Grand Ditch settlement reached: $9 million
By Rebecca Boyle
rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com, (Bio) rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com
4:46 p.m. MT May 5, 2008
A water supply company that provides water to 40,000 acres of farmland in Larimer and Weld counties must pay $9 million for damages to Rocky Mountain National Park, federal officials said Monday.
The settlement is the largest in the history of the national park system’s Resource Protection Act.
It stems from a lawsuit after a 2003 breach of the Grand Ditch, formerly the Grand River Ditch, which takes snowmelt across the Continental Divide and stores it in Long Draw Reservoir, ultimately flowing down the Cache la Poudre River.
The ditch, which pre-dates the park by more than 20 years, carries nearly 20,000 acre-feet of water through the park to communities on the eastern plains. About 40,000 acres of farmland near Pierce and Ault are irrigated by Grand Ditch water.
Dennis Harmon, general manager of the Water Supply and Storage Company, which owns the ditch, said a trial had been scheduled to begin Monday, but attorneys reached an agreement.
“We went back and forth a few times, and came up with a number, the $9 million, that we could all live with,” he said. “We just decided rather than spend a bunch more time and money on lawyers, to litigate this and maybe appeal it later if it didn’t go well, it was better to just try and get it resolved, and let the park get on and do the things they think they need to do there to deal with some of the damages.”
Insurance will cover some of the costs, but not all. Harmon said he did not want to be specific, but added that the 117-year-old company has several assets, including valuable water credits from the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, that will help meet the costs.
“It’s not insignificant, but because we are such an old company, we have some assets,” he said. “It won’t impact the amount of water we deliver or the way we operate, and life will go on, but it’s not a small number.”
The breach happened May 30, 2003, after snow and ice backed up in the ditch and water flowed over its side. About 105 cubic feet per second of water surged through the ditch and plunged to the valley below, excavating a gully roughly 167 feet wide and 60 feet deep.
The rushing water and tumbling vegetation largely obliterated the mountainside beneath the breach, according to the park service. The erosion heavily damaged an old growth spruce/fir forest, Lulu Creek and the upper Colorado River and filled the Lulu City wetlands with sediment.
The Justice Department filed a suit in August 2006 on behalf of the park service.
The ditch company argued the breach happened because of a snow-slide or landslide above the ditch, which sits at 10,175 feet and is carved into the slopes of the Never Summer Range, above the Kawuneeche Valley, the headwaters of the Colorado River.
“That was going to be one of the points of contention at the trial. We think it was an act of God,” Harmon said, recalling that the spring of 2003 saw major snowfall along the Front Range and north-central mountains.
The settlement funds will be used to restore the damaged areas, said Park Superintendent Vaughn Baker.
“We’re happy with this settlement. Our goal, all along, has been to restore park resources that were damaged by the breach. Now we can start,” he said in a statement.
The ditch and the breach became a political football of sorts in the last year, after it caused competing federal legislation to designate most of Rocky Mountain as a federal wilderness area.
U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, both Democrats, introduced a bill to make Rocky a wilderness area. But U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard and U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, both Republicans, worried that the Democratic measure didn’t sufficiently protect the ditch from litigation.
The delegation split in a very public spat over the competing bills, but eventually came together on one bipartisan measure that is still lingering in Congress. Had that legislation been in effect in 2003, the ditch company would have been protected from this lawsuit.
Construction on the ditch began in 1891, and not until 40 years later was it swallowed up by Rocky Mountain National Park. It is fed by high mountain snows that take a long time to melt. The late-summer runoff means the ditch is like being able to store water without needing a reservoir.
The water it provides is still used 100 percent by farms, although some municipalities have bought the water and are leasing it back to farmers. The city of Greeley owns a small interest in the ditch company.
Federal officials said the lawsuit demonstrated the government’s concern for the park.
“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 J. Tenpas, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, in a statement. “This important settlement demonstrates our commitment to protecting national park system resources.”
