Gunfire ruining caliber of life for Discovery Bay residents

Published 12:01 am Wednesday, June 15, 2005

DISCOVERY BAY — From the quiet, scenic bluff of Chevy Chase Beach Cabins, Barbara Bailey wonders if the machine gun and semi-automatic weapons she has heard blazing away would be more appropriate on a distant military base.

“It sounds like a war when it’s going on over there,” Bailey said Tuesday, gesturing eastward across the bay from her well-kept South Discovery Road grounds.

“It’s kind of disconcerting. You’re out here just having a glass of wine, and then it sounds like a war started.

“I hear machine guns, and it’s getting to be too much. I want to know if it’s legal.”

The sounds Bailey hears come from the 3,000-acre Discovery Bay Land Co. grounds leased by Security Services Northwest Inc., which more than a year ago got into the homeland security training business.

Marine and land-based “counter assault teams,” with security force trainees from across the United States, are being trained at the site on the Gunstone family property near Gardiner.

High-powered weapons

Northwest Security President Joe D’Amico said Tuesday that the compound has several different shooting ranges, which at times can be used for homeland security-related high-powered weapons shooting practice.

D’Amico, whose operation started in the late 1970s as a basic commercial and residential security company, said he would work with the public and county officials as a “good neighbor” to find a solution to the mounting noise complaints filed with his company and government officials.

He defends the operation as a needed training ground for homeland security that protects military and private operations and ocean-going vessels such as oil tankers, which if attacked by terrorists, could spill their cargo into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and possibly Discovery Bay.

“We’re a very professional organization with retired admirals and captains on our staff, and that’s why we take this very seriously,” D’Amico said.