Jefferson County is proposing to open a year-round, permanent slash recycling site adjacent to the Rooney Road Recycling Center in Golden.

Slash is a term for materials like yard waste, tree trimmings, limbs and trunks. 

Currently, a consortium of the cities of Arvada, Golden, Lakewood, Wheat Ridge, Lakeside and Edgewater, plus the towns of Morrison and Mountain View participate in funding the Rooney Road Recycling Center. The future slash site would operate on additional funding from those same cities and towns. 

As part of Jeffco’s proposal, the county would provide the land, with each jurisdiction using the site, providing funding to complete improvements necessary to begin operation. Under the plan, each jurisdiction’s contribution would be proportionate to its percentage of the county’s population. 

Because much of the proposed site is currently designated as Jeffco Open Space, establishing the slash site would require internal land swaps within the county. A negotiated land swap with the City of Wheat Ridge would also be necessary.

In a white paper, authored by the Rooney Road Recycling Center Authority, one benefit of the proposed site is assisting the efforts of mountain communities to reduce fire danger by removing trees and other slash near buildings. 

The white paper also expresses concern that the county will soon be faced with an increased amount of debris from trees affected by the Emerald Ash Borer.

Wheat Ridge City Manager, Patrick Goff said the Wheat Ridge council has given consensus to support the project.

“Right now, we’re looking to see if there’s enough support from the cities to make it go,” he said. “The county used to have a slash site and got rid of it, so we’ve been without one for a long time.”

Goff said with Wheat Ridge’s designation as a Tree City, they try to provide those services locally if there’s a big storm or something that would make it a necessity, but getting rid of slash that way isn’t nearly as efficient as a county resource would be.

According to the Recycling Center Authority’s white paper, Jeffco has developed a plan to construct interconnected  trails and open space amenities around the Rooney Road Recycling Center, and will name the open space Tincup Ridge.

Jeffco estimates the total cost of improvements to make the new site a reality to be $650,000, which would go toward grading, road construction, fencing, signage and construction of a building to house necessary equipment. 

If completed, the new slash site would open to Jeffco residents in February, 2022.