The long-planned Broomfield-to-Golden segment of the metro area’s beltway has hit another roadblock, with one of three firms in the running to build the tollway telling highway officials this month the Jefferson Parkway is not close to making financial sense.
The Jefferson Expressway Group, in a Dec. 11 letter to the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, said it was withdrawing from consideration as a private-sector partner to design and build the 10-mile road, concluding that “anticipated (toll) revenue potential does not adequately support the Project’s costs by a sizable gap.”
The firm, one of three consortiums chosen a year ago to submit a proposal to construct the controversial $250 million highway northwest of Denver, also cited “ongoing environmental challenges” as a reason for pulling out.
The highway has long been opposed by neighborhood and activist groups, who say it serves no good mobility purpose and risks stirring up wind-blown plutonium and uranium that was deposited during the 40 years Rocky Flats was an operating nuclear weapons manufacturing plant. An elevated reading of plutonium that was found last summer on the eastern periphery of the refuge, right where the parkway would sit, prompted additional soil testing and analysis that has led to months of delay to the project’s start.
The news of a firm stepping away from the bidding process comes as state health officials this week released the latest batch of test results on soil samples collected earlier this year in and around Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
With the exception of the single reading found last summer, all of the samples submitted to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment thus far show levels of radioactive contamination well within the federal government’s safety threshold.
That includes 48 samples taken by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 27 samples collected by Jefferson County and approximately 275 samples taken by the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority over the past half year or so.
“After initial analysis of the additional soil sampling results and other information, we found there were no other elevated results,” Jennifer Opila, director of CDPHE’s Hazardous Material and Waste Management Division, said in a statement. “We have and continue to hear community concerns and will continue to analyze the data and evaluate next steps as necessary.”
There are still a dozen or so samples taken at depth along Indiana Street that have yet to be compiled.
Jefferson Expressway Group, which includes Broomfield-based Flatiron Constructors as a principal, gave a dire fiscal prognosis in its departure letter to Bill Ray, executive director of Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority, concluding the “project is not feasible under the current procurement approach.”
Still in the running to build the tollway is Beltway Connection Partners and Colorado Front Range Connectors.
Ray said Friday he’s not surprised that “with no clear timetable, (Jefferson Expressway Group) would move on and focus on other projects.” He said the parkway is “on idle for the moment,” as his team waits for CDPHE to draw up a map of all the sampling points and perform a thorough risk assessment for construction workers who would build the road.
CDPHE expects to wrap up its work in April. The plan is for the Jefferson Parkway Public Highway Authority to then request proposals from the two remaining bidding teams. Groundbreaking for the highway wouldn’t happen until the spring of 2021 at the earliest, Ray said.
Arvada Mayor Marc Williams, who sits on the authority’s board, said he’s still optimistic about the prospects for building the tollway. Previous analysis of the road’s economics, he said, shows that future toll revenues collected on Jefferson Parkway would be sufficient to support the project.
But the parkway faces internal challenges as well. Broomfield, which along with Arvada and Jefferson County makes up the authority’s membership, has been reticent to pony up $2.5 million in 2019 dues it owes to the project.
Deputy City Manager Kevin Standbridge said the recent exit letter from Jefferson Expressway Group will factor into deliberations city leaders are having about Broomfield’s future as a parkway member.
“The council is currently discussing the wisdom of continuing to participate in the Jefferson Parkway, and this will fold into that discussion,” Standbridge said.
Mike Raabe, an Arvada resident who is with The Movement to Stop Jefferson Parkway, said the fact that one of the project’s potential bidders pulled out should be a red flag that building the parkway in the shadow of a contaminated Cold War Superfund site is a bad idea.
“The bottom line is there is plutonium on the ground along the Indiana corridor right of way where the tollway construction would occur — that fact is not in dispute,” he said. “What is being argued is what is a safe level of plutonium? This is a dangerous argument considering plutonium is the most hazardous material on the planet.”
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