Locals losing sleep over early-morning ATVs

EDWARDS — Matt Koch says he’s tired of waking up to the rumbling of all-terrain vehicles dragging Dumpsters through Riverwalk around 6 a.m. every day.

Koch has lived in River Pines, an apartment complex east of the business complex Riverwalk, for more than a year. He has barely had a good night’s sleep since, he said.

“I just know there’s got to be a better way than this,” Koch said.

Residents like Koch wake up almost every morning to the four-wheeled vehicles dragging the Dumpsters from an underground parking garage next to River Pines.

The Dumpsters are hauled to a spot near the new restaurant and sports bar E-Town and loaded in a dump truck.

Riverwalk plans to get a trash compactor that would allow Vail Honeywagon to remove trash “once or twice” each week later than 6 a.m., said Kim Wolfe, president of Riverwalk Property Owner’s Association.

“I don’t have a current update, but I would say it should be here within the next 30 days,” Wolfe said about the trash compactor.

Trash collectors have insisted on picking up the trash around 6 a.m. every morning, no matter how filled with trash they are. With the trash compactor, garbage collectors will come less often, she said.

Trash collectors come early because they want to avoid Riverwalk traffic, said Matt Donovan, owner of Vail Honeywagon. Riverwalk’s maintenance workers haul the Dumpsters to the dump truck, not Vail Honeywagon employees, he said.

“We’re just doing what the customer has set up given their space constraints,” Donovan said.

With the compactor, garbage collectors would remove trash “maybe three days a week,” he said.

‘Wrong side of the bed’

Loud all-terrain vehicles tow the hard-wheeled Dumpsterss out of the parking garage, with the lids of the Dumpsterss smashing open and closed, said Gretchen Hudgens, River Pines resident for a year.

Hudgens compared the noise to children banging on pots and pans.

“It’s the 6 a.m. wake-up call,” she said.

Hudgens commutes to the University of Colorado at Boulder twice each week for school, works full-time as a massage therapist and gets an average of five hours of sleep each night, “which has diminished because I’m woken up” almost every morning, she said.

Noise from trash removal has been a problem for River Pines residents since Mitch Fox of Bold Real Estate Solutions began managing the property six months ago, he said.

First, trash collectors would push thed Dumpsterss out of the underground parking garage and load the trash in dump trucks. Residents complained about the noise, so trash collectors began dragging the Dumpsterss away from River Pines using the all-terrain vehicles.

“It’s like waking up on the wrong side of the bed every morning,” said River Pines resident Todd DeJong, whose dog starts barking when it hears the Dumpsterss being dragged.

Residents have called Eagle County sheriff’s deputies, Riverwalk property managers and the county about the noise, they said. All have done little to fix the problem, they said.

“I’ve called the police twice,” DeJong said. “They said they’re not interested in the issue because it’s a code enforcement issue.”

Kim Andree, spokeswoman for the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office, did not respond to a message requesting comment.

‘High priority’

Since the trash collectors began using the all-terrain vehicles, Fox has tried to work with the county to enforce its noise ordinance.

“The county came back and said there’s not a whole lot we can do,” Fox said.

The county tried to solve the problem in June, when it told Riverwalk property managers to find another way to remove the trash, said Andrew Jessen, a code enforcement officer for the county.

From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., Eagle County prohibits noise in excess of 55 decibels, which is the same as conversation, Jessen said. County employees will measure the decibel levels Tuesday morning from River Pines, he said.

Jessen has tried to get property managers to change without giving them a noise violation, he said.

“I’m not exactly sure why they’ve not been able to resolve this with their residents and that it’s come to this,” Jessen said.

Wolfe said the last building on Riverwalk’s east side was just built and now the complex has room for the trash compactor, which had to be custom made, she said.

“We have definitely given this a high priority,” she said.

Koch put up with the construction of E-Town, thinking that would be the end of the

noise. Then all-terrain vehicles started their trash route a few months ago.

If the noise doesn’t stop, Koch wonders how future Riverwalk-area residents will cope, he said.

“I doubt they’re showing these apartments at 6 a.m.,” he said.



Staff Writer Steve Lynn can be reached at 748-2931 or slynn@vaildaily.com.