The City of Brighton is developing a master plan to turn 648 acres of gravel pits and disrupted open space into a flourishing wildlife habitat and signature recreation destination.
“It’s an area with a lot of potential,” said Gary Wardle, director of Brighton parks and recreation. “The existing mines will be filled in and used as water storage … and then it will become wetlands and conveyance for Third Creek. That’s also the area where we will put in some developed parks.”
Ken Mitchell Park and Open Space is east of the South Platte River, south of Colorado 7, north of 144th Avenue and west of Brighton Road. The park on the eastern edge of the property is currently the only land in the entire site that can be used for recreation. Right now, there is a modest play area, a basketball court and a fishing pier in the park.
The rest of the 640 acres of open space has been an active gravel mining operation for the last 26 years.
In 1988, Brighton purchased most of Ken Mitchell Open Space from a local company called Ready Mix Concrete. The deal was that Ready Mix would excavate the hundreds of acres of gravel from the South Platte River basin to make concrete, and then the company would help remediate the mining pits, which are not contaminated, once the gravel had been completely used up.
Now, Bill Timmons, vice president of Ready Mix Concrete/Borral Industries said that the operation will be wrapped up by 2018, and the land will be returned to its natural state by about 2021.
“We took about 30 million tons of gravel from the Ken Mitchell Open Space area over the years,” Timmons said. “In three years, this whole site will be water storage for the city of Brighton. There will be park and all kinds of amenities.”
The plan is broken into multiple phases. The first goal is to transform the pits into four reservoirs and surrounding wetlands. Trail connections to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge in Commerce City and Barr Lake in Brighton will also be created.
The master plan will be reviewed by city council this fall. It is currently slated to be heard in October.
The city is applying for about $5.4 million in various grants to add vegetation and dig out the wetland habitats for this first phase. Brighton, Adams County and the Urban Drainage and Flood Control District will contribute about $4 million, and an additional $2 million will come from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Natural Resource Damages Recovery Fund.
The damages fund supplements wildlife restoration projects on land that was directly or indirectly contaminated from chemical weapons testing at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge during World War II.
“We chose Ken Mitchell Open Space because it was a site that we could restore that met the criteria of the resource damages fund,” Wardle said. “We’re using the natural resource damages (fund) to come back and plant trees and shrubs and create the wildlife habitat.”
Ready Mix will re-grade the mining pits and sew native grasses back onto the land, but Wardle said the damages fund will actually work to transform the desolate rock pits into a new habitat for birdlife and river species.
A Great Outdoors Colorado grant of more than $900,000 will also be used to connect trails to the wildlife refuge in Commerce City and Barr Lake State Park.
“One of our largest goals right now is to connect people with the outdoors,” said David Lucas, refuge and project manager at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. “The best way to make people understand why these lands are important is to make sure they have access to them. The trail connections and wetlands (at Ken Mitchell) are hugely productive and essential for the wildlife in this area.”
After land remediation, Brighton will seek funding for a slew of public amenities chosen by Brighton residents. Some of the initially approved plans include a skate park, amphitheater, disc golf course, dog park, sunning beaches and a grand fishing pier.
“Once we get the trails and the wildlife taken care of, then we can focus on developing some of the recreational amenities,” Wardle said. “We will likely use some city open space money and other grant sources.”
