Summit County officials went to court Friday demanding that Denver Water reopen the Dillion Dam Road after it was closed earlier this week for security reasons.
The complaint filed in Summit County District Court states that Denver Water closed the road without providing specific details, and it asks for the road to be reopened.
The complaint is signed by several agencies, including Summit’s Board of County Commissioners, three towns and the Lake Dillon Fire Rescue.
Denver Water closed the road at the end of the day on Tuesday, saying it was vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The agency has been mum on details, saying only that federal and state security agencies found the dam to be at risk.
Denver Water said in a statement that it had not reviewed the complaint and declined to comment.
Closing the road could be life threatening, said Brandon Williams, a spokesman for the Lake Dillion Fire Rescue. Williams said the barriers delay the the department’s reaction time.
Williams said the closure has had negative consequences in the few days that it has been closed. The department tried responding to a call today that required passing through the road to help a cyclist who had crashed.
The barriers caused the department to be several minutes late, he said.
“Regardless of what (the situation) is, if it was a heart attack, a stroke, any number of situations, seconds could mean lives,” he said. “And today we were slower than we would have been.”
Williams said the barriers can make operations difficult because they don’t allow access to firetrucks.
But Denver Water said this evening that it would soon install new barriers that would allow firetrucks.
Christopher Sanchez: 303-954-1698 or csanchez@denverpost.com
