If disaster strikes, you’re on your own in Grand Lake … one year later.

So a half dozen homes on Woodpecker Hill are now flooded annually after the installation of a sewer line that disrupted the ground water. This flooding never occurred in the decades prior to this excavation on the adjacent Grand Lake Lodge property.  

The trustees and commissioners for the town approved a development proposed by the corporation that owns the Grand Lake Lodge. However, when this disaster was brought to their attention last year, they refused to accept any responsibility for their decision and even refused to view the destruction of their constituents’ homes. 

We were told that the town’s attorney had advised them to instruct the homeowners that this dispute was between neighboring property owners, namely Woodpecker Hill and the lodge. 

The corporation did install flood mitigation in one home before winter, but the homeowners were informed that any additional work to solve this issue would require a research firm to study seasonal water flow with test wells.  

Now one year later, our requests for a status update remain unanswered. We’ve contacted the corporate officials and Grand Lake’s mayor with no responses. 

So this is an open letter to Grand Lake’s new mayor, new town manager, new town planner, and town trustees and commissioners. We need answers regarding past and future damages and resolutions. Our town officials and corporate neighbor need to decide if they want to take part in the solution or to be the problem.  

In a recent Sky-Hi News article, Grand Lake’s mayor attended a political gathering touting “a little goody bag” for the visiting politician and proclaimed that it was “a great honor to represent the Town of Grand Lake.”  Well, that is precisely what we are asking from our town officials. We want them to represent their constituents and to provide a little goody bag of solutions to our ongoing water conflict. 

Everybody lives downstream.

— Gary Casalo, Grand Lake