Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (John Aguilar). Here’s an excerpt:
September 29, 2024
Westminster is making it clear the city doesn’t want to increase access to hikers and cyclists visiting the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge — the one-time site of a Cold War nuclear weapons plant that continues to spark health worries 30 years after it closed. The city last week became the second community surrounding the 6,200-acre federal property to withdraw from an intergovernmental agreement supporting construction of a tunnel and bridge into the refuge, home to more than 200 wildlife species, including prairie falcons, deer, elk, coyotes and songbirds. Broomfield exited the $4.7 million Federal Lands Access Program agreement four years ago, and both cities point to potential threats to public health from residual contamination at the site — most notably the plutonium that was used in nuclear warhead production over four decades — for their withdrawal…
Westminster’s withdrawal comes less than a month after a federal judge denied several environmental organizations a preliminary injunction that would have stopped the project cold. The plaintiffs had sued federal agencies in January, claiming the refuge is not fit for human use.
As part of the City Council’s 4-3 vote last week, Westminster will not pay the nearly $200,000 it owes to the project. The city also will no longer complete a 0.4-mile trail segment in its Westminster Hills Open Space property that would bring hikers and cyclists traveling from the east to the bridge to cross into Rocky Flats.