sand creek Park litter Cleanup
Keep Colorado Beautiful and v-1 consulting
Keep Colorado Beautiful, V-1 Consulting and their partners are partnering for a private litter cleanup at Sand Creek Park. This event is open to V-1 Consulting team members their partners, and Keep Colorado Beautiful.
About the park
Sand Creek Park covers 85.6 acres along Sand Creek, with native trees and plantings, a Discovery Playground, and an elevated open-air overlook looking out across the park. It also serves as a trailhead for the Sand Creek Greenway, which connects into the regional trail system. A boardwalk loops the pond, and the mix of water, creek corridor, and open space draws a lot of bird and wildlife activity.
The creek corridor and trail edges collect wind-blown trash from the surrounding roadways and neighborhoods, which is what makes this a good spot to put a crew to work.
Why it matters
Sand Creek runs through the middle of this park and drains into the South Platte. Trash that blows into the creek corridor doesn't stay here. It moves downstream, into storm drains, into the river, and eventually out of anyone's reach. Plastic breaks apart in the water instead of going away. Wildlife in the pond and along the greenway gets tangled in it or eats it.
An afternoon with a crew and some grabbers stops that from happening. It also makes the park a better place for the neighborhood that uses it every day.
Safety
We highly recommend wearing weather-appropriate clothing, as we may work near moderate slopes with light vegetation. Bring a reusable water bottle if you can. We will have disposable cups available if needed. KCOB provides all supplies, including litter grabbers, gloves, and trash bags.
Parking and facilities
Meet at the main parking lot off Fitzsimons Parkway. Restrooms are on site. The park is open daily from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Note: Aurora also has a Sand Creek Riparian Preserve on the same greenway at a different address. Make sure you're headed to 2700 N. Peoria St.
*While we love group attendance at volunteer projects, all participants in a group must be registered individually.*
Project Intensity
On a 1-5 scale with 5 being the most intense. We rate this project a 2.
Organizer Contact
Nicolas Wilson
Nwilson@KeepColoradoBeautiful.org
Sand Creek Park sits at 2700 N. Peoria St. in northwest Aurora, in the Sand Creek corridor just north of Fitzsimons Parkway. It's an 85.6-acre park with access to the Sand Creek Greenway Trail. The site includes the Discovery Playground, an elevated open-air overlook, and native tree and plant communities, along with the greenway trailhead. The trail network it connects to runs close to 13 miles and ties the High Line Canal in Aurora to the South Platte River Greenway in Commerce City. Park hours are 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. Parking is off Fitzsimons Parkway, with restrooms on site.
The park has been shaped by what surrounds it as much as by its own plan. It sits directly across from the Fitzsimons Innovation Campus and the Anschutz Medical Campus, with residential neighborhoods on the north side and the old Stapleton area to the west. The original master plan dates to 1996, with a 2014 amendment written to deal with how much the area around the park had changed; the Discovery Playground opened in 2017. RTD's R Line arrived in between, and the relocated Fitzsimons station required acquiring land from the park, which got roughly $3 million in renovations alongside the 2015 light rail work. The creek has been the constant through all of it.
Why this site matters for a cleanup: the park is where a creek corridor, a regional trail, a light rail station, and a major medical and research campus all come together. Traffic on Peoria and Fitzsimons, foot traffic from the station, and wind off the open prairie all push litter toward the low ground, and the low ground here is the creek. Sand Creek runs to the South Platte at Commerce City, so anything that lands in this corridor has a short, direct path downstream
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Volunteer Acknowledgment and Assumption of Risk
I understand that participation in Keep Colorado Beautiful volunteer activities may involve outdoor work and physical activity and may expose me to both known and unknown risks. These risks may include, but are not limited to, uneven or rough terrain, weather conditions, altitude related effects, physical exertion, use of tools, proximity to traffic, wildlife, insects, and contact with litter, debris, or sharp objects.
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