Protecting What We Love About Colorado
_JPG.jpg)
“Colorado is blessed with wide open spaces, splendid vistas, beautiful wilderness, and wild animals roaming their native habitat. These features of our land define this place, and define us as a people. We cannot take them for granted. We must do everything we can to preserve and protect these resources.”
- Gov. Roy Romer
First Colorado Earth Month, 1990
The Romer administration was full of life-long Coloradans who understood the qualities that make the state special and were committed to protecting and preserving them. They also believed that through stewardship and careful compromise, the environment they loved could live harmoniously with the economic revitalization they sought. To ensure that was true, the Romer administration sought bold initiatives that protected and built on what was best in the environment.
Hear from some of the people who made that vision a reality.
Protecting and Preserving the Environment
-
In 1992, Coloradans approved Great Outdoors Colorado, a constitutional amendment that earmarked a portion of lottery proceeds for the community-directed protection of Colorado’s outdoor parks, wildlife and open space. The amendment was designed, directed and championed by the Romer administration. Today, it is responsible for providing millions of dollars to keep thousands of acres of open space protected, create hundreds of new and revitalized state parks and fund local projects celebrating Colorado’s recreational heritage.
-
The Romer administration put considerable emphasis on acquiring significant buffers around existing parks as well as developing new lands for parks including the Yampa River Legacy Project, North Sterling, Pearl Lake and Staunton State Park, to name just a few.
-
The Romer administration took on cleanup of many of Colorado’s worst environmental hazards and put in motion efforts that would ultimately clean up and redevelop the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Facility, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, the Lowry Landfill and other designated Superfund sites across the state.
