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Casper, Wyoming |
DENVER (AP) - About 5,000 acres of a former Army chemical weapons site are clean enough to be removed from the federal Superfund list and be turned over to wildlife managers, the Environmental Protection Agency said.
''This is a major step, as this will be the first of the arsenal property transferred to the U.S. Department of Interior,'' EPA team leader Laura Williams said Thursday. ''This makes the refuge official.''
The Army will now transfer the land to the ownership of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has been managing the Rocky Mountain Arsenal as a refuge while the massive cleanup project progresses. The site is 10 miles north of Denver.
The newly cleaned land lies on the borders of the 17,000-acre arsenal. It is home to eagles, waterfowl and one of the densest concentrations of trophy mule deer in North America.
Thousands of acres of contaminated soil was been removed and placed in a landfill, and the terrain was replanted with native grasses.
Last year, the EPA removed 900 acres on the arsenal's western border from the Superfund list. That land will be sold to nearby Commerce City, and the proceeds will be used to fund refuge activities.
The EPA said other parts of the arsenal are clean enough to be removed from the Superfund list but have not yet been transferred to other agencies.
Military munitions and domestic chemicals were produced at the arsenal from the 1940s to the 1980s. The mission then shifted to weapons destruction.
The $2.2 billion cleanup is the Army's biggest environmental project. It is scheduled to continue through 2011.
The Army and petrochemical giant Shell, which also had operations on the land, will retain possession of the landfill and responsibility for future cleanups.