The Interior Department plans to fund three land and water conservation projects in Colorado as part of the Obama Administration鈥檚 new America鈥檚 Great Outdoors initiative.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar made the announcement at the site of one of them Thursday, during a ribbon cutting of a new visitor center at the in Commerce City.
Secretary Salazar said the idea is to create contiguous corridors for wildlife.
"This gateway marks the transformation of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal from a toxic dumping ground, to the home of bison, birds and native prairie, from a chemical weapons depot, a place of war, to a place of peace," Salazar said at the ceremony.
Salazar said the Fish and Wildlife Service will put $350,000 toward connecting the refuge with Denver鈥檚 vast open space and trail system, and eventually nearby Rocky Mountain National Park.
Resources are also headed to restoring the Rio Grande Corridor in the San Luis Valley, where Salazar hails from, and to conservation projects along the in northwest Colorado, the only relatively free-flowing river left in the state.
The three Colorado projects are the first in the nation to receive modest federal funds.
