Waste rock fill-site okayed for South Gilpin

Lynn Volkens

01/18/2007 - Gilpin County Commissioner Al Price, as the new Chairman, gaveled his first County Commissioner meeting to order at 9:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, January 16^th. Commissioners Jeanne Nicholson and Forrest Whitman were both present. After asking Attorney Jim Petrock for an update on legal matters (“All quiet–so far,” Counsel responded), Price took on the first agenda item, a Boundary Line Elimination.

Lincoln Hills BLEs

  William Schwartz attended the meeting. He and Cindy Schwartz have been purchasing Lincoln Hills properties, first acquiring lots, then BLEs to reconfigure the property into larger parcels. With Commissioners’ approval of BLE 06-21, the Schwartzs combined Block T, Lot 11A (0.90 acres) with Block T, Lots 23-28, 30-37, 46 and 47 (each 0.057 acres) to form Block T, Lot 11B. The BLE created one parcel of 1.812 acres. The BLE program, begun in 1987, is one way County Commissioners have encouraged the reduction of developable Gilpin lots in an effort to preserve the County’s rural environment and character. Successful BLEs generally earn the applicants a “bounty” from the County. In this case the Schwartzs received a check for $235. To date, the County has awarded $67,099 in BLE bounties and reduced the number of developable lots by 1,409.

Funding Requests from School

  Commissioners considered a funding request from Gilpin County School for Spelling Bee prize money and a request from the Yearbook Advisor asking them to purchase an advertisement in this year’s annual. Commissioners agreed to both. They had already budgeted $25 for the Spelling Bee and agreed to sponsor three pages of the yearbook at a total cost of $90. The latter allows them to place a message at the page bottom. Commissioners decided upon a congratulatory graduation message to the Class of 2007.

Monthly Departmental Reports

  Human Resources Director Susie Allen reported no new hires for December 2006. Two people left the County’s employ during that month. Her December report shows 106 full-time, 67 part-time, three temporary and five property tax work-off program employees on the County payroll. Preliminary results of the most recent compensation survey are to be presented at the Commissioners’ January 23^rd meeting.

  Public and Environmental Health Director Jennifer Lavely reported no community health problems in December. She recently completed community health assessments, including data compiled from the surveys collected from residents throughout the year. This department collaborated with others for the Gilpin Health Club meeting at the Community Center and is investigating the possibility of school-based health care. They are in the process of revising existing regulations for Individual Sewage Disposal Systems.

  At the Parks and Recreation Department, Director Penny Kipley reported revenues from drop-in admissions and memberships had increased by $353 from December 2005. She included total figures for 2006, showing an increase in membership revenue of $4,355 over 2005. The Community Center has initiated a bar-code membership card system to help track patronage. Winter-spring swim lessons begin this month. Youth basketball programs have begun. A new abdominal/back strength-training machine was purchased via donation money for the Cardio-Hall and the teen room sports a new air hockey table.

  Library Director Larry Grieco acknowledged a donation of $600 from William Russell, Jr. The $1,400 remainder of grant money obtained in conjunction with Jefferson County Work Force will soon provide a laptop computer for patron usage. Although the start date has not yet been set, the next Saturday afternoon film series genre has been settled on “foreign films” with cinema analyst Walter Chaw returning to offer comments.

  Combined Victim Services reported 24 new clients originating in Black Hawk, six in Central City, twelve in Gilpin County and one from Other Sources during the month of December. That brings the total number of new clients for that month to 43. Of those, twelve were Gilpin County residents, of which one was gaming-related. Of the 31 new clients who were non-residents, 29 cases were gaming-related. At year’s end there had been a total of 645 new clients for 2006 (Black Hawk - 378; Central City - 66; Gilpin County - 187; Other Sources - 14). Gaming-related cases numbered 416. Gilpin residents receiving services numbered 181. There were 142 domestic violence cases in 2006.

Child Support Services

  Betty Donovan, Director of Human Services, presented Commissioners with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Gilpin and Jefferson Counties. Jefferson County provides child support enforcement (including paternity establishment) for residents of Gilpin County. In return, Jefferson County receives approximately $9,000 of funding from mostly federal sources. There is no cost to Gilpin County, Donovan told Commissioners. They approved the MOU, effective through December 31, 2007.

Rollins Pass Road Project

  Gilpin County will apply for federal funding to conduct a feasibility study regarding Rollins Pass. Prior Commissioners, who approved designating a portion of County lands as the James Peak Wilderness Area, made an agreement at that time to work toward opening the Rollins Pass Road for two-wheel-drive vehicles. The current Board of County Commissioners continues to work toward that goal. United States Senator Ken Salazar’s staff recently sent an appropriations information and submission form requesting Commissioners complete their request for 2008 funding by March 2, 2007. Consensus among Gilpin’s Commissioners was that the Rollins Pass project had the best chance (though slim) of being funded because it is a cooperative effort involving two other counties (Boulder and Grant).

Tri-State Water Agreement

  Commissioner Whitman reported on a collaborative effort between Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri to improve habitat conditions for endangered species of fish (Pallid Sturgeon) and fowl (Plover). Whitman represents Gilpin County on most water issues. This project, a Tri-State Agreement regarding the South Platte River, is part of the Water Roundtable, a group composed of representatives from Colorado’s counties, cities and water districts. In this project, Gilpin County agrees to the early release of water so there is more water during endangered species’ breeding times. Nebraska has agreed to buy large plots of streamside habitat and remove the salt cedar growth which depletes the water. Missouri has agreed to build waterways around their dams so the endangered species have better water access. This was just one of the projects Whitman said the group had been working on. There were 18 projects that had taken group time to varying degrees over the past year.

Frei Quarry Fill Site Approved

  Commissioner Price opened the meeting to a public hearing (continued from the December 19, 2006 meeting) regarding a special use permit for the proposed Frei Quarry fill project. Frei wants to deposit up to 5.5 million cubic yards of waste rock (crusher fines) from their Clear Creek County quarry over the next ten to twenty years in the Douglas Mountain, Arbuckle Creek and Central City parkway areas. The sites are owned by the Frei family. Commissioners had asked for more information, chiefly about water drainage and storage in the event of heavy rainfalls. Steve O’Brien, representing the Freis, provided the report. Three Douglas Mountain residents addressed Commissioners, voicing air (dust) and water (metals) pollution concerns similar to those brought up at the December meeting. (Douglas Mountain residential area overlooks one proposed fill site). Jerry Leenheer, President of the Douglas Mountain Residents’ Association, had written a letter and personally presented his concerns about the area’s re-vegetation.

  The proposed fill project had already been reviewed by Gilpin County’s Planning Commission. That committee found the fill project was consistent with the County’s Master Plan and could be approved “conditioned sufficiently enough as to mitigate impacts and maintain neighborhood harmony.” Those conditions specify no mining on the site and detail water retention/infiltration, dust control, submission of fill reports, permit fees and final reclamation of the site. Additionally County staff suggested Frei be required to obtain all applicable State permits, identify and avoid possible historic sites, assess potential impact from uranium and/or pyrites. After all was said and done, the Commissioners unanimously approved a special use permit for the fill project. They included the Planning Commission and staff conditions and added a reclamation bond requirement with the amount to be determined based on figures from the Mine Reclamation Land Bureau. Part of their reason for approving, as pointed out by Commissioner Whitman, is the quarry’s need to dispose of the waste rock whether or not the special use permit was granted. O’Brien said the mine couldn’t use the material to back fill at this point as they had quarried only about 50% of what they’ll be taking from the quarry. They can’t backfill the hole until the mining is done as the fill material would be in the way. The alternative to the Gilpin fill sites is for Frei to truck the material away. That’s costly for the quarry operators, but more than that, could put up to 1,300 trucks per day (allowed by their current permit) on the nearby public roads including Highway 6. Commissioner Whitman commented that he didn’t think Douglas Mountain residents would want that. The next step is to determine the State permit requirements, if any, and to determine the amount of the reclamation bond.

CBMS Woes

  Commissioner Nicholson provided an update on the Colorado Benefit Management Systems (CBMS) overpayment situation. The State has currently overpaid benefits by $93 million, said Nicholson, due to software problems that began when the system was first installed in 2004. The federal government has said sanctions will be imposed against Colorado, mainly to pay back food stamp overpayments. Human Services staff (including Gilpin’s) must now review each case to troubleshoot what happened. Nicholson said that will take three to eight hours per case. Gilpin County’s overpayments, to date, total $45,000. Nicholson also said the “fully automated system” isn’t. Counties have had to hire 30-50% more staff because the system is so complicated to work with and takes longer to use. In Gilpin the new system required a 100% increase in staff to handle an increase in cases of only 20%, she said. It is her opinion that the training is also inadequate. There are several six-inch binders of instructional material and no hands-on training. That increases the chance of human error, further exacerbating the problem. Asked about the culpability of the software developer (EDS), Nicholson said Commissioners had never seen the contract but have been told that EDS complied with their end of the contract and can’t be made to pay for the costly overpayment woes. What’s more, the overpayment problems persist. “The software’s still not fixed,” said Nicholson. Lack of communication between departments at the State level has contributed to the problem, but that may be better under Governor Ritter, she said. Finally, the program was inadequately funded from the start and that will need to be addressed now, too.

  Commissioners meet again on January 23^rd.