During a special meeting on March 26, the Chaffee Board of County Commissioners (BoCC) approved the Emergency Watershed Protection Plan for lands impacted by the Decker Fire. The $725,000 agreement outlines a scope of work that will identify projects to mitigate the post-fire impacts; repairing roads and protecting watershed areas.
Picture from the Decker Fire Media Briefing on Oct. 2, 2019
(Photo by Taylor Sumners)
Most of the work will be on private lands, not public lands. The work to address the damages from the fire must proceed quickly. Unless done within the next few months, the impacts could become worse, as the predictable summer monsoon season, combined with what might be an unpredictable wildfire season, are approaching. The county has already been at work on the engineering plans for the repairs. And it is ready to begin contacting private landowners for land access to complete the work using the federal and state wildfire mitigation funding for which it has been approved.
“We have a 220 day time frame that can be extended [to complete the work], but if we do there are no fund guarantees on this,”said the Chair of the BoCC Greg Felt. “We’re under a Mother Nature time frame too, with monsoon rains and with Mark Stacy [Chaffee Road & Bridge Supervisor], it’s by Memorial Day to get this going.”
Felt pointed out how fortunate the county is to get this funding: “In the Hayden Pass fire down in Fremont County the government pushed back and said the homeowners needed to handle it. In this case, we got ahead of this. I think [we’ve] been flexible, and are working with us.”
Commissioners discussed two potential community-funded efforts to address the emergency created by the coronavirus known as COVID-19. The first the Emergency Response Fund Challenge Grant was covered in an earlier Ark Valley Voice story (LINK). Commissioners unanimously approved $25,000 to the fund, bringing the total amount of donations to $200,000.
The second concept, a shuttle idea for grocery deliveries would used donated time and buses for a period of three weeks or so to address the need to get food to seniors during this pandemic. That demographic has been shown to be more at risk than the general population to the virus.
“We’re looking at how to deal with the financial side of this,” explained Chris Martin. “It seems a direct bill at the grocery store with a charge to Chaffee Shuttle Senior Program might be an option. And for those without funds, funding from the Chaffee County Community Foundation [fund] with donations to go toward the shuttle services.”
Martin confirmed that ridership with the Chaffee Shuttle service is down 70 percent “The folks we give rides to are the ones more vulnerable– we can work this out.. The concept, to clarify where the grocery requests would come in (probably not through the shuttle dispatcher) need to be refined.
“The aid bill has a ‘rural transit’ section ,” said Commissioner Keith Baker, who serves as the county’s transportation connection to the Colorado Dept. of Transportation. We could endorse the Chaffee Shuttle Senior Shoppers project and direct staff to take the document, refine the details as presented, then bring back to us by March 31 agenda.”
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