To the editor:

I am writing in support of Saranac Lake resident Michael Keating’s guest commentary in the Oct. 23 edition of the Adirondack Daily Enterprise, titled “Weapons testing in the Adirondack Park?” urging the APA to deny the application of Michael Hopmeier to build a range on his property in Lewis to test-fire 155 mm howitzer cannons “up to 30 times per year on weekdays, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.”

As a former Fire Direction Officer with the 2/83 Artillery Howitzer Battalion in Budingen, Germany, back in the 1960s, I know what the blast of a 155 mm Howitzer sounds like. It is not just loud. It is deafeningly ear-splitting, reaching 180 to 181 decibels — which is powerful enough to cause immediate and permanent hearing damage — and can carry for very long distances, potentially more than 100 miles, depending on atmospheric and environmental conditions. It has no place in the Adirondack Park. Period.

Joe Mercurio

Saranac Lake