Long-term flood recovery is just getting started in Vallecito, an unincorporated community in La Plata County.
In mid-October, heavy rain from tropical storm systems triggered flooding across Southwest Colorado, forcing nearly 400 Vallecito residents to evacuate.
The brunt of the damage is concentrated in the creek channel itself. As Vallecito Creek surged to levels not seen in decades, the water jumped its banks and carved new channels, widening and redirecting the flow.
For homeowners along the creek, that meant losing land as banks sheared off and washed downstream. In one case, the creek cut so deeply through private property that the landowner now effectively owns an island.
“That kind of damage will be the most difficult – and the most time-consuming – to repair,” said Rob Farino, La Plata County’s director of emergency operations. “The community is really concerned about spring runoff. This channel has less capacity because tons of debris, rock and logs have now been deposited into it, and then it carved new channels through that.”
Work on the creek bed will be funded through the federal Emergency Watershed Protection grant program, administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service in partnership with the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
The EWP project area runs from the Forest Service boundary downstream to Vallecito Reservoir and is meant to restore enough channel capacity to safely carry annual spring runoff and future flooding events smaller than a 100-year flood, Farino said.
Early estimates place the long-term remediation cost between $6 million and $7 million, he said.
While the grant will address and fund removal of debris, deepening and cleaning of waterways, stabilization of stream and creak banks, and project management costs, Upper Pine River Fire Protection District Chief Bruce Evans said it will not cover the restoration of private property loss.
“They’ll stabilize what Mother Nature made, but they’re not going to go back and replace that 15 yards of your river bank or your creek bank,” Evans said. “So for a lot of people, that's upsetting.”
The grant covers 75% of the cost. Of the 25% match, the state will cover half, and the sponsor agency – the Upper Pine River Fire Protection District – must provide the remaining 12.5%.
NRCS requires a government sponsor, Evans said.
“There has been trouble with these types of programs where you can’t get a collective movement forward, where the entire neighborhood takes on the expenses,” Evans said. “I think in the past that has left a bad taste in the government partners’ mouth with just the fact that this has been difficult to manage.”
Only two local entities qualify as sponsors: La Plata County and Upper Pine. The county was not interested in taking on the role, Evans said, so the fire district stepped in. And on Thursday, the Upper Pine Board of Directors authorized the district to begin negotiating the contract with NRCS.
Once the agreement is signed, the community will have 220 days to complete the work.
“There’s a timeline crunch on this thing that is pretty significant,” Evans said. “And everyone needs to be on board.”
Farino said the entire community must agree to participate because the creek channel runs through private property.
In Vallecito, property boundaries extend to the center of the creek, meaning every landowner must approve work on their section of the channel and agree on how the local match will be shared.
“They’ve got to get everybody on the bus and going to the same destination – because it’s all private property,” Farino said.
Alongside environmental damage, the October flooding washed out multiple roads around Vallecito.
Most are private, Farino emphasized – a point that has caused frustration.
“The roads have been such a hot-button topic,” he said. “Everybody’s like, ‘We pay our taxes, why isn’t the county fixing our roads yet?’ But the county, even if it had the funds, is not legally allowed to repair private roads.”
That confusion has required significant public education, he said.
The same applies to the creek itself: Individual landowners cannot place rock, logs or other materials or attempt repairs without a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, because any change to the creek has downstream impacts.
“Over time, people have done things to their little river frontage, so water kind of ping-pongs from side to side,” Farino said. “With that kind of velocity, that’s what eats out roads and banks. So everybody’s getting a firsthand lesson: You can negatively impact your neighbors downstream.”
At Wednesday’s Long-Term Recovery meeting – the last scheduled for now – county officials shared new information about debris accumulation in the waterways that run into Vallecito Reservoir, and the reservoir itself.
Aerial surveys by the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office show 5 to 7 acres of debris in the water. Removing it would require the equivalent of more than 200 dump-truck loads.
The reservoir is managed by the Bureau of Reclamation, which has determined the debris does not pose an imminent threat. Because of that, FEMA will not fund removal.
A preliminary bid to clear the material came back in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, far exceeding the reservoir district’s budget, which was never designed to handle a 100-year flood. District officials are now exploring funding options – including NRCS requests and a possible surcharge on boat permits – while focusing on protecting the outlet works and preparing for next summer’s recreation season.
Ken Beck, superintendent of Pine River Irrigation District, which manages Vallecito Reservoir, spoke at the meeting and acknowledged that many residents face far more daunting challenges with uninsured property losses. That’s partly why the district had not raised the reservoir issue earlier, he said.
Still, the scale of debris is staggering.
“It is mind-numbing to me how much debris there is,” he said.
jbowman@durangoherald.com
