U.S. Senator Ken Salazar

Member: Agriculture, Energy, Veterans' Affairs, Ethics and Aging Committees

 

2300 15th Street, Suite 450 Denver, CO 80202 | 702 Hart Senate Building, Washington, D.C. 20510

 

 

For Immediate Release

October 10, 2006

CONTACT:    Cody Wertz – Comm. Director

                        303-455-7600

Andrew Nannis  – Press Secretary

                        202-224-5852


  Sen. Salazar: “NE Greenway Corridor is a Crown Jewel for Colorado”

Denver, CO – United States Senator Ken Salazar, along with the Northeast Greenway Corridor leadership committee, announced an agreement to move forward on projects along the Northeast Greenway Corridor surrounding the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge today. Among others, Senator Salazar was joined by Adams County Commissioners, the mayors of Aurora, Brighton, Commerce City, Thornton and Denver, Attorney General John Suthers, representatives from Shell Oil and the United States Army.

“Our rivers and natural areas are what make Colorado the most livable state in the Nation – it is appropriate that we use them to connect our great communities to each other and the natural world,” said Senator Salazar. “The Northeast Greenway Corridor is a crown jewel for Colorado because it sews together local communities, recreation projects, open and natural spaces and wildlife movement routes. I will continue to work with the stakeholders of this project, including Shell Oil and the United States Army, to ensure we have the funding necessary to complete it.”

First convened by then-Attorney General Ken Salazar in 2002, the Northeast Greenway Corridor is an inter-jurisdictional partnership comprised of Adams County, Aurora, Brighton, Commerce City, the City and County of Denver, Thornton, the Colorado Office of the Attorney General and the Sand Creek Regional Greenway. The Northeast Greenway Corridor embodies a vision to transform the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, now part of the National Wildlife Refuge system, into the hub of a larger ecosystem of open space, lakes, riparian corridors, and 150 miles of recreational trails to restore and protect the state’s valuable natural resources and to provide a buffer against uncontrolled growth in the State’s fastest growing urban area.

The stakeholders are poised and ready to complete the necessary projects of the NE Greenway Corridor. What is necessary now is funding and the completion of a legacy grant application to Great Outdoors Colorado so that key parcels of open space can be purchased.

Key Points:

  • Urban and suburban growth puts enormous pressure on existing natural resources (land development, water consumption, air quality, waste disposal, etc.). The Northeast Greenway Corridor will provide an essential “buffer” to that growth.
  • The Denver Metro Area’s population is growing at an alarming rate and has increased 40% between 1980 and 2000, from 1.4 million residents in 1980 to an estimated 2.8 million today. Adams County is expected to double in size over the next 30 years.

# # #