A breach in one of Colorado’s oldest transmountain water canals three years ago scoured a mountainside in Rocky Mountain National Park with tons of water, a federal lawsuit alleges.
The May 30, 2003, breach “dramatically rearranged” the shape of the upper Colorado River in the park, according to a National Park Service statement.
The suit seeking compensation for damages was filed Thursday in federal court on behalf of the U.S. Interior Department against Fort Collins-based Water Supply and Storage Co.
The company operates the 112-year-old, 14-mile-long Grand River Ditch and is accused of failing to adequately clear the canal of snow, ice and debris during the spring of 2003.
The result, the suit states, was a 100-foot breach in the canal about 2.4 miles south of La Poudre Pass that caused 105 cubic feet of water a second to spill into the park.
The rush of water carved a gully roughly 167 feet wide and 60 feet deep, the complaint said.
“A large portion of the mountainside below the breach was washed to the valley floor by the erosive power of water, rock, mud and vegetation,” the suit says.
Water ripped out lodgepole pine and caused “significant damage” to an old growth riparian spruce and fir forest, Lulu Creek and the Colorado River, the suit says.
The breach caused more than 60,000 cubic yards of sediment to flow into the upper Colorado River and wetlands, the suit says.
Much of the area was closed to visitors until water levels receded and bridges, trails and campsites were repaired, according to the complaint.
“They have replaced some trails and bridges,” said Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The breach has been repaired. The water is no longer flowing down the mountain. But the damage has been done,” Dorschner said.
Dennis Harmon of Water Supply and Storage Co. declined to comment because he hadn’t yet seen the suit.
The complaint alleges the company began removing snow, ice and debris from the canal two weeks later than it had in previous years, despite a written warning from one employee who feared a breach could result.
The canal is of historic value in Colorado because it was one of the first to move mountain water.
The canal, which is 17 feet wide and 5 feet deep, begins at 10,280 feet, moving snowmelt from the Never Summer Mountains to the Long Draw Reservoir and eventually into the Cache La Poudre River, where it’s transported to users along the Front Range and Eastern Plains.
Staff writer Jeremy P. Meyer can be reached at 303-954-1367 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
