The Planned Logistics Distribution Center is More Than Five Times as Large as the Warehouse Development Rejected by the Arvada City Council

ARVADA, Colo., Aug. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- At a Tuesday, August 22nd Town Hall meeting an official from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is slated to present information on the historical contamination and mitigation at the planned site for a huge, proposed warehouse development in the heart of a residential area just outside of the Arvada city limits.

The discussion will be important since the proposed site for the warehouse development at 60th and McIntyre Street is known to have been contaminated with radioactive and other hazardous materials previously. The 6:30 pm Town Hall meeting will be at the Storyline Church Sanctuary at 14605 West 64th Avenue in Arvada.

The meeting is free, and all interested residents are invited to attend. To watch a live stream of the meeting, go to: https://vimeo.com/event/3645586/ea70a0dd15.

The Town Hall speaker is scheduled to be Fonda Apostolopoulos with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). Apostolopoulos has worked for CDPHE for over 22 years and has worked as an On-Scene Coordinator and Project Manager on various Superfund Sites.

A similar warehouse development, approximately one mile from the new development's site, was earlier rejected by the Arvada City Council. The planned, new warehouse development just outside Arvada city lines is more than 500 percent larger than the previously rejected development. The proposed development will be roughly the size of the Jefferson County Government Center, known by residents as the Taj Mahal because of its enormity.

The Town Hall meeting is being hosted by the scrappy citizens group, McIntyre Neighbors United. "We are very interested to hear from Mr. Apostolopoulos because we are worried about the possible consequences of stirring up radioactive and other hazardous materials that were deposited on this site decades ago," said Anne Laffoon, a spokesperson for the MNU.

The formal site development application for the warehouse development, known technically as a logistics distribution center, reflects that the project includes three, forty-four-foot-high warehouses with more than 140 truck bays. Earlier more than 4,000 residents of Jefferson County requested a moratorium on the proposed project by signing a petition. The petition stated that new site development applications should be paused on land zoned I-3 (light industrial) and located within 500 feet of homes until the county's land use regulations could be revised. The Jefferson County commissioners denied the request July 1lth, though they acknowledged that the industrial zoning regulations are outdated and are scheduled to be revised in the next 18-24 months.

The proposed project is to be constructed on roughly 40 acres of previously contaminated land that has been largely vacant for decades adjacent to Hyatt Lake in an environmentally sensitive habitat area. Preparing the site for construction of the warehouses will mean disturbing soils that have been in various clean-up programs for decades. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is considering whether the Farmers Highline Canal and Hyatt Lake waters may be contaminated during the construction and later with water runoff from the warehouse project.

The coalition has asked that an Environmental Assessment be done since there is such a long history of contamination from uranium and other contaminants on the site.

The site development application can be viewed on the Jefferson County website under planning and zoning "active cases" under the 5950 McIntyre address. McIntyre Neighbors United has information on its website, www.mcintyreneighborsunited.org.

About McIntyre Neighbors United

McIntyre Neighbors United includes 18 homeowner associations (HOAs) that have communicated on behalf of the community with the Jefferson County Commissioners, City Council of Arvada, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and several open space/conservation groups about the community-led effort to examine the impacts of the proposed warehouse site adjacent to Hyatt Lake. The coalition is not anti-development; it simply wants a planning and approval process that supports sustainable and compatible development.

Contact:

Erich Kirshner, Lasso Digital

[email protected]

303.921.6733

SOURCE McIntyre Neighbors United