After a storm caused massive flooding in Archuleta County jail in late April, the county sheriff’s office improvised, sending three buses of inmates 57 miles to La Plata County jail.

But according to law enforcement, a relocation that was originally envisaged as a temporary measure in the face of an immediate threat to inmates’ health and human safety is looking more permanent.

Since April, Archuleta County Sheriff’s Office deputies have made 37 round-trip journeys between Pagosa Springs and Durango.

According to Archuleta County Sheriff Rich Valdez, though the situation is far from ideal, it isn’t likely to be solved soon. He said the Archuleta jail is likely to be condemned, and depending on what Archuleta County commissioners ultimately decide, it could take anywhere from 18 months to two years before Archuleta has its own facility.

For the foreseeable future, Valdez said, anyone who runs afoul of the law in Pagosa Springs can expect to idle time behind bars in Durango.

Valdez said his office is still in the process of hammering out a formal financial arrangement with the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.

Capt. Michael Slade, with La Plata County jail, said that although there had been “some hiccups,” overall, the jail had ingested the stream of inmates from Archuleta pretty smoothly.

“For the most part, it’s gone real well. We basically treat them just like federal marshal inmates: They belong to somebody else, but we basically treat them like they’re ours – they have access to all the same stuff; they’re not differentiated by uniform.”

On Wednesday, Slade said the La Plata County jail was housing 10 inmates from Archuleta.

The biggest problem, he said, “is court stuff. We had to set up a new video visitation system, so that they wouldn’t always be hauled to Archuleta,” he said.

Valdez said ferrying inmates from Durango to Pagosa Springs for court was cumbersome for his 13-person detention staff.

“It requires them to make four trips – drive to Durango to get the inmate, take them to court, take them back to jail in Durango, and then drive back to Pagosa,” he said.

To ease the burden, La Plata County jail installed a video system, by which Archuleta inmates teleconference in for first advisements – typically their first appearance in court, when the judge sets the conditions of a defendants’ bond.

While allowing that video advisements are legal under Colorado law, 6th Judicial District Public Defender Justin Bogan criticized this arrangement as an affront to Archuleta County inmates’ dignity.

“I have a lot of concerns about any and all proceedings done when the person is not there in court,” he said.

“The notion of having someone’s freedom taken away by the government, then being told by closed circuit television when they’re going to get their freedom back, is a derogation to basic human dignity.”

cmcallister@durangoherald.com