LARAMIE - The University of Wyoming has terminated its development agreement with Parko Development LLC for the Jacoby Ridge golf course and residential subdivision project in east Laramie, a university statement released late Friday announced.

The proposed project generated substantial controversy in Laramie early this fall because much of the golf course expansion and the residential lot development would have been located in the Casper aquifer protection zone. The shallow aquifer supplies more than half of the city's and the university's water.

The only explanation for the action mentioned in the cryptic UW release was a reference to an early-November letter to the Laramie city manager from Mark Isakson, managing member of the Jacoby Ridge project, who signed a development agreement with UW in April. In that letter, Isakson said the entire Jacoby Ridge development would be relocated outside the aquifer zone.

In the release Friday from the university's media relations department, UW said that "while Parko has indicated its intention to submit a new design for a Jacoby Ridge project, as of this date no new plan has been submitted for the university to consider."

UW Vice President for Administration Phill Harris said the agreement was terminated with the consent of Parko because the existing agreement referred to tracts of land that were in the protection zone and were no longer being considered for development. He said the termination did not preclude another agreement referring to different land.

Harris said Isakson had sent a letter to the people holding lot reservations to inform them he was working on an alternate plan for the golf course and housing project and that he would have those plans ready late this winter or early spring.

Harris said he had been in communication with UW Board of Trustees President Dick Davis and with the board subcommittee working on the golf course-Jacoby Ridge project regarding the termination. The action did not require a trustees' meeting, he said.

Peter Wysocki, Laramie community development director, said he had received the press release but knew nothing more about the termination. He said he has not heard anything lately from Parko.

Parko withdrew its original conceptual plan in October after the city's Environmental Advisory Committee recommended that the extensive planned unit development be rejected until its effects on the Casper aquifer, the city's primary water source, could be determined. Parko's original proposal called for development near fractures and bedrock, which the committee feared could lead to rapid contamination of the aquifer from a hazardous substance spill, for example.

On Oct. 3, after hearing numerous citizens urge stricter controls, the City Council directed its planning commission to consider whether the city's aquifer protection ordinance should be strengthened and whether a moratorium should be imposed until that was accomplished.

The City Council passed such a moratorium late in November and presently has under consideration an amendment to its aquifer protection ordinance to require any proposed development in the protection zone to include an environmental assessment of impacts to the aquifer and to require groundwater monitoring for the life of the project.

In mid-November, the developer removed street signs and lot identifiers from the ridge just east of the existing Jacoby Golf Course. Earlier in the year the developer conducted a lottery to allocate lots to applicants who submitted $2,500 refundable deposits.

Under the development agreement with UW, the developer would have financed a $13 million expansion of the UW golf course, including a new clubhouse and sprinkler system, by selling up to 1,000 single-family and patio home sites.