State puts up $750,000 of general fund money for East Vail Pass Wildlife Crossing
Thanks to a recent bipartisan bill just signed into law the state of Colorado is now helping to fund seven wildlife crossing projects across our highways and road systems. Summit County's East Vail Pass is one of those listed as getting a chunk of the change.
Margaret Bowes with the I-70 Coalition said this is a long time coming.
"It has been something that lots of groups have been working towards for many years and it's exciting," Bowes said. "There will be wildlife crossings as part of a project in Summit County near Frisco. Also on Floyd Hill and then again on the west side of El Paso. We will start to see a lot more of these wildlife projects going on throughout the entire mountain corridor."
The seven projects that will receive funding through this law signed by Gov. Jared Polis include:
Central Colorado
$500,000 - US Highway 285 near Conifer, installation of wildlife fencing
Southeast Colorado
$750,000 - I-25 Raton Pass, design of wildlife crossings and fencing
$500,000 - CO Highway 115 at Rock Creek south of Colorado Springs, installation of wildlife fencing
Northwest Colorado
$750,000 - I-70 East Vail Pass, design of wildlife crossings and fencing
$150,000 - CO 13 north of Craig, installation of radar detection
$325,000 - CO 13 north of Craig, construction of wildlife mitigation features
Southwest Colorado
$500,000 - US 550 north of Ridgway, construction of wildlife underpass and fencing
The East Vail Pass portion is also home to an endangered lynx population, the proposed overpass and two underpasses along with fencing are expected to help keep those populations happy and thriving.
Still, it will be a while before those crossings actually go in, considering the earliest they would be able to start would be when the snow melts, and that's not considering the rest of the funding for the project. Bowes said teams should be looking at all avenues for where the money to finish these projects could come from.
"There are some federal dollars out there that can go towards wildlife crossings. And so this new state money can actually help match some of those federal grants."