The Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge is a 15,988-acre (24.981 sq mi) National Wildlife Refuge located adjacent to Denver and Commerce City, Colorado, in the United States. It is approximately 8 miles (13 km) northeast of downtown Denver. The refuge is on the grounds of the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a United States Army chemical weapons manufacturing facility. The site was designated a national wildlife refuge in 1992 by the United States Congress, and underwent a costly environmental cleanup in order to remove pollutants. The refuge is managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. More than 330 species of wildlife inhabit the refuge, including raptors, deer, raccoons, coyotes, white pelicans, black-footed ferrets, black-tailed prairie dogs, and bison.
Previous uses The Rocky Mountain Arsenal (RMA) was built in 1942 to manufacture chemical weapons. A portion of the site was leased to private industry in 1946 for petroleum production and agricultural and industrial chemical manufacturing. When the American chemical weapons program was shut down after the Vietnam War, the RMA served as a site for dismantling and disposing of these weapons. The Shell Oil Company also used a portion of the site in the 1980s to produce pesticides. The RMA was closed in 1985, and in 1987 environmental testing revealed that the site was extremely polluted. The RMA was listed on the National Priorities List, a list of hazardous waste sites in the United States eligible for long-term remedial action (cleanup) financed under the federal Superfund program run by the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1986, while environmental testing was continuing, a winter communal roost of bald eagles, then an endangered species, was discovered at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Additional investigation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) discovered that the RMA was home more than 330 species of wildlife. With the arsenal not fit for human habitation, pressure quickly built to have it turned into a wildlife refuge. Congress enacted the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge Act on September 25, 1992, and the legislation was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush on October 9. The law stipulated that a majority of the RMA site would become a national wildlife refuge under the jurisdiction of the Fish and Wildlife Service once the environmental restoration is completed. The Act also provided that, to the extent possible, the RMA was to be managed as a wildlife refuge in the interim. At the time the refuge was established, the RMA consisted of more than 17,000 acres (69 km2) of grassland dotted with small manmade lakes and ponds. Not all of this land was set aside for the refuge. Section 2(c)(2) of the enabling legislation set aside 12.08 acres (0.0489 km2) for use as the South Adams County Water Treatment Plant and 63.04 acres (0.2551 km2) for a United States Postal Service facility. Section 5(a)(1) of the act designated another 815 acres (3.30 km2) for public sale. The former Shell Oil Company land also proved to be a problem, as it was somewhat geographically isolated from the rest of the refuge and not likely to be used by wildlife as habitat. Subsequently, about 100 acres (0.40 km2) of the Shell Oil site was sold to Commerce City in 2010. Of the remaining 250 acres (1.0 km2) of the Shell site, 100 acres (0.40 km2) are (as of 2013) being used for a water treatment facility and another 150 acres (0.61 km2) for domestic livestock grazing. The USFWS anticipates selling these 250 acres (1.0 km2) by 2023. These land set-asides, sales, and transfers left the refuge with 15,988 acres (64.70 km2) of land.
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