Bald and beautiful - chemical weapons manufacturing complex restored as Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge - Brief Article

Sunset, Dec, 2000 by Larry Borowsky

Eagles just love Rocky Mountain Arsenal wildlife refuge

You'd be hard-pressed to find a less likely redoubt for bald eagles than this--a Superfund site surrounded by metropolitan Denver. Yet here they are, 75 or more, perched in the tall cottonwoods flanking First Creek. A couple dozen human observers huddle in a nearby blind, field glasses and telephoto lenses at the ready The late-afternoon sun paints the tallgrass bright yellow Perfect light, perfect stillness. The city next door seems a long way away.

The birds are relaxed but alert, dividing their time between the bare branches and the cold December currents. While aloft they survey the land for prairie dogs, a preferred snack. If the eagle-watchers get lucky, they may witness an aerial attack, outstretched wings and flared talons plunging down from the sky. Or they may see an eagle go after a smaller raptor, such as a red-tailed hawk, to swipe away its meal.

Hard as it is to believe, this wild kingdom--officially known as Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge--not long ago harbored a massive chemical weapons manufacturing complex. From 1942 to 1982, the U.S. Army and corporate tenants on this site produced mustard gas, napalm, and even DDT, the pesticide that helped put bald eagles on the endangered list. For security reasons the buildings were centered within a 27-square-mile campus, with yawning buffer zones of undeveloped land surrounding them. Denver and its suburbs had to build around the arsenal's fenced perimeter, so when the complex closed, the quite accidental result was an enormous midmetro parcel of untrammeled prairie.

Well, not quite untrammeled; "detrammeled" is more like it. The arsenal's water and soil had absorbed decades' worth of deadly chemical waste, much of it disposed of under the lax regulations of the 1940s and 1950s. Public and private agencies began cleaning the place up several years ago--but federal officials don't expect it to be fully decontaminated until 2011.

By 1992, however, enough acreage had been salvaged for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to begin managing the site as a national wildlife refuge. More than 200 bird species spend at least part of the year here, including bald and golden eagles, ferruginous and red-tailed hawks, great blue herons, cormorants, and falcons.

Most of these species can be seen from the large-windowed trains that take guests through the grounds, or from the blind near First Creek. Here the refuge has the feel of a distant retreat. The Denver skyline seems to disappear; the Rockies seem to rise out of the prairie. That sense of remoteness brings the eagles back every winter, and it's a salve for the human soul too. Peace on earth at a former bomb factory? Now there's a holiday present we can all appreciate.

Travel planner

WHERE: Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge is at 72nd Ave. and Quebec St., Denver.

WHEN: 8:30-3:30 Sat, tram tours 9A.M.

COST: Free.

CONTACT: (303) 289-0232 or www.pmrma-www.army.mil.