Forty Years Ago This Week: Just after 6 a.m. on July 15, 1982, the Lawn Lake Dam above Estes Park experienced a “catastrophic failure,” causing 30 million cubic feet of water to tear through the landscape, headed directly toward the town of Estes Park. After merging with the Cascade Dam and Fall River, five to six feet of mud and water poured into the town, damaging 177 Estes Park businesses – over 90% of the commercial structures – and causing more than $31 million in damages and the deaths of three people.

The National Park Service had no warning or evacuation plan in place for a potential dam failure near Horseshoe Park, and was later sued by family members of the three people who lost their lives in the tragedy.

President Ronald Reagan declared the flood a national disaster. Nine months later, Colorado State Engineer Jeris A. Danielson issued a report pointing to the source of the failure, “leakage under high pressure … from the outlet pipe and valve.”

Mesa State College Dean of Students Sen. Tilman Bishop, R-Grand Junction, had spent his interim months studying Colorado’s 27,000 dams, reservoirs and stock ponds. Following his research, state Sens. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, Joel Hefley, R-Colorado Springs, Richard Soash, D-Steamboat Springs, Don Sandoval, D-Denver, and Rep. Walt Younglund, R-New Raymer, joined Bishop in announcing the introduction of Senate Bill 84-28 and House Bill 84-1052 to help clarify responsible parties for water storage and related problems in Colorado.

“The Lawn Lake tragedy and the interim study,” Bishop said, “raise questions of reservoir safety, and there are numerous questions currently without answers.”

Bishop outlined some of those questions: “Who in a dam tragedy is responsible? Who inspects which dams and for what purpose? What is the reservoir’s obligation to recreational user safety What do we do about concurrent state/federal jurisdiction?”

In an aim to address the implications of a “high hazard dam,” which refers not to the structure but the potential loss of life and threat to property, SB 28 would make it illegal to build any new facilities below the high water mark of a reservoir.

Meanwhile, under the language in HB 1052, absent negligence, owners of dams and reservoirs would be exempt from liability for floods that exceeded the one hundred year flood mark.

“We have tried to identify the high-water level so that changes can be made for safety and for adequate liability coverage, and so that the state engineer can do his job in an orderly way without becoming a czar,” Bishop said.

Bishop said he foresaw opposition from developers and controversy over the proposed minimum liability limit of $1 million, but, “we’re solving some problems here – and the interim committee, in my judgement, did a damn fine job.”

Thirty Years Ago: The failure of a bill supporting the hemp industry to come to fruition in the state Senate angered activists so much that they quickly accused Senate Minority Leader Sam Cassidy, D-Pagosa Springs, of killing it before it could even be introduced in the legislature.

Calling out a member of his own party, the bill’s prospective sponsor then publicly confirmed the claim. “Cassidy told me not to sponsor that bill because this is an election year,” explained Sen. Lloyd Casey, D-Northglenn. “I agreed to go along with him for this year.”

Colorado Hemp Initiative’s Tom Barrus called the maneuver “disgusting.”

“So much for the GAVEL amendment,” Barrus said. “Here we have Sam Cassidy squashing a bill, not even allowing it to be introduced so it could be killed in committee.”

Cassidy told The Colorado Statesman that there had been no impropriety and that all of his colleagues were independent and made their own decisions, “from the bottom up, not the top down.”

But before the start of session, Cassidy said a number of senators had expressed their concerns about Casey’s hemp bill.

“They said it was the wrong time to do it, that it would harm Democrats,” Cassidy continued. “I passed on their concerns. Casey made his own decision.”

Meanwhile, CEI was finalizing plans with the secretary of state’s office for a petition drive to attempt to put their initiative on the November ballot.

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series. She has degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Gazette.