Boulder County to seek court authorizations to remove flood debris

 

Boulder County commissioners on Thursday directed their staff to proceed with steps toward getting court-ordered access to six privately owned properties where flood-deposited debris in the stream channels poses potential hazards of renewed flooding and damages during spring runoff and heavy thunderstorms.

The county hadn’t heard from the owners of those six properties since sending them — as well as about 140 other property owners — March 26 notices of the need for the owners to take care of the hazards themselves or to grant the county and its contractors access to do the debris removal and stream channel restoration and stabilization work.

In dozens of other cases, Boulder County has received signed right-of-entry permission from the owners, or the owners have agreed to do the work themselves, or the county has decided that the debris doesn’t pose a high or imminent enough hazard to be a danger this spring.

County Land Use director Dale Case told the commissioners that the six properties brought to the county board’s attention on Thursday didn’t include any whose owners have officially refused to give the county access or who have officially appealed the county’s intent to have its contractors get onto their properties to do the stream remediation work.

“These are folks we haven’t been able to contact yet, or haven’t heard back from,” Case said.

Said Commissioner Elise Jones: “It’s great that this has been whittled down to just six property owners.”

Later Thursday, that list was shortened even further. County officials reported they’d gotten ahold one owner and that he’d given them a right-of-entry form.

Case said the county will continue trying to get in touch with the other properties’ owners before actually having to deliver any court documents authorizing the county to have access to the properties for flood-prevention work.

Ken Lawson, president of Lawson Construction Co., said later Thursday that his company had gotten the county’s notice about the need to remove flood-deposited sediment from the stream channel along that company’s property at 26 Sunset Street, outside Longmont’s city limits, but hadn’t gotten back in touch with the county yet.

“It will get taken care of,” promised Lawson, who said his company is working with other property owners and the city on stream remediation efforts in the area.

“We lost quite a bit of ground,” Lawson said, with the floodwaters costing the company “a lot of our river bank.”

Lawson said that “we’ve already done the inside of our property” but that there’s “still a lot of work to do” to restore the area to pre-flood conditions as much as may be possible.

Thursday’s meeting included an opportunity for the owners of any of the six properties on the day’s agenda to appeal the county’s position that debris had to be removed from the stream channels running through or alongside their land.

None of those owners showed up.

A seventh — John Brown, whose property at 7950 N. 81st St. had been on the Thursday morning list prior to the commissioners’ meeting — signed a right-of-entry permission form before the meeting began.

Brown, a carpenter and general contractor, said after the meeting that he already has done much of post-flood remediation himself on the stretch of Lefthand Creek running beside his property. He said he’ll probably be able to complete it without the county or its crews having to come in and do much, if anything, more.

If Boulder County gets written right-of-entry permission forms from property owners and if county contractors then do the debris-removal and stream-channel repair work, most of that expense will be covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state of Colorado.

But FEMA and state funds probably won’t cover the costs of debris removal work that the county does with court-authorized access to private properties, if the county has to take that legal step. If the county gets property-by-property court permission to go onto the land and clear out the streams, it can later bill the owners the cost of the work.

Boulder County has identified about 200 specific stream channel areas in unincorporated parts of the county where officials determined rocks, mud and other sediment, as well as trees, brush and other items deposited by September’s floods, pose high and imminent hazards to public safety.

The letters the county sent to 265 total property owners — including 147 that went out on March 26 and another 109 in a subsequent batch — amount to official notice that Boulder County has determined that the material that’s either in or threatening to fall into the stream presents a hazard to the public and must be removed.

Property owners are being told that under Boulder County’s Land Use Code they have 10 days from the date the county mailed its official letter to notify the county that they’ll abate the hazard by removing the debris themselves or arrange for its removal — at their own expense.

Or, the property owner can fill out a form giving the county and its contractors the right to access to the private property in order to remove the debris. The deadline for signing up to participate in that “high hazard abatement” program is also 10 days from the mailing of the letter.

Under that option, the county would be responsible for all the costs associated with the project, although county officials hope to have 75 percent of those costs covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and 12.5 percent by the state.

Property owners who don’t believe that the debris should be removed or who don’t think it poses as much of a hazard as authorities contend have a right to appeal the county’s high-hazard determination.

That could result in a hearing by the Board of County Commissioners, such as the one on Thursday morning, before the county staff can seek “administrative warrants” from the courts to get access to those properties. People have 10 days after the county mailed its letter to file notice that they’re appealing.

Another round of hearings and commissioner decisions — involving some properties that were among a second round getting county notification letters— is set for 9 a.m. next Tuesday in the commissioners’ hearing room on the third floor of the Boulder County Courthouse, 1325 Pearl St., Boulder.

Boulder County’s goal is to get as much of the stream debris removed as possible by May 1, with a focus on making the stream corridors ready to handle spring runoff..

The commissioners on Thursday also adopted a resolution giving Sheriff Joe Pelle and Office of Emergency Management director Mike Chard the authority to take immediate emergency response measures that could include going onto private properties, inspecting those properties, and removing stream obstructions that could create an imminent flood hazard.

 

Contact Times-Call staff writer John Fryar at 303-684-5211 or jfryar@times-call.com