change. Oregon already had a deferred maintenance wishlist of $80M for all its armories statewide.

Other states have spent less on cleanings, but they've also seen those cleanings fail to remove all the lead.