More repairs needed at site of recent drainage channel project in Cimarron Hills area of El Paso County

EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- After spending $375,000 to repair a crumbling concrete channel in Cimarron Hills earlier this spring, the county will spend $200,000 more to replace two drainage pipes connected to the channel.

The channel work limited traffic on Ford Street at the Seneca Road intersection to one lane in each direction, but the latest construction has closed Ford Street entirely south of Seneca, creating more significant impacts on traffic and nearby businesses.

Thomas Donahue, a senior engineer for the county, said that the drainage pipe repair began several weeks ago and should be finished by the end of this week; however, rainy weather this week may delay the project's completion.

Donahue said that a crew is replacing two corrugated metal pipes that have deteriorated because of rust or age.

"We upgraded the pipe underneath the south side of Seneca Road to reinforced concrete pipe," he explained. "And because of the unusual pipe size underneath the existing Ford Street was a 43-by-68-inch arched metal corrugated pipe, we've replaced that with a polyurethane-lined, corrugated metal pipe."

Gutters and drains in the area have also been replaced, Donahue added, to increase the channel's overall drainage capacity.

Donahue revealed that a shorter connected channel west of Valley Street will not be repaired.

"That is not on our priority list right now," he said. "That channel is still in relatively decent condition."

The Cimarron Hills project is similar to a larger project the county finished last spring in Security-Widefield, where crews repaired a half-mile drainage channel that had deteriorated for decades.

That channel didn't have traffic impacts, but had become clogged with debris and contributed to occasional flooding on surrounding streets and even into the yards of nearby homes.

However, the project didn't resolve all of the issues there.

After years of uncertainty regarding who was responsible for repairs, the county agreed to pay the $2.5 million repair cost, but the county won't maintain the channel because it's not owned by the county, and actual ownership remains in question.

County officials also said that the channel was originally built in the early 1960s as an irrigation channel and not a drainage channel with modern standards.

It's a major reason why, around the time of that project, the county began a process to evaluate the condition of all of its drainage infrastructure -- an ambitious effort, given the county's large size.

"There are a lot of areas in the county that need very similar repairs," Donahue said. "One of the biggest issues we're finding in our stormwater drainage assets is that we have used a lot of corrugated metal pipe, and we have a lot of pipe throughout the county that's experiencing rust conditions in the inverts, and some moderate failure."

Once completed, the challenge will be funding future repair projects; the Security-Widefield channel may not have been fixed if not for the availability of federal pandemic recovery money.

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