Colorado Transferring Land For Rocky Flats Refuge
DENVER (AP) - The Colorado State Land Board expects to gain $9.4 million from a deal to transfer land to the federal government for the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge.
The State Land Board manages the state's mineral rights to generate money for public schools and other institutions.
Board commissioners Friday approved the initiation of the land transfer. The board says that under a subsequent transaction, it will give aggregate mineral rights from the land to the Bureau of Land Management in exchange for comparably valued property elsewhere in the state.
The refuge site was once home to the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.
The land being transferred sits along Colorado 93. It is a key migration corridor for elk and deer and contains critical habitat for the threatened Preble's meadow jumping mouse.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
