Westminster backs away from building 14-foot-wide trail to Rocky Flats, citing safety concerns

Elected leaders in Westminster have walked back an earlier commitment to build a robust trail right up to the edge of Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge — with one City Council member saying this week that she was concerned the trail would act as a beckoning “gateway” to land that some consider too dangerous to visit.

Monday night’s decision came as construction began on a long-delayed tunnel under a state highway at the northern end of the refuge. It will provide a thoroughfare for cyclists and hikers seeking to enter and exit Rocky Flats, which for 40 years was a nerve center for Cold War nuclear weapons production.

To complicate matters more on what is already a complicated piece of ground in metro Denver, a federal lawsuit that aims to shut down the tunnel project — along with a bridge that is being erected on Indiana Street on the refuge’s east side — continues to move through the courts.

Westminster Councilwoman Claire Carmelia said the proposed half-mile trail on city land just east of the refuge would be too wide — and inviting — to keep members of the public from trying to get to the refuge. Some health and environmental advocates worry that residual contamination from weapons manufacturing, particularly cancer-causing plutonium, could be unearthed and breathed in on the site.

“The whole idea is to reduce use,” Carmelia said during Monday’s study session. “It’s hard to get on board with this if it’s exactly the opposite of what we want.”

Just seven months ago, the council voted 4-3 to withdraw from an intergovernmental agreement supporting construction of a tunnel and bridge into the refuge. Rocky Flats is home to more than 200 wildlife species, including prairie falcons, deer, elk, coyotes and songbirds.

Westminster followed Broomfield, which had made a similar break from the connections project four years ago, shortly after a plutonium hot spot was found in the soil near Indiana Street.

But in March, Westminster’s city leaders agreed to build a formal trail leading to the future Indiana Street bridge. It would replace an informal single-track trail popular with cyclists that exists there now.

When the scale of that trail — 14 feet wide with a crusher fine surface — was unveiled this month, however, several council members got cold feet.

“To do this project, we’re going to be disturbing the soil,” Councilman Obi Ezeadi said Monday. “This is a classic example of intent and vision not aligning. This risks the perception that we’ve reversed course.”

Councilman Dave DeMott said the more robust trail design was probably the wisest approach, given that it would hold in place soil that is otherwise vulnerable to disturbance, particularly from churning bike tires, if the narrower informal trail remains there.

Both the tunnel under Colorado 128 and the bridge over Indiana are expected to open to the public at the end of May, and that’s when traffic in and out of the refuge will jump, DeMott said.

“Once that bridge is open, like it or not, the traffic is going to increase,” he said during the study session.

On Monday, the council decided to leave the trail situation across its land as is — at least for the time being.

Matt Robbins, the interim deputy director of Jefferson County Open Space, said Tuesday that he wasn’t in a position to comment on the fast-moving events in Westminster this week before he had a chance to talk to city officials. Jefferson County owns the bridge that will span Indiana Street, connecting Westminster property with refuge land administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“Our mission is to provide open space, parklands and nature-based experiences for our community,” he said. “And we will provide safe connections.”

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