A wildlife crossing nonprofit’s funding request prompted questions about infrastructure and conservation when spending dedicated county monies.
In Tuesday’s joint work session between the Pitkin Board of County Commissioners and the Open Space and Trails board of trustees, Roaring Fork Safe Passages requested a total of $350,000 in total from OST: $275,000 to support a feasibility study for the first phase of its proposed wildlife highway crossing and $75,000 to complete engineering design. “Convoluted” details gave both boards pause on the request.
RFSP released its study, “State Highway 82 Wildlife Mitigation Strategy: Airport to Aspen Village,” that identifies Phase 1 project priorities as a wildlife overpass and the expansion of an existing box culvert and fencing improvements earlier this summer.
According to RFSP, 55% of all reported accidents on that stretch of highway are wildlife-vehicle collisions. With minimal development on either side of the highway, it was identified as the highest priority location for initial work.
The feasibility study would get conceptual design to 10% engineering design by assessing structural feasibility for the crossings and the engineering design plans will facilitate seeking construction funds.
The full fencing work is estimated to cost $500,000 to $725,000 and the design and construction of the underpass and overpass are projected to cost $22.4 million to $32.5 million, excluding recommended property protections.
Cecily DeAngelo, RFSP’s executive director, said she believes this round of funding should come from public dollars, though the more expensive projects will be targeted to other, private donors.
“I think that it needs to be a community effort,” DeAngelo said. “It is a community safety issue, and the dollar figure for that is really not that high, given that it could pretty dramatically improve safety.”
Wildlife crossings nonprofit Roaring Fork Safe Passages recommends an overpass at Shale Bluffs and widening an existing culvert at Sky Mountain. Aspen Daily News file
But some potential legal points of issue within the county kept the OST board from offering a recommendation on the budget request, as the proposed work could interact with existing county and OST property with their own restrictions.
“We need more [information] to be honest, with all the different components of this,” OST Director Gary Tennenbaum said. “Between airport property, between Brush Creek property and Cozy Point and everything else, it is very convoluted.”
The county recently finalized its purchase of the Brush Creek Park and Ride from the Colorado Department of Transportation, which came with a transit-related deed restriction that could impact the proposed overpass, which includes a landing on the Brush Creek property.
“There would be a rescission clause and some negotiation that would have to happen there,” County Manager Jon Peacock said.
DeAngelo said that the Aspen-Pitkin County Airport is receptive to RFSP’s plan to strengthen fencing and build out the Sky Mountain culvert to a wider underpass that could accommodate elk, as carcasses near the runway attract birds and pose a threat to aircraft. But the county does not have formal input from the Federal Aviation Administration on the legality of potential work on or adjacent to the airport property.
And whether or not OST dollars can be used for RFSP’s next phases or if construction can occur on county-owned conserved land needs to be explored further.
“The hardest part about this is is it a wildlife or transportation project? And the reality is, it’s some of both,” Tennenbaum said.
County officials were not definitive where they believed the projects would fall on the “conversion clause,” part of the county regulations that dictate OST cannot sell, convey or convert OST interests without recouping value.
The expenditure of funds also must comply with OST’s policies and objectives.
Commissioner Patti Clapper was skeptical of OST’s ability to contribute to the funding and implied that if RFSP needed to request other county money, likely general fund dollars, that she would not support it.
“I’m going to have a lot more issues, but those are the priority, because if we can’t use Open Space and Trails funds for this, that kind of negates this conversation,” Clapper said. “We’re being stretched thin in our general fund.”
Commissioner Jeffrey Woodruff said he does not believe the OST money should fund the feasibility study, but instead proposed that RFSP pursue state funding.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to use Open Space and Trails funds to fund [another] PowerPoint,” he said. “This is a state highway, and that would be the appropriate place to fund further PowerPoints and studies.”
County staff will find answers to the board members’ questions and the OST trustees will consider the funding request again at a future meeting, then vote on whether or not to recommend granting the fund request to the BOCC.
Julia Kintsch is the founder of Denver consulting firm ECO-resolutions, which RFSP has contracted.
“Infrastructure is conservation work,” Kintsch told the Aspen Daily News after the meeting. “It’s for the purpose of connecting and reconnecting wildlife.”
DeAngelo concurred, noting that the ask for the feasibility study before the county would get them within $25,000 to $50,000 of the full cost. To date, OST has contributed $44,000 to RFSP for earlier studies, according to the county.
“We need to reconstruct our open space and that has to go over or under our roads,” DeAngelo said. “It’s a good investment following one of the most important investments that we’ve made in open space.”
DeAngelo said Phase 1 work is unlikely to begin before early 2026, so they can take time to secure funding.
The study also identifies up to three structures further west off of Highway 82 as potential Phase 2 projects, the need for which would be more closely evaluated after the implementation of Phase 1 work.
RFSP ran a public survey on the study results between July and September. They reported at the meeting that among 730 respondents, 95% indicated support for the structures and 85% of the respondents believed this would improve their quality of life in the valley.
