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Gypsum homeowners seek answers from town after sewage backup leaves them with a financial mess

10 homeowners in Gypsum were affected by the nearly two-hour long sewage backup on July 10

Impacted residents of Porphyry Road gather at Eagle River Estates Park.
Madison Rahhal/Vail Daily

Aspen Parker, 18, was wrapping up an evening shift at work when he got a call from a friend who was at his house.

“He said there was water all over the floor, my carpet was soaked, he was asking why Link, my kitten, was soaked,” Parker said. “I came home, and I realized it had happened again.”

Parker’s bedroom, located on the basement floor of the home he shares with his mother and older brother on Porphyry Road in Gypsum, had been flooded with sewage water for close to 12 hours by the time he discovered it. The sight of toilet paper, water and fecal matter spread across his room and covering his pet was deeply upsetting, but not unfamiliar. He recognized the look of sewage backup from a similar incident six years before.



“I was panicked,” Parker said. “I was not happy, because my dad lives in Eagle and (my mom) was on the Colorado Trail, and I was like, what do I do?”

On Sunday, July 10, Aspen Parker returned home to find his bedroom covered in toilet paper, water and fecal matter.
Courtesy photo

That question has been running through the minds of the 10 homeowners in Gypsum who were affected by the nearly two-hour long sewage backup that took place on Sunday, July 10. 

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At around 11 a.m., a large blockage occurred in the main sewage pipeline, causing the flow of wastewater to redirect back into pipes near the blockage, releasing out of drains and manholes and flooding the surrounding area. The latest incident report from the town estimates that 7,500 gallons of sewage were spilled before the public works team was able to clear the blockage at around 12:40 p.m.

The flooding wrecked the bottom floors of multiple houses in the area, primarily concentrated on Porphyry Road, which is located at a low elevation right next to the Eagle River. Collective damages from the sewage backup are estimated to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to remediate, not accounting for personal items lost to the event, and without support from the town, many homeowners say that the financial burden will be too great to bear alone.

‘I seriously live paycheck to paycheck’

Parker’s mother, Toni Parker, received news of the spill a day later, after getting cell service on the Colorado Trail, and immediately returned home to handle the situation. She had recently finished remodeling her basement and was now feverishly moving everything that could be salvaged out of the contaminated space and into her living room to avoid permanent damage.

Parker said she was told that an estimated 100 gallons of sewage flowed into her house that Sunday, and ServiceMaster Restoration and Cleaning Services gave her a $62,000 estimate to cover remediation services alone. Her insurance policy will only cover up to $5,000, and the replacement of walls, carpeting, furniture and other items to make the space liveable again will be thousands of dollars more.

“With the cost of living here, I seriously live paycheck to paycheck,” Toni Parker said. “I have no debt, except for minimal credit card — it’s all in this house. I’m trying to pay for two kids’ college educations, and I will have to take out a second mortgage. I don’t have the money for it.”

Just a few houses down the road, brothers Martin and Javier Landa have been constructing their first single-family home, building it out over the past two years while residing in a nearby mobile home. The brothers were keeping all of their building materials in the basement while completing the top floors, including tens of thousands of dollars of flooring and insulation that was ready to be installed. They said that they were around two months away from completing the project when the spill happened.

Now, the brothers are looking at an estimated loss of at least $70,000 in materials and remediation costs. Not knowing that this was a neighborhood-wide issue, they assumed that the leak was their fault, and spent money out of their own pockets to pay seven people for two full days of labor to stop the flow from going into the Eagle River and discard all of the ruined materials. At one point, the brothers said that they were actively redirecting sewage back into their basement in an attempt to avoid contaminating the river.

Martin Landa with the last of four dumpsters that he filled with contaminated materials. The Landa brothers said they lost over $70,000 in labor and building materials in the sewage spill.
Madison Rahhal/Vail Daily

To make matters worse, Martin Landa said that they are uninsured after being refused insurance on the property multiple times. He said that the brothers never understood why insurance would not cover the property, and now believes that it was related to the high risk of sewage issues in the area.

Across the street, Theresa Arguello and her sister Rita Rodriguez have abandoned their home entirely due to concerns about health risks. Rodriguez is immuno-compromised, and Arguello said that with fecal matter absorbed into the old wooden structures of their basement, neither of them feels safe entering the home.

“It’s embedded in all of our homes, especially in this heat, and you can’t leave the doors unlocked and the windows wide open all the time because you also have to worry about all the other things that can go on,” Arguello said.

All along the road, there are similar stories with similar price tags, and as the deluge of five-digit bills piles up, the homeowners are looking to the town to take responsibility for the calamity.

Jessica Hollis, a 27-year resident of Porphyry Road, shows her granddaughter’s ruined playroom.
Madison Rahhal/Vail Daily

Blame game

The cause of the blockage has started an ongoing debate about who is responsible for the damages.

The town has made a clear argument that it is not at fault for this incident. The 12-foot by 2-inch blockage was made of materials that town engineer Jim Hancock said “should never be put down a drain,” including so-called “flushable” wipes, cloth rags, diapers, mini liquor bottles, grease, a carpenter’s pencil, and other unidentifiable items. 

The main sewage line that runs along Porphyry Road is the point where all of the lines in Gypsum meet before heading to the wastewater treatment plant, leading improperly disposed-of items from around town to collect in one place. Hancock said that the town recently jetted the area in question, clearing it in Nov. 2021, and does so on a regular three-year cycle, which is more frequent than the five-year cycle required by state regulations.

The town’s insurance provider, the Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency, is currently undergoing an investigation of the event, but Hancock said that it is unlikely that the town will be found responsible, as it has not been negligent in maintaining the sewage system. Instead, the blame is being directed at sewage users who are putting non-flushable items into the system. The official five-day report explicitly says that “a lack of education and incorrect advertising by manufacturers appear to be the cause of this spill.”

If the insurance company’s investigation confirms this analysis, the town will not be found liable, and will not have insurance funds to distribute to the homeowners. Despite this likely conclusion, during the July 12 Town Council meeting, town leaders all agreed that the consequences of improper sewage use throughout the town should not be shouldered by just 10 households, and brought up the idea of an “irresponsible flushers fee” that would disperse the cost throughout the town.

“I believe that there was a human cause impact to this problem, that all the taxpayers, in theory, contributed to, that is now being borne by a small population in our community that happens to be in this zone,” said Jeremy Rietmann, the town manager.

“I do agree that this is a problem that is town-wide, that all of the taxpayers share in that burden,” said Council member Bill Baxter.

While no formal action has been taken to implement this fee, the Town Council has agreed to cover costs to remediate homes back to a level of safety, to ensure that cleaning companies don’t deny the work over payment concerns. The total cost of damages has yet to be determined, and though the council did not set a specific dollar amount on how much it is willing to pay, the town’s communications manager, Taylor Slaugh, said that it will be subject to the financial limits of the town’s sewer fund. 

These assurances from the town have not appeased the impacted homeowners, who feel that the repeat occurrence of sewage issues in the area is evidence of broader negligence. Multiple homeowners confirmed that they have experienced at least three incidents of sewage spills in the neighborhood, including one in 2019 and one around six years ago. Rick Cole, a 30-year resident, claims he has witnessed at least five incidents.

The town is currently working on a compilation of past incident reports to verify these claims.

Residents also expressed concerns that the environmental impacts were being overlooked, leading them to file a complaint to the Environmental Protection Agency. The town’s five-day report states that the environmental impact of the spill was “minimal … due to dilution by the Eagle River” and that there was “no observable impact to groundwater,” though numerous residents observed sewage matter in their yards.

The Eagle River runs directly behind the Landa’s home on Porphyry Road. The brothers redirected sewage into their home in an effort to protect the river.
Madison Rahhal/Vail Daily

The recurrent problems have led to a sense of fear and mistrust among the community members, all of whom said they were unaware that living on the main sewage line would expose them to such added financial and health risks. Some residents have brought up the possibility of a class-action lawsuit to try and protect their assets, with little faith that the town will address the issue on its own.

“They’re saying we’ll fix it, we’ll help you, we’ll pay the mitigation, but it’s going to happen five years from now,” Arguello said. “And after you’ve used up all your money and all of your resources to fix the house and make it livable, it’s going to happen again.”

Never again?

Residents are searching for concrete reassurance that this will never happen again, and Hancock said the town is doing everything in its power to give it to them. 

He said that the first priority will be better public education about what can and cannot be put into the sewage system. The town is also looking into adding monthly manhole checks in the area and possibly installing a flow rate alarm that will notify public works when the rate of flow slows down, signaling a potential block. 

The town has plans to build a larger sewage system by 2025, increasing the size of the main to meet growing capacity needs. Hancock said the town will also consider relocating the collective main line away from the neighborhood and to a less populated area to decrease future risk. Until then, he encourages residents to invest in check valves that prevent backwater from spilling out into homes.

“We feel terrible about it,” Hancock said. “We don’t like to see people go through this, and we’re going to do everything we can to see that it doesn’t happen again.”

Whether these solutions solve the problem once and for all remains to be seen, but in the meantime, the residents of Porphyry Road and surrounding areas are in limbo, wondering how they will survive financially if outside support is limited.

Toni Parker was planning to rent out her home and live in her camper in order to afford her son Aspen’s college tuition. Now, she’s looking to take a second mortgage out, and he’s watching his plans of attending culinary school this fall slip away.

“I work 50-hour weeks to afford tuition and living in Boulder, and after five scholarships we are still taking on debt,” Aspen Parker said at the Gypsum Town Council meeting on July 12. “It’s disappointing to see my community encourage my educational growth, but then take the money that I need for that education to pay for something that wasn’t my fault.”

Toni Parker was planning to rent out her home and live in her camper in order to afford her son’s college tuition. Now, she’s looking to take a second mortgage out.
Madison Rahhal/Vail Daily

The sense that all of their hard work and financial planning is for naught is shared by all of the homeowners in the area, who are holding onto hope that they will not be left to carry the burden alone.

“We’re not Cordillera, where people can go and remodel. We are people that are living our lives paycheck to paycheck as much as we can,” Arguello said. “It needs to be addressed that it’s an everybody problem, not just this small community that nobody listens to because it’s just a small community.”


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