County commissioners are weighing the options to prevent another massive rockslide on Dam Road, where a slide on East Sunday in 2024 buried the pavement under 4,000 tons of rock.
Experts with Thorton-based RockSol are confident another major collapse will not happen soon, but they know it will happen.
At this week’s county commissioner work session, RockSol presented three mitigation options, ranging from bolts and netting to mining-industry resin, what they call “rock glue.” The price tag ranges from $2.9 million to nearly $9 million if work started today. Officials are certain those prices will grow.
Commissioner Tamara Pogue prefers the most efficient and expensive option – cutting 40 feet into the wall. Experts say this would fix a major design flaw on Dam Road, where there is not enough ditch space between the cliff and the pavement. Cutting into the wall gives room for large rocks to collapse without fully burying the road.
Other options, like moving the road or covering it with a “rock shed” are not on the table. The control site for Dillon Dam sits just across from the cliff, meaning the roads most likely will stay exactly where it is.
Summit hopes to split this project with Denver Water and the towns on either side of Dam Road. Commissioners did not commit to anything yet, pending talks with those other partners.
Until then, their plan for this summer is to monitor the cliff face for possibly dangerous cracks and shifts.
But be warned: This road has a history of rockfall (not to be confused with rockslide). Small rocks are constantly falling from the face, especially during spring freeze and thaw. In early April a five-pound rock smashed one driver’s windshield.