Rocky Flats Refuge Center Visitor Center Plans Sparks Lawsuit

A lawsuit challenging plans to build a visitor center at the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge has been filed in Federal District Court in Denver. The suit - filed by a coalition of community groups - charges that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has not done enough analysis of the environmental risks of allowing visitors to the former nuclear weapons manufacturing site.

The government plans to start construction on the site as early as June, according to the suit. it would be the first visitor center at the 6,200-acre site northwest of Denver. The government has said they plan to have the refuge open next year.

For more than 40 years, the site was where nuclear triggers were manufactured. it was closed after a raid by the FBI and further investigation showed mismanagement.

"Rocky Flats is among the nation’s most polluted places. Its name is synonymous with plutonium, a laboratory-developed, radioactive chemical element that was used at the facility to produce nuclear triggers for almost 40 years during the Cold War," the suit says.

"The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now wishes to open the Refuge to the public with hiking, biking and equestrian trails, and a major visitors’ center, despite new developments and evolving evidence that the plutonium has migrated beyond the" part of the site where the plutonium was handled.

(Subscribe to local news alerts on Patch)

While the service has not filed a response to the suit, officials have said construction won't actually start in June and they are still developing plans.

READ THE SUIT

Photo via U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.