A New York-based real estate investment company says it spent more than $700,000 digging unexploded ordnance and other military debris out of the ground on a 105-acre property in Aurora, and now it wants the federal government to foot the bill. Southshore Recovery Acquisition, LLC has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense, arguing Washington is responsible for cleanup costs tied to land that once sat inside the sprawling Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range.
The case, filed in Colorado federal court, is captioned Southshore Recovery Acquisition, LLC v. United States of America et al., according to a report by law360.com. The outlet reported that the company asked a federal judge to declare the U.S. government liable for $700,000 in costs incurred investigating and clearing old munitions from the Arapahoe County property. As Westword reports, the land had been purchased by another developer from the U.S. government in 2009 before being transferred to Southshore in 2011.
Southshore claims the parcel it bought was never listed among the areas of concern near the former range, according to Westword's reporting. The company says it reported finding unexploded ordnance and other military munitions on the site, then sent a cleanup report to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before beginning remediation work, per the same account.
Thousands of Items Pulled From the Ground
Cleanup contractors working the property found 5,739 targets and 274 items considered safe over several months in 2020, Westword reports. Those safe items reportedly included 20mm practice rounds, a rocket warhead, a fuze, and more than 424 pounds of .50 caliber ammunition. No armed explosives were found at the site, according to the outlet's reporting.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the City of Aurora required risk reduction before development could move forward, Westword reports, and the state health department ultimately signed off on the cleanup. Southshore sold the land to Richmond American Homes on August 26, 2020, per the same report, but says it was never reimbursed for removing the hazardous material.
The Legal Argument Over Buried Munitions
At the heart of Southshore's lawsuit is an argument about the nature of buried ordnance itself: the company contends that live and inert munitions cannot be distinguished while still in the ground and can only be classified after they are removed and examined, according to Westword. That distinction matters because it goes to who should have known what was buried there, and when.
The Department of Defense said it would not comment on the lawsuit, Westword reports, and Southshore itself has not responded to a request for comment from the outlet. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has created a management plan for the former range detailing cleanup work and areas of concern for live munitions, and the agency has worked alongside Colorado's health department to clean up the broader site, according to the Corps.
A 100-Square-Mile Legacy of Military Training
The Former Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range sits roughly 20 miles southeast of Denver and once covered approximately 100 square miles of land, according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which says the range was used from 1942 until 1963 for inert and live munitions training. Westword reports the range actually operated as an active military site from 1937 to around 1963, hosting bombing training and firing ranges during World War II before the Air Force, Army, Navy and Air National Guard continued practicing there through the Korean and Vietnam wars.
The land once held seven bombing targets, a rocket and gunnery target, nine air-to-ground flexible gunnery targets, a jeep range and three training camps, according to Westword's reporting. Historical records cited by the outlet show 84 bombing missions were carried out there between July and December 1952 alone. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says on its own site that it continues to work with the Army Corps of Engineers and private developers to clean up munitions in the area, a dynamic the Aurora lawsuit now tests in court.
Old Ordnance Still Surfacing Nearby
The Aurora case is not an isolated headache. Signs at William F. Hayden Park warn hikers about potential active munitions and bombs beneath the surface, Westword reports, tied to a history in which the Colorado National Guard used part of Green Mountain as a rifle range and training facility, leasing land from the Hayden family before World War II to fire French 75 field guns. Unexploded 75mm artillery has landed in the Green Mountain area as a result, and shrapnel turned up there again in 2024, according to the outlet. Jefferson County even posted a social-media warning to residents about potential artillery shells in May, Westword reports, underscoring that decades-old military debris is still being found around the broader Lowry range footprint.
The Aurora dispute also echoes a similar fight in Florida, where, according to the Orlando Sentinel, a Miami developer sued the federal government for $30 million over cleanup costs at a World War II-era bombing range near Orlando International Airport while trying to build 4,000 homes and apartments. It is a reminder that unexploded ordnance on former military land remains a hazard nationwide — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that roughly 11 million acres across nearly 2,000 ranges in the country still carry the potential hazard of unexploded ordnance.
For now, it remains unclear how a federal judge will rule on Southshore's claims, or whether the company will recover any of the money it says it spent clearing the Aurora property. The Department of Defense has declined to discuss the pending litigation, and the case continues to work its way through Colorado's federal court.
