December 9, 2007--A plan to manage erosion on peak (Colorado Springs Gazette)
At 12,000 feet, below the steep section of the Pikes Peak Highway known as “the Ws,” the mountain seems to have washed in on itself. Storm runoff from the impervious highway has carved out massive unnatural gullies, and the wetlands below have become choked with sediment from the mountain and gravel from the highway. “Most people don’t realize the problem,” said Eric Billmeyer, assistant director of the Rocky Mountain Field Institute. Erosion like this led to a Sierra Club lawsuit in the late 1990s against Colorado Springs and the U.S. Forest Service to force officials to pave the highway. As part of the settlement, Billmeyer’s group was given $300,000 by the city and Forest Service for erosion control projects. It is getting ready to embark on the largest, an eight-year, $6 million project to restore this area, near Elk Park, and another nearby heavily eroded creek. “Nature needs a little help in being able to stabilize this,” Billmeyer said.
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