{"id":69256,"date":"2017-06-28T17:35:07","date_gmt":"2017-06-28T23:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/water-leak-on-colorado-145-prompts-traffic-concerns\/"},"modified":"2017-06-28T23:35:07","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T23:35:07","slug":"water-leak-on-colorado-145-prompts-traffic-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/water-leak-on-colorado-145-prompts-traffic-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Water leak on Colorado 145 prompts traffic concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Water
Water seeps out from a broken irrigation pipe under Colorado Highway 145, just north of Cortez.<\/span>Colby Earley\/Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A broken irrigation pipe is causing water to spill across Colorado Highway 145 near the Fairway Drive intersection in Cortez, Department of Transportation officials say.<\/p>\n

Michael McVaugh, CDOT\u2019s transportation director for Region 5, which includes Montezuma County, said the pipe is owned by a private company. He said his department has been trying to negotiate with the company to repair it for about a year, but it still occasionally causes water to flow across the road, prompting recent complaints from Sheriff Steve Nowlin and other county residents. According to the Montezuma County Assessor\u2019s Office, the pipe belongs to Shriners Hospital for Children, a client of Montezuma Valley Irrigation Company.<\/p>\n

McVaugh said he thinks the leak does not pose a danger to drivers, but it could cause long-term problems for the road if it\u2019s not fixed.<\/p>\n

The problematic pipe is a siphon tube that runs under the highway to deliver irrigation water to land on both sides. McVaugh said road maintenance workers notified him of water flowing across the road two weeks ago, in the latest of several such incidents caused by the leaking pipe. Because the water is shut off in winter, it didn\u2019t create an icy patch. Still, McVaugh said, it\u2019s risky for drivers to come across water where they weren\u2019t expecting it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may put signs out there to warn motorists about the water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Nowlin said he hasn\u2019t heard of traffic problems, but he contacted CDOT because he was concerned it was starting to degrade the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got to stop, because it\u2019s going to create a problem,\u201d he said. \u201cWith as much heavy truck traffic that we have, it could become a real hazard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he can\u2019t authorize repairs on a state highway.<\/p>\n

McVaugh said CDOT can\u2019t fix the pipe or shut off the water because it\u2019s privately owned, and the responsibility for its maintenance falls on the owner.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little risk that the leak could cause a sinkhole, he said, since sinkholes are usually caused by fast-moving water that quickly erodes the soil. Slow-moving water can still cause problems, though, by softening the soil underneath the pavement and creating a dip in the road. Public information officer Lisa Schwantes said that hasn\u2019t happened yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur maintenance crews are keeping a close eye on it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said CDOT \u201chas been making progress\u201d in convincing Shriners Hospital to get it fixed, and she said they would increase their efforts in light of recent complaints.<\/p>\n

This article was re-posted on July 5 to correct the name of the irrigation pipe\u2019s owner.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

on road caused by broken irrigation pipe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":69257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,29,1685,557],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-69256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-road-work-and-conditions","tag-traffic"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69256"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=69256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}