Repairs finally coming to troubled drainage ditch in Cimarron Hills, east of Colorado Springs

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) — On Wednesday, a crew began removing old concrete panels in a block-long drainage ditch that was crumbling and had accumulated thick brush and piles of debris.

The ditch is between the intersection of Ford Street and Seneca Road, and Valley Street to the south, in the Cimarron Hills community just east of the Colorado Springs city limits.

Neighbors and nearby business owners have complained about the ditch's condition for years, but a complication in repairing it was that local governments couldn't agree on who had responsibility for maintaining it.

In 2024, El Paso County accepted responsibility for repairing the 500-foot channel.

"Our plan is to come in here and install a reinforced concrete-lined channel," said Thomas Donahue, senior public works engineer for the county. "We'll be increasing the capacity, which will accommodate larger flows than we would anticipate with larger storm events."

Donahue said that the previous channel layer wasn't reinforced, and that was a factor in its deterioration.

He added that the project should be finished by the end of March — weather permitting.

Orlando Jiron owns Precision Finish, an auto body repair shop along the channel, and was observing the first day of construction.

"It creates a lot of worries," he revealed. "But at the same time, now that this is going, I have a lot more confidence and less stress -- seeing that the actual progress is moving forward to get this rectified."

The clogged ditch also caused occasional flooding and erosion of business property on both sides of the channel.

Another issue is stormwater drainage from the upper Seneca neighborhood, which flows so quickly in street gutters downhill that it bypasses a storm drain into the channel and floods the intersection.

Donahue said that the county is considering plans to improve drainage from the neighborhood, and to replace a failing underground metal drainage pipe emptying into the channel.

"We are considering upgrading that with reinforced concrete pipe," he explained.

The channel drains into a similar ditch in better condition west of Valley Street, which eventually connects to a newer, extensive drainage channel along Paonia Street.

A raccoon, apparently displaced by the construction, was seen slowly crawling through the ditch and into the metal drainage pipe.

Last spring, the county repaired another crumbling drainage channel in Security-Widefield.

The county continues to assess its overall stormwater infrastructure needs.