7350 E. 29th Avenue, Suite 300 Denver, CO 80238 303.468.3260 www.sandcreekgreenway.org

A QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE SAND CREEK REGIONAL GREENWAY PARTNERSHIP SPRING 2005

O N T H EWILD SIDEAs the Dust Clears, Major Sections of Trail Are Transformed

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After a very busy winter season for construction in all three cities along Sand Creek Greenway, the dust is settling and new parks, trails, and underpasses are emerging!

The winter construction season has been rough on trail users, but all of the tremendous efforts and money expended are already resulting in a wonderful transformation of significant sections of trail along the Sand Creek Regional Greenway, as is evident from the following reports:

Over 100 acres in Aurora are being transformed into Sand Creek Park, on the north end of the Fitzsimons Redevelopment area. Set to open late this summer 2005, Sand Creek Park construction will improve the Greenway by providing a trail underpass for users at Peoria Street. The park will have many significant changes including new ponds, new bridges along Sand Creek and Tollgate Creek, parking areas, and trail access in all directions.

Special thanks go to Aurora’s Parks and Open Space Department and Utilities Department for moving this project forward. For more information email Aurora at opensp@auroragov.org or telephone 303-326-8948.

Commerce City offers the very best news for trail users, where the first leg of a major construction project will be completed this summer. One mile of the Greenway trail is finally off dreaded Sand Creek Drive, east

Welcome to our Sand Creek Regional Greenway Newsletter. To save paper, newsletters are published electronically each quarter. To subscribe: • complete a form on the web at www.sandcreekgreenway.org• or, email news@sandcreekgreenway.org • or, call 303.468.3260 Your information will be shared with no one and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Construction activity near the Dahlia Street Trailhead is yielding a safer and more scenic experience.

Quick View ofSummer 2005Trail Improvements

Congressman Bob Beauprez (left) reviews trail improvements. See story Page 2

Continued, Page 3

Aurora: Sand Creek Park, 100-acre park on north end of Fitzsimons Redevelopment area, opens late summer 2005. The park will provide an underpass for users to avoid Peoria Street...along with new ponds, bridges, parking areas, and better trail access.

Commerce City: First section of Greenway trail east of the Dahlia Trailhead is now complete, avoiding heavily trafficked Sand Creek Drive.

Denver/Stapleton: New trail will open in April to carry trail users north of Sand Creek from the Smith Road trailhead to Havana, avoiding construction activity south of creek.

A QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE SAND CREEK REGIONAL GREENWAY PARTNERSHIP SPRING 2005 PAGE 2

Valero Makes an EnvironmentallyFriendly Border Along Sand Creek

WILD SIDE

In 2002, Valero purchased the refinery on the north side of Brighton Boule-vard, south of Sand Creek in Commerce City. Since 1990, Valero and the

previous owners of the facility have paid over $10 million to investigate, plan and clean up leaking oil that came from its refinery and other facilities.

Under orders from the State of Colorado and the U.S. Envi-ronmental Protection Agency, the refineries along Sand Creek stopped all oil from reaching the creek by building an imperme-able wall on the south bank and, in doing so, provided improved habitat for the numerous birds and wildlife along the creek.

Says Valero’s environmental manager, Diane Johnson: “It’s been a long and worthwhile project, especially since we played a role in transforming Sand Creek back to a wonderful wilder-ness in the city.”

I’ve given many tours of the Sand Creek Greenway over the last four months. Each time I do, I find some amazing new marvel along its course.

Over this past winter I’ve seen our winter eagles, many more ducks, beavers, muskrats, egrets...and, by the way, many more humans along our Wilderness in the City, too!

I’ve also seen miles of construction with trail detours, heavy equipment, scraped earth, and piles of debris. However, all of the negatives of the construction translate into an invaluable promise for the future—the light at the end of our runway tunnels.

As you can see from our lead story, we’re opening up a new off-road trail section, a new signature park, and an off-road detour this summer. All of these projects bring much welcomed improvements to the Sand Creek Regional Greenway.

Special thanks goes to our users, who have suffered through this long construction season. We all have a wonderful summer ahead along the greenway – please join us!

Deer wanders the area near Sand Creek and Valero’s refinery. Photo courtesy Shelly Stanton.

Seventh District Congressman Bob Beauprez, above left, gets a briefing on recent and future trail improvements near Dahlia Trailhead from Mike Brown, Commerce City Parks and Recreation (bottom left), Kate Kramer, SCRGP Executive Director, and Charles Bayley, Waste Management Inc. and

SCRGP Board of Directors. Photo courtesy Forest City Stapleton, Inc.

From the Executive DirectorKate Kramer

From the Executive Director

A QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE SAND CREEK REGIONAL GREENWAY PARTNERSHIP SPRING 2005 PAGE 3WILD SIDE

Thanks for Helping Us Go Wild...

A Sand Creek Visionary...

Many of the people who love the Sand Creek Regional Greenway become members the Friends of the Greenway. We want to give special thanks to our most generous donors for year end 2003 and 2004, listed below. Friends like these make the Greenway bloom!

Howard Kenison

In February 2004, Mayor Ed Tauer of Aurora, Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver, Mayor Sean Ford of Commerce City, Mayor Jan Pawlowski of Brighton, Mayor Noel Busck of Thornton, and Commissioner Larry Pace of Adams County, along with then-Attor-ney General Ken Salazar, created the Northeast Greenway Corridor (NGC) Leadership Committee. Later, top officials from the Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service joined. In early 2005, current Attorney General John Suthers vowed to continue the work of the Leadership Committee of the NGC.

The Leadership Committee was formed to create an open space, greenway, and riparian network throughout the northeast metropolitan corridor. Then-Attorney General, Ken Salazar, along with the other natural resource trustees from the CDPHE and the DNR, sought to fund the NGC, in part, through the recovery of natural resource damages for injuries to natural resources from historic operations at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

Now-Senator Salazar asked Howard Kenison, a Partner at Lindquist & Vennum, and a member of the Sand Creek Board of Directors, to chair a Working Group for the NGC. The Leadership Committee tasked the Working Group with establishing a corridor-wide consensus on projects that could meet the require-ments of federal law concerning the expenditure of funds from the natural resource damage claim. A list of open space and greenway projects that will enhance the ecosystem surrounding the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge was produced. In addition, the Working Group identified projects in the northeast corridor that could be developed as joint proposals to other funding sources, such as GOCO and private foundations.

Kathy and Dick Anderson Lyle and Sylvia Artz Jeannine BalsamoCharles and Susan BayleyGeorge and Pamela BeardsleyCarol and Howard Boigon Linnea Brown and David HarmanMarilyn Brown René and Debra BullockDavid Burnett Sue CannonPaul Cockrel Frederic ConoverDick and Zyla Deane Donnell-Kay FoundationMichael Dowling Lee Palmer EverdingMira Fine Stephanie FooteSally and Michael Ford Charles and Marie Frederickson Georgia Garnsey Mary GearhartCarol Gossard Tom GougeonGertrude Grant Kathy GreenHaddon Foundation James and Laura HahnGary Hammond Michael HancockEleanor Harrison and Gedeon LaFarge Happy Haynes Mike Holwegger Cynthia Kahn Alice and Terry Kelly Howard Kenison Andrew and Margaret KingLouis and Rose KennedyKate Kramer and Brian GuernseyBill Kramer Lederer FoundationTom and Mary Anne LoobyDan Love and Cameron WolfeReverend Dr. Paul MartinPat McClearn Pat Teegarden & Chris Leding William and Evelyn McClearn Newton Family Fund, Inc.Kathleen Niesen Jarrold Olsson Ted and Susan Pinkowitz Amy PulverGene and Pauline Reetz Steve RhodesElizabeth Richardson John and Lori RossMark & Beth Samuelson Andrea Sanford and Jim Perry William Sarni Mike and Marie SerraJoseph Wagner Charles and Emma WarrenTim Waymire Joe Woodward Ruth Wright Bob and Linda ZaparanickJohn Hereford & Andrea Dukakis

The Sand Creek Partnership was included because of its success at bringing together multiple jurisdictions for cooperative action. Kenison stated, “Senator Salazar, Attorney General John Suthers, the Mayors and the Commissioners are committed to getting all the cities, counties, other government agencies and non-profits to work cooperatively on addressing the overall parks and open space needs of the northeast quadrant of the metro area.”

The northeast area of the metro region has been underserved in terms of parks and recreation for many years. With tremendous growth due to Denver International Airport and expanding city boundaries, the Northeast area needed a blueprint for parks and recreation to provide a network of trails and open space to complement the commercial and residential growth. The NGC brought together the impacted cities and counties and built a forward-looking plan.

of the Dahlia Trailhead! After a little more than a mile, the trail goes over the creek, through the new wetland park, and onto much less traveled city streets all the way to the trail at Quebec. Many thanks go to Great Outdoors Colorado and others for their very generous support of the new trail.

Denver is getting a new trail to avoid major construction activities at the Stapleton site. The new trail that opens in April, 2005, leads users on the north side of Sand Creek all the way to Havana. Trail users can pick up the new trail due east from the trailhead at Smith Road on the east side of the runway tunnels. Trail users will finally have an off-road detour alternative to the construction area on the south side of the creek. Many people deserve thanks for this major effort, completed in record time: Dennis Piper of Park Creek Metro District; Jill Petrick and Sonny Encinas of Denver Parks and Recreation; Kathy Lang and other Mortensen employees; Charlie Nicola, Jim Godwin, and other Forest City employees; EDAW Inc.; and Matrix Design Group.

Spring Brings a Greatly Improved TrailContinued from Page 1

Regional Cooperation Led to Northeast Greenway

WILD SIDEA QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER OF THE SAND CREEK REGIONAL GREENWAY PARTNERSHIP SPRING 2005 PAGE 4

Glen Hanket exploring the

trail...and his new guidebook, Denver,

North & Aurora Urban Trails,

available this May.

7350 E. 29th Avenue Suite 300Denver, CO 80238

303.468.3260www.sandcreekgreenway.org

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Hot Off the Press: An Urban Trails Guide for Denver/Aurora/Northeast Area

You can be the first in your neighborhood to “test drive” the new North Denver/Aurora Urban Trails guide, another volume in the Take A Bike! series by Glen Hanket.

The new trail guide will be out in May 2005 and features the Sand Creek Greenway. All the guides are available at REI, Tattered Cover and other bookstores and through the CAK Publishing www.bikepaths.com.