On Tuesday, August 4th, 1998, the Pikes Peak Group moved to include the City of Colorado Springs as a defendant in its ongoing lawsuit against the United States Forest Service over operation of the Pikes Peak Highway. The U.S. District Court approved the motion and the City was added to the suit on August 10th.
The suit alleges that the City has violated the Clean Water Act by allowing excessive amounts of gravel used in maintaining the Highway to erode from the Highway, damaging adjacent streams and wetlands, and adversely impacting City-owned reservoirs. More than six months of negotiations between the Pikes Peak Group and the City have led us to conclude that the City has no effective plan to remediate the erosion and sedimentation problems caused by the Pikes Peak Highway within a reasonable timeframe.
Due largely to artificial and self-imposed funding constraints, the City offered to undertake only a relatively small part of the remedial work recommended by its own consultant, Drexel Barrell and Company. By settling on the City's terms, we would have allowed the Pikes Peak Highway to continue to violate the Clean Water Act well into the middle of the 21st Century. Such a proposal was clearly unacceptable.
In a surprise move apparently prompted by its knowledge of our impending lawsuit, the City on August 3rd filed an application for Clean Water certification with the Colorado Water Quality Control Division. The City's application admits that water quality data collected at its South Catamount and Crystal Reservoirs show significant water quality impacts "probably due to erosion and sedimentation from the Highway." Notwithstanding this apparent admission of significant harm caused by the Highway, the City on August 4th issued a press release stating that Pikes Peak officials "do not believe the [Sierra Club] suit is meritorious" because the City is purportedly "addressing" the erosion and sedimentation problem.
In its application for Clean Water certification, the City seeks to have the State approve "best management practices" which amount to the same, unrealistic remediation proposal rejected by the Sierra Club. Although the Drexel Barrell Plan states that between $15 million and $21 million worth of road, slope, and drainage work are necessary to stabilize the Pikes Peak Highway, the City's application proposes to devote at most only 15% of the Highway budget, or about $350,000 per year, toward the problem. At this rate, completion of all of the recommended work would take 40 to 60 years, even barring any unforeseen complications.
By making this proposal to the State, we feel that the City has reneged
on the "best estimate" commitment which it made to the Forest Service and to the
public last November 14th, promising to complete remediation work by the year
2008. It therefore appears likely that we will have to continue our legal battle, both in
federal court and before the State Water Quality Control Division, to obtain a realistic
solution to what is now a clearly-admitted Pikes Peak Highway problem.
August 1998
What's New -
Pikes Peak Highway - Calendar of
Events and Outings
Membership - Speak Out -
Things You Can Do - Links -
E-Mail
Pikes Peak Regional Group,
Rocky Mountain Chapter
of the Sierra Club
131 Williams Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80905-1413 - Phone: (719) 592-0963
Last updated February 02, 1999.