The Outdoor Riding Arena was relocated last week, marking an exciting first step in the MCFA’s flexible masterplan.  For the past two years the arena has been on the site’s “upper bench”, on Airport Roadway under the flight path.  The Masterplan adopted by the Board has located all event facilities on the “middle bench” to achieve several benefits for visitors and eventors alike:  better proximity to the lovely, newly-remediated Willow Creek and its bike paths; natural separation from wind; and framing events in a more focused and contained setting that has its own identity.

Working with the EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, NRCS, American Geological Services, and Willow Creek Reclamation Committee, the MCFA developed an award-winning Voluntary Clean-up Plan with removal of contaminated soil that initiated in 2004. Clean up of 85% of the site was accomplished in the Fall of 2008. Almost two acres of wetlands was remediated. Eight species of willows that existed naturally on this site were successfully replanted around two new marshlands.

The Fairgrounds site has now experienced its first growing season since the entire site went through a process of soil ‘remediation’.  Due to the presence of heavy metals that resulted from Creede’s mining heritage, much of the site’s top layer of soil has required treatment to prevent the metals from joining the Willow Creek run-off.  This process has also involved the complete upheaval of the indigenous vegetation of the site, and the relocation of the site’s existing willows to newly created wetlands areas.  The Board is delighted to be able to report that the relocation of the willows has been a complete success.  This represents an important sentimental success, one which is now beautifully complementing the wetlands formed as a key part of the overall remediation requirement.