Sen. Michael Bennet has added his to the voices in opposition of a second Colorado location of Texas travel chain Buc-ee’s. 

The gubernatorial candidate said that the super-sized gas station and store would disrupt the Greenland Ranch conservation easement, which protects 17,700 acres in neighboring Douglas County from development, while in need of an annexation with the town of Palmer Lake for water. 

The proposed Buc-ee’s would occupy a 30-acre parcel at the County Line Road exit of Interstate 25, across from the start of the conservation easement corridor. 

“It would scar land that Colorado families have fought to protect for decades, drain our precious water resources, and flood a treasured landscape with noise, traffic, and light,” Bennet wrote in a statement released Monday. “It will affect millions of Coloradans who rely on this corridor, value our wildlife, and cherish the open spaces that define our state.” 

Colorado’s senior U.S. senator is the latest figure to weigh in on Buc-ee’s, developers of which are requesting an annexation into the small town of Palmer Lake at the northern border of El Paso County. 

Democrat Michael Bennet’s Colorado gubernatorial campaign raises more than $1.7 million for quarter

Bennet said in his statement that the annexation “goes beyond a local land use issue.” The current request by developers would connect the property near the interstate west to Palmer Lake via a thin “flagpole” annexation of about 2 miles. 

A meeting of the town’s planning commission on the developers’ requests stalled late in the evening last week, with commissioners calling for more time to consider the substantial reports involved in the project. 

The commissioners are set to reconvene on Sept. 3, likely postponing the town board of trustees’ final vote on the issue. 

The legislative process by the town runs parallel with an upcoming special election on Set. 9, triggered by successful recall campaigns on two trustees who voted to advance Buc-ee’s to the next stage of scrutiny in December.

The election will include a measure that, if passed, will force any current and future annexation agreements to end up on future ballots for Palmer Lake voters to decide. 

Developers in their most recent presentation to the town said that the 120-pump gas station and store selling popular novelty items and food would sit on land that is already marred by I-25 and by development to the south. 

“The damage has already been done in El Paso County,” said consulting ecologist Jon Dauzvardis. 

Dauzvardis characterized the parcel as unfit for conservation. He also claimed the land did not currently intersect with wildlife migration corridors, which the Colorado Department of Transportation has been attempting to encourage with a system of underpasses in the conservation corridor directly north. 

Bennet joined a news conference in July lauding the Greenland Overpass, a $15 million wildlife bridge under construction less than 5 miles away from the proposed Buc-ee’s site.

CDOT has said the overpass will be the world’s largest.