Land Trust Protects Two Mountain Properties

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MALT scenic view

…by Vicky Gits

Mountain Area Land Trust of Evergreen announced Jan. 6 it had closed a conservation easement on an 80-acre property near Divide in Teller County.  Conserving this private property connects the surrounding Pike National Forest to maintain a valuable wildlife corridor.  The property features a large pond, several springs, and wooded hillsides, making excellent wildlife habitat.  Moose, elk, mountain lions and eagles have been spotted on the property.  There are also remnants of an 1850’s homestead that will be protected by the easement.

Separately on Dec. 30, the land trust announced closing on a conservation easement on a beautiful 71-acre property near Bailey.  The land has breathtaking mountain and river views and includes a half-mile of river frontage on the North Fork of the South Platte River.  This easement ensures the habitat and scenic vistas will be conserved forever.

In the early 1900s, a Denver bicycle club owned the land and held bike races in the meadow near the river.  In the mid-1900s, the property was used as a church summer camp.  The current owners have owned the property since 1994.  MALT has been working with these owners for several years.

Founded in 1992, MALT is a nonprofit organization that primarily helps facilitate the conservation-easement process for private landowners. Since inception it has protected nearly 15,000 acres in Park, Jefferson and Teller counties.

For information see www.savetheland.org

Jeffco Open Space Volunteer Recruitment Fair

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From observing wildlife and assisting visitors to bringing history to life, volunteers find many ways to contribute to Jeffco Open Space. Learn about all the opportunities by dropping in at a Volunteer Recruitment Fair on Thursday, February 12 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Jeffco Open Space Administration Building, 700 Jefferson County Parkway, Suite 100, Golden, CO 80401. For more info, visit http://jeffco.us/open-space/volunteer/job-descriptions/.

Many Thanks,

Will Lebzelter
Communications Associate
Jeffco Open Space
303.271.5961

Hickenlooper calls for Bike Health campaign, trail system and new “recreational crown jewels”

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By Vicky Gits

Jan. 15: In the State of the State address, Gov. John Hickenlooper spoke at length on the economy and legislation and reserved a few paragraphs for his thoughts on cycling and preservation of open space.

Gov. John Hickenlooper“We have asked Ken Gart, our volunteer bike czar, to assist us in launching a Bike Health initiative that will take on a number of large challenges, such as create a publicly available data source to track existing bicycle trails, routes and cyclist feedback; seek funding for new construction for bicycle infrastructure; and create a plan to connect bike routes across communities and around the tallest mountains in Colorado,” Hickenlooper said.

He named Mike King, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, to build on the accomplishments of Great Outdoors Colorado and join federal and local open space partners to craft a statewide recreational trail system. One such network envisions linking the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge, the South Platte River, Rocky Flats and Rocky Mountain National Park.

Hickenlooper called for “identifying a new generation of recreational crown jewels,” and increasing opportunities for people to “hunt, fish, hike and explore the extraordinary natural beauty that only Colorado can offer.”

Stampeding Black Elephants

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Stampeding Black Elephants, Tom Friedman, NYT

Did you realize that PLAN Jeffco and Jefferson County Open Space are an integral part of a world wide effort to deal with massive environmental problems such as global warming, climate change, deforestation, mass extinction and water pollution? Well, we didn’t either until we read Tom Friedman’s op-ed piece in the New York Times Sunday Review Section on November 23, 2014 entitled “Stampeding Black Elephants”.

So what’s a Black Elephant? When Friedman was at the recent World Parks Congress in Sydney, Australia, he heard this term used for the first time. The Black Elephant is a cross between “…‘a black swan’ (an unlikely, unexpected event with enormous ramifications) and ‘the elephant in the room’ (a problem that is visible to everyone, yet no one still wants to address it).”

The Black Elephant in question is the plethora of environmental issues which are influencing each other — global warming, deforestation, ocean acidification, mass extinction and massive fresh water pollution. These tragedies strike and we claim they’re unpredictable black swans. In truth they’re the elephant which is already in the room.

The Congress brought together some 6,000 scientists and environmentalists from around the globe, all of whom were focused on the same goal: “guarding and expanding protected areas, which are the most powerful tools we have to restrain the environmental black elephants.”

Russ Mittermeier, one of the world’s leading primatologists, said to Friedman that “…protected forests, marine sanctuaries and national parks are not zoos, not just places to see nature. They are the basic life support systems that provide the clean air and water, food, fisheries, recreation, stable temperatures and natural coastal protections that sustain us humans…”

This article brings a global perspective to what we’re trying to do in Jefferson County, in preserving and conserving our open spaces. Friedman cites perspective after perspective, from countries across the world, and they all point to a common thread of thought…our open spaces and “parks are really the heart, lungs, and circulatory systems of the world — and they’re all endangered.” You can read the entire column in the New York Times online, at

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/opinion/sunday/thomas-l-friedman-stampeding-black-elephants.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fthomas-l-friedman&_r

(The New York Times is a subscription-based newspaper; a paid subscription may be required.)

A Voice for this sorely damaged Refuge Earth, a letter by Mickey Harlow

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Rocky Flats PlantI have been a resident of the City of Arvada since 1970.  My current home is located downwind from the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.  I was the Rocky Flats Coordinator for the City of Westminster, Colorado from just after the FBI raid until 2001. I worked with both then Senator Allard’s and then Congressman Udall’s staffs on language designating the former nuclear production facility into a Refuge. I know the site very well and I know contamination has been left behind.

I recently became aware that the Fish & Wildlife requested an Air Permit in July 2014, for a prescribed burn to occur in April 2015, on 701 acres in the Southern Section of the Refuge.  The permit was granted by the Air Quality Control Commission. The permit was granted under the Arsenal name as the site is managed under the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

I am very concerned about this prescribed burn.  The 701 acre burn area is contiguous to two new housing developments that have young families and small children. Plutonium, Americium and Uranium remain in the soils in that area. The cleanup of the Site meets regulatory standards for cleanup, but this does not mean that there is no radionuclide and other contamination left in the soil.   Fish & Wildlife manages over 600 Wildlife Refuges nationwide and prescribe burns are part of their maintenance plans.   However, Rocky Flats is the only national Wildlife Refuge with residual radionuclide contamination.  Airborne radionuclide contamination in smoke is a health hazard.

A recent report of soil sampling initiated within the Woman Creek Reservoir prior to 2014 repairs found small amounts of Plutonium, Americium, Uranium and other contaminants at levels below regulatory concern. The Woman Creek Reservoir was constructed in 1995 to physically separate Standley Lake, the drinking water source for the Cities of Northglenn, Thornton and Westminster from surface water leaving the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Production Facility Site.   These analysis results are important because they show that radionuclide’s are still in the soil at the Wildlife Refuge and can be brought to the surface, by earthworms, ants and other burrowing species located at the site.

Prescribed burns are not the answer!  An integrated plan with methods for controlling plant litter and weed management to include administrative, cultural techniques (prevention), mechanical controls, biological controls and chemical controls is necessary.   The Refuge has not received Interior Department funding for proper weed and site management.

Local government entities have the expertise in their open space management staff to provide invasive weed technical support to Fish & Wildlife Site Manager David Lucas.  It is time for us all to work together find alternatives to the burn. We must become “A Voice for this sorely damaged Refuge Earth.”

Mary (Mickey) Harlow

[Editor’s note: you can read more about Rocky Flats at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Flats_Plant]

 

PJ Board Meeting, 1/22/2015

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Save the date: PLAN Jeffco Board Meeting, January 22nd, 2015, 7PM – 9PM at Saint Anthony’s Hospital Auditorium C. All PLAN Jeffco Board meetings are open to the public; please RSVP to

co*******@pl********.org











 if you plan to attend, in case there is a last-minute change of venue.

Fish & Wildlife Proposes 700 Acre Burn at Rocky Flats

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Rocky FlatsU.S. Fish & Wildlife is planning a “controlled burn” of 701 acres in the southern section of Rocky Flats. LeRoy Moore, PhD, a consultant with the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center and Boulder resident who has followed Rocky Flats for 35 years, has raised the alarm.

We first heard of this plan via Judy Dennison’s “Golden Newsletter”. Judy re-published a letter that Dr. Moore had written for the Boulder Camera, the full text of which can be found at http://www.dailycamera.com/Opinion/ci_26988064/LeRoy-Moore:-Rocky-Flats-burn-a-bad-idea

Rocky Flats, which is now a National Wildlife Refuge, is managed by U.S. Fish & Wildlife. During the 40 years (1952-1989) when Rocky Flats housed a nuclear weapons plant, there were documented episodes of plutonium release, on-site and off-site. The subsequent Superfund Cleanup “stabilized” Rocky Flats by sequestering plutonium particles in the soil.

The concerns of Dr. Moore and his colleagues is that, when the soil is disturbed, as it will be by a burn of this magnitude, it will release the plutonium into the air. Aerosolized plutonium is the most dangerous form this radioactive contaminant can assume, since it’s easily inhaled by unknowing victims. And plutonium doesn’t destabilize and loose its radioactivity very quickly. From http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/plutonium.html:  “… the half–lives of plutonium isotopes tend to be relatively long: Pu-238 has a half–life of 87.7 years; Pu-239 has a half–life is 24,100 years, and Pu-240 has a half–life of 6,560 years. The decay process continues until a stable, non-radioactive element is formed.”

This week, both the Golden Transcript and the Westminster Window have picked up the news story and detailed it more completely. To read these articles, go to The Golden Transcript, http://goldentranscript.net/stories/Activists-speak-out-against-Flats-burn,175258 or The Westminster Window, http://westminsterwindow.com/stories/Activists-speak-out-against-Flats-burn,175258 . The articles quote Paula Elofsen-Gardin — a Rocky Flats activist and longtime researcher of Rocky Flats history, David Lucas — refuge manager for the Fish & Wildlife Service, Michelle Gabrioloff-Parish — resident of nearby Superior, CO, which is downwind of Rocky Flats, and Dr. Moore — former professor and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center.

Dr. Moore has created an online petition located at http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/cancel-the-prescribed?source=c.em.mt&r_by=364519.  It requests that the Fish & Wildlife Service consider cancelling the prescribed burn (scheduled for sometime in April of 2015) because of the potential for plutonium release as a result of this burn.

Apex Park Closed Nov. 19-20 for Bridges Delivery; White Ranch Park Trail Closures Nov. 20 morning

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2014-Vicky-01_rider on Pick & SledgeApex Park is scheduled to be closed starting at 5 p.m. Wed., Nov. 19 and continuing all day on Thurs., Nov. 20. The closure will allow for safe and efficient staging and delivery of materials for new bridges along several sections of heavily damaged lower Apex Trail. Also on Nov. 20, from 7 a.m. to noon, portions of trails in the southwest section of White Ranch Park—Sawmill, Mustang and Upper Belcher Hill—will be closed for staging and delivery of materials to repair trail damage along Mustang and Wrangler’s Run. See map. The historic floods of September 2013 caused severe damage at both Jeffco Open Space Parks.

Jeffco Open Space plans to reopen all Apex Trail by November 26. Closed trail sections at White Ranch Park will be reopened in 2015. Since September 2013, there have been months of planning, labor by staff and volunteers, and a required review of major trail repair plans in order to receive Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood recovery funds. When Apex Trail reopens in its entirety, directional travel for mountain bikers—one-way travel on odd dates—will be reinstated.

Tim Sandsmark
Lookout Region Supervisor
Jeffco Open Space
720-497-7602 direct
303-916-6553 mobile

 

 

 

Trail Completed from Reynolds Park to South Platte

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Reynolds Park trailThe long anticipated connection from Reynolds Park, which is near Conifer, to the Colorado Trail opened October 11. The 9.3 miles of natural surface trail is open hikers, bikers and equestrians. For details see the news release at the Jeffco Open Space site, http://jeffco.us/parks/news/2014/north-fork-trail-opens-saturday,-october-11-in-south-jeffco/

Gunnison sage grouse gets federal protection

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Gunnison Sage Grouse_Wikipedia

The Gunnison sage grouse, which lives only in western Colorado and southeastern Utah, has been declared threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This classification triggers the Endangered Species Act, which is something that Colorado leaders, who insist that state-led voluntary protection is sufficient to save the bird, have been fighting.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe declared the grouse officially threatened, which triggers Endangered Species Act protection. Federal protection under the Act restricts development on grouse habitat. Listing grouse as threatened, rather than endangered, allows exceptions for accidental killing to reduce the liability of landowners.

Governor Hickenlooper insists that the State will sue the Federal Government, no matter how the grouse is listed.

At present it is estimated that there are fewer than 5,000 Gunnison sage grouse alive, surviving on roughly 7 percent of their original natural habitat.

To read the full story go to http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_26922049/gunnison-sage-grouse-get-federal-protection-prevent-extinction?source=bn_simplepie_widgets