1,200 Acres on and near Rocky Flats Conserved and Federal District Court Rules on Refuge Land Transfer to Hightway Authority

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The Board of PLAN Jeffco has opposed the proposed W 470 – Jefferson Parkway/Tollway primarily because of the potential for releasing plutonium contaminated soils, increased traffic on Hwy 93, increasing development in sensitive scenic areas and because traffic studies have continually shown that the Parkway would not alleviate traffic problems east of the proposed road nor would a toll road be financially viable in the long term. PLAN Jeffco has worked for years to support the preservation of the natural areas on Rocky Flats – Section 16 and the mountain backdrop and foreground are part of an ecosystem and wildlife migration route. As the years have passed, inadequate potential use of the toll way has continued to be the case as more of the land in the Northwest quadrant was preserved as open space and much of the potential commercially-industrially zoned lands are being developed for housing.

A beltway around Denver was drawn on maps in Washington, D.C. during the Eisenhower Presidency – the start of the Interstate Highway system. In most cases beltways do make sense, but when geography interferes they may not be practical. Cities adjacent to mountain ranges, lakes or oceans have developed close to those features leaving little or no room for the space required by a freeway. PLAN Jeffco participated in the Denver Regional Council of Government, (DRCOG) studies relating to Governor Lamm’s putting a “silver stake” through building C-470 to interstate standards. The funds saved were used to improve Santa Fe Drive from I-25 to C-470.

When W-470 was proposed with a small tax on each property each year, PLAN Jeffco attended many meetings, but did not participate in the election that defeated the proposal. As studies were conducted in the late 1990’s and 2000’s PLAN Jeffco was not surprised that estimated traffic counts continued to not justify such a route. This did not stop proponents of the Parkway as some wanted it to reduce the traffic on Wadsworth (the traffic studies showed the reduction would be minimal) and others wanted it to support commercial development along the route (only area left on the Parkway route is along Highway 72 between Indiana and Highway 93 and much of that has been rezoned residential.)

During the legislative process for designation of the former Rocky Flats nuclear facility to become a National Wildlife Refuge, the Parkway Authority lobbied to have a portion of the Rocky Flats site disposed of for transportation purposes so, it could construct a toll way. The bill authorizing transfer to the Fish and Wildlife Service for refuge purposes included permission for the sale of a 300-foot strip on the West side of Indiana Street for right-of-way.

Both Boulder County and Boulder City Governments for a long time had been opponents of the Parkway, because of the potential for additional development along Highway 93. They have made three expensive acquisitions along Highway 93 North of Highway 72. Jefferson County Open Space (JCOS) has had an agreement with Lafarge to not exercise their mining lease on most of the state owned Section 16, just North of the Northeast corner of Highways 72 and 93. Section 16 and portions of the lands on the West side of Rocky Flats are home to relic Front Range Tall Grass Prairie. Less was spent on the Rocky Flats remediation than was appropriated, and some of these, Natural Resources Damages funds, were made available for land and mineral right acquisitions in the area.

After considerable negotiation, a complex agreement was reached and Boulder City and County dropped its opposition to the Parkway. The financial contributions were to be:

Parkway Authority: $2.8 Million, the appraised value of the right-of-way,

Natural Resources Damages funds: $3.3 million

JCOS: $5 million

Boulder City: $2 million

Boulder County: $2 million

Jefferson County: $ 0.1 million (CTF)

Other sources: $ 0.3 million

In exchange:

The Parkway Authority would get the right-of-way

The State Land Board would be paid $9.4 million for Section 16 surface and mineral rights

Lafarge would be paid $3.3 million to terminate their extraction leases on Sections 4 and 16.

$2.8 million would go to the to McKays for the mineral rights on Section 9 that would be transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service

The Rocky Flats Refuge would obtain Section 16 surface and mineral rights.

The Refuge would gain the mineral rights to1200 acres, which would allow including these acres within the Refuge.

This agreement left PLAN Jeffco’s Board with a dilemma. Conservation of Section 16 and the other land adjacent to the refuge had been high on our conservation list for many years and this agreement might be the last chance to achieve their preservation. But the price was removing another hurdle for the Parkway. The Board chose not to take a formal position, however, we did actively participate in the NEPA process and seriously questioned the lack of analyses in the Environmental Assessment and absence of an Environmental Impact Statement. Some of the information included in the final decision documents and relied on by the plaintiff’s in their legal challenges was included because of PLAN Jeffco’s efforts.

The original agreement was for the property transfers to close in the summer of 2012. The Town of Superior, City of Golden, and two environmental organizations brought suit taking the position that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s environmental review was not adequate and ignored the potential plutonium contamination, impact on wildlife, and the impacts of the traffic. The closing dates for the property transfers were moved, to by December 31, 2012.

The Federal District court ruled against Golden, Superior and the environmental plaintiffs on December 21, 2012. On December 24th the all the plaintiffs, except Golden, petitioned the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals for an injunction preventing the land transfers and appealed the District Court decision. The injunction was granted on December 26th. However, on December 28th the Appellate Court set the injunction aside. The closings, listed above, took place on December 31st. The Town of Superior and the two environmental organizations’ appeal briefs are due on February 19, 2013. 

When Winter Comes: Strategies for Survival

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Author: Sally White

Illustrations: Jan Ratcliffe

Date: February 2013

Our world is surprisingly full of animals, even in our heavily developed areas. How does nature ensure that fullness? By paying a large price: excess. This annual tax often comes due in winter. Every student of nature stumbles upon and must come to terms with the necessity for such excess. Charles Darwin once remarked upon the “clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low and horribly cruel works of nature.” Henry David Thoreau sounded a somewhat more optimistic note: “I love to see that Nature is so rife with life that myriads can be afforded to be sacrificed and suffered to prey upon one another.” Whatever we may think of this system, it works.

In the plant world, we find it useful to describe life cycles by their duration. For example, we understand some plants to be annuals that go from seed to seed in a single season, investing all their energy in the next generation. Others are perennials that take several seasons (or decades) to grow, reproduce, and die. The concept is equally useful when applied to animals. Some animals, especially among the insects, could be considered annuals, going from egg to egg in a single season or year. Even those who could live for years用otential perennials熔ften don’t. Winter is one of the reasons for shorter lifespans.

Many insects invest any hopes they have for the future in an egg or pupa that is dormant during the cold months; most butterflies use this approach. Others, for example hornets, go from the abundance of a large “city”葉he paper nest with its thousands of inhabitants葉o a few adult queens, stocked with sperm for the following spring. At least one must make it through winter to begin again. On the average, one does. Ladybird beetles also go through winter as adults, coming together by the thousands each fall to hide in crevices and other sheltered places on mountaintops. For animals large and small, winter success is often a matter of survival of the fattest. Stocking up enough reserve energy to get through the winter is especially important to those who will not look for food again until spring: bears, snakes and lizards, frogs and toads, hibernating ground squirrels, and many more. They sleep, gambling that the fat they’ve stored will last longer than the winter ahead.

Others remain active, using hidden food caches as pine squirrels and scrub jays do, or searching for food all winter as deer and elk do. Stocking up is still important, though. The more energy they’ve been able to store internally during summer’s abundance, the better their chances of finding enough external food sources to get by. Among birds, many escape the rigors of winter by migrating, but there is no escaping the annual tax, and no way the world can hold all the young produced each year. In 1991, volunteers for Hawkwatch International counted a thousand Sharp-shinned hawks migrating over one mountain ridge in Utah; almost 50% were immature birds making their first trip south. Only about 30% of those young birds will live to make the return trip. By our standards, this reflects an oppressive tax indeed; by nature’s standards, it is a necessary one.

When Winter Comes: Strategies for Survival. Illustration by Jan Ratcliffe (drawing of a bird)Our smallest winter-resident bird, the chickadee, lives all winter on a nutritional and energetic edge. In ten years, Aldo Leopold banded 97 chickadees on his Sand County farm. Only one survived five winters; 67 didn’t make it past their first. But survival isn’t just a lottery; much can depend on the decisions the animals themselves make. Read the chapter on chickadees that ends his Sand County Almanac擁t’s one of his best.

“It seems likely that weather is the only killer so devoid of both humor and dimension as to kill a chickadee….To the chickadee, winter wind is the boundary of the habitable world….Books on nature seldom mention wind; they are written behind stoves.” 輸ldo Leopold

It’s no wonder, then, that animals do whatever they can to reduce the demands winter places on them, to increase their chances of being here come spring. Deer invade your yard to eat fall apples or early spring tulips; mice and squirrels, along with wasps and spiders, invade your house in search of warm spots where their limited stored energy will not be drained by cold. It’s going to be a tough time to be outdoors, and somehow the animals know it. That wasp wedged under the bark in your woodpile may be the queen of a new city; the spider in the corner of your porch could found a new dynasty; the mouse in your basement is the matriarch of next summer’s owl food. All are just doing the job nature assigned them at a time when she’s not about to make that job easy.

Copyright © 2013 Sally L. White

Open Space Budget for 2013

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Sales tax revenue for 2013 is projected at 4% more than the actual revenue in 2011. The operating budget remains the same as 2012, plus small increases in cost allocations for County provided services. The budgeting for acquisitions was reduced by $1,000,000 and transferred to development to be used as matching funds for the GOCO Clear Creek grant. The acquisition budget also is reduced by $1,000,000 in 2014 and 2015, in order to have the match for the GOCO grant. Development budgets, other than the Clear Creek trail, were reduced to $340,000 in 2013, $240,000 in 2014, and $200,000 in 2015. Obviously if the sales tax revenue increases by more than the anticipated annual 2%, more will be available for either acquisitions or development. The acquisitions budget for each of these three years is $2.2 million.

Line items in the budget include:

Bond Service $12.94 million

Operations $10.52 million

Acquisitions $2.2 million

Leases $0.06 million

Grants $1.22 million

Development $1.74 million

(Clear Creek $1.4 million)

(Misc $0.34 million)

Total $28.88 million

Note that the only major development planned in 2013 relates to the Clear Creek Trail. Some 2012 projects will be completed in 2013 using funds budgeted in 2012. These include natural surface trail from Reynolds Park to the Colorado Trail; a restroom at the Elk Meadow Dog Off-Leash Park; trailhead, parking lot, and restroom at the Quaker Street entry to South Table Mountain; complete improvements at Crown Hill; trailhead, parking lot, and restroom at Apex; restrooms at Matthews Winters, Mt Falcon west, and Windy Saddle; and water well at the White Ranch campground.

The bond payments will remain at $13 million through 2019, in 2020 about $6 million more becomes available. JCOS has a goal is to find $5 million in grants to supplement the budget during the next three years.