Salazar Seeks Stimulus Projects for Converted Superfund Sites

"The President's recovery and reinvestment plan will help pump life into our economy by creating jobs for working Americans but it will also pump life into our national wildlife refuges, national parks and other public lands by allowing us to undertake much-needed maintenance and improvement projects for visitors and wildlife alike," Salazar said.

Salazar toured Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, a Superfund site located just east of downtown Denver.

Built to manufacture World War II chemical weapons, the 27 square mile refuge now is one of the largest Superfund sites in the country.

After World War II ended, some of the facilities were leased to private industry for the production of industrial and agricultural chemicals. The Arsenal later became a site for chemical agent demilitarization programs. Since 1985, the site's sole mission has been environmental remediation.

A buck on the Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (Photo by Aaron Rinker courtesy USFWS)

In 1987, the Arsenal was listed on EPA's Superfund List. Currently, the Arsenal is cleaning up of soil, structures and groundwater. The remediation is about three-quarters complete and is expected to conclude in 2011.

Cleanup plans were developed and approved by the U.S. Army, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the state of Colorado, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Shell Oil Company.

At present, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administers 12,000 acres of the site as a unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Once the cleanup is complete, the remainder of the Arsenal will officially transition to one of the largest urban national wildlife refuges in the nation.

The site is inhabited by more than 330 species of wildlife, including bison, lynx, fox, burrowing owls, bald eagles and other raptors, as well as migratory waterfowl and resident species such as mule and white-tailed deer, coyotes, and badgers.

"While wildlife thrives here, the refuge is not ecologically whole," says the Fish and Wildlife Service. "Several species native to the area no long occur here: the gray wolf and the black-footed ferret. The bison was reintroduced to the Refuge in March 2006."

Salazar is considering stimulus projects such as the construction of a new "green" visitor center to serve visitors to the Arsenal, development of a bus tour route for visitors; and enhancements to the Arsenal's existing bison management infrastructure.

In May 2008, Colorado settled a quarter-century-old claim for natural resource damages at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Superfund site. The state reached agreements in principle with both Shell and the United States Army that will result in over $35 million in acquisition, enhancement, and restoration of natural resources in and around the northeast metro area Arsenal site.

Then a U.S. Senator representing Colorado, Salazar said at the time that the settlement funds may help implement the vision of a metro northeast greenway corridor to preserve open space and wildlife habitats, restore water resources and provide new recreational opportunities.

"The Rocky Mountain Arsenal is the lynchpin to that vision, the centerpiece of these adjacent regional preservation and restoration efforts," he said.

As part of the settlement, Shell agreed to donate an additional $10 million to a state natural resource foundation that will be used to fund projects in the Northeast Greenway Corridor.

Congressman Ed Perlmutter, a Colorado Democrat and officials from Northeast Greenway Corridor local governments joined Salazar on the tour.

Visitors take a tram tour of the Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge (Photo courtesy USFWS)

"The transformation of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal from Superfund site to wildlife refuge, and its integration into broader open space efforts along the Northeast Greenway, is a proud product of years of collaborative work among stakeholders," Salazar said.

The Arsenal is part of the larger Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge Complex, which includes Two Ponds National Wildlife Refuge in north-central metro Denver, and to the west of the city, the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

Components for nuclear weapons were manufactured at Rocky Flats until 1992. It was added to the Superfund List in 1989 and cleanup of chemical and radiological contamination was completed near the end of 2005.

Now, the U.S. Department of Energy manages the former weapons manufacturing unit. Jurisdiction over 4,000 acres of the former buffer zone is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.

Fish and Wildlife Service officials briefed Salazar about other stimulus possibilities, including improvements to units of the National Fish Hatchery System and habitat restoration projects in Colorado and the other states in the agency's Mountain-Prairie Region.

Salazar said the projects at the Arsenal and throughout Colorado, if approved by Congress, would infuse millions of dollars into the state's economy.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.