A Fort Collins company has agreed to pay $9 million for damages within Rocky Mountain National Park caused by a breach of the Grand River Ditch in May 2003.
The settlement is considered the largest natural resource damages payment in the history of the 1907 Park System Resource Protection Act.
Water Supply and Storage Co. agreed to the payment just before a trial was to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Denver. The government, which was seeking more than $12 million in damages, had accused the company of failing to adequately clear the canal of snow, ice and debris during the spring of 2003, which caused the breach to occur.
The company agreed to pay the National Park Service $9 million in two installments. A payment of $6 million is due within 30 days of a judge’s order, and a $3 million payment must be remitted within two years.
“The company felt that their time and the time of the government would be better served by trying to reach an agreement,” said David P. Hersh, attorney for the company. “The agreement will provide funding the government can use to do work in the park and on restoration and beautification.”
The money will help restore areas in the Kawuneeche Valley that were destroyed by the flood when the Grand River Ditch failed.
“This settlement will allow the restoration of critical habitat within Rocky Mountain National Park and protection of the essential headwaters of the Colorado River,” said Ronald Tenpas, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s environment and natural-resources division.
Park officials will begin the environmental-review process this year, but they don’t anticipate removing sediment from the damaged Lulu City wetlands and restoring the Colorado River channel until summer 2009, said park superintendent Vaughn Baker.
“Our goal all along has been to restore park resources that were damaged by the breach,” Baker said.
The settlement is not expected to affect a bill before Congress to designate the park as a wilderness area.
That measure, supported by the state’s entire delegation, has been stalled by a debate over whether the ditch operators should be legally liable for future damages.
“Our legislation deals only with possible future situations, not the events that were the basis for this suit, and so I do not think this settlement will affect the legislation’s prospects,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs.
U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., said he hoped the measure would afford protections to the irrigation cooperative “so we don’t dry up thousands of acres of farm land in northern Colorado in the future.”
The breach occurred 2 miles south of La Poudre Pass, within the boundaries of the park.
More than 100 cubic feet per second of water flowed through the breach, causing extensive damage to park resources, including the near-obliteration of a mountainside beneath the ditch.
Significant damage also occurred to an old-growth spruce and fir forest, Lulu Creek and the upper Colorado River.
The breach also filled the Lulu City wetlands with sediment, according to the Justice Department.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
