SULTAN, Wash. – It's been years in the making, but now it looks like efforts to clean up an area north of the town of Sultan in Snohomish County are paying off.

The area is known as the Sultan Basin – a forested area of state land used as both a trash dump and a shooting gallery.

"It was a Wild West show out there for years, decades," said Wade Holden, who is a gun owner himself.

Even digging down in the dirt, you can find shotgun shells and powerful rifle ammunition left on the ground years ago.

For years, Holden and an organization of volunteers have been cleaning up the mess left by others.

It used to be a lot worse. The non-profit Friends of the Trail have hauled out tons of trash, and not just plastic shells and brass, but TV sets and computers, even car parts.

Some trees weren't blown down; they were shot so many times, they fell down.

Some of the damage will take decades to heal.

The Washington Department of Natural Resources got some law enforcement up there, and the difference is between night and day.

It used to be legal to shoot there, but it isn't any more and the number of people bringing guns there has gone way down.

DNR officer Ron Whitehall was out here just last Saturday.

"I spend the entire day out here and I only found three shooters, which is quite an improvement over the 30 and 40 shooters I was getting last year at the same time," he said.

A key issue in all of this is safety as some of the stumps used for target practice are close to a road.

The Department of Natural Resources has other places where people can shoot safely and legally. To find out where you can shoot on DNR lands call a local DNR office. For the northwest region that includes Snohomish, Skagit and Whatcom counties, call 360-856-3500.