Beneath an enclosure attached to the steeply sloping wall of the South Catamount Dam on Thursday, crews painstakingly blasted away years of wear, vacuumed up the debris and applied a fresh layer of a specialized epoxy.

When they’re done, they will move the enclosure and repeat the process until they’ve covered the 145,000-square-foot steel facing of the dam with the battleship-gray coating. Colorado Springs Utilities hopes to have the coating process completed by the end of October.

“The dam itself is in remarkable condition,” Chief Dam Safety Engineer Bill Sturtevant said of the 87-year-old structure. “The steel is in great shape. It’s still relatively close to full dimension, which means it’s as thick as it was the day it was put in.”

During the blasting process, the steel is taken down to bare metal and slightly textured so that the protective coating can better adhere, Sturtevant said.

Weather can make the process tedious. Not only can rain and wind hinder the work, but so can heat and cold. In the bright Colorado sun, the steel can heat considerably, even on a mild day.

Crews are also busy digging up several massive 1937-vintage valves and 1.5 miles of piping, all of which will be either replaced or, in a few cases, removed, according to Project Manager Larysa Voronova. The water intake structure, now exposed for the first time since Franklin D. Roosevelt occupied the White House, will be removed and the two pipes it houses will be replaced by a single, larger pipe and a more efficient control structure.

That pipe runs beneath the dam, where a new valve house is being built. Also being replaced is much of the original concrete. The refurbishment is expected to last for 50-75 years.

“When we do a project of this magnitude, the idea is to get everything done while the reservoir is down so we don’t have to do it again,” Sturtevant said.

Once the work is completed, it will take time to refill the reservoir.

“There is a safety procedure associated with filling the reservoir,” Voronova said. “We’re going to start filling the reservoir at the end of 2025 and are hoping to at least have it half full by the summer of 2026.”

In the meantime, CSU officials are pleading with hikers, biker, campers and fishermen to observe the closures and stay away.

Aside from the reservoir proper, some area trails are also closed for public safety. Crystal Creek Reservoir and North Catamount Reservoir, also located in the North Slope Recreation Area, remain open but access to North Catamount is hike-in only from Teller County. Visit csu.org/southcatamount for more information and a map of trail closures.

It’s a huge project. During a tour given by CSU to media members on Thursday, large vehicles were navigating the narrow roads and excavators were digging up pipes and valves. It’s not a friendly site for recreation.

Workers relayed an anecdote about two hikers who went past “do not enter” signs only to get offended when they were nearly hit with the shovel of an excavator. They were asked to leave but instead continued their hike.

“It’s a very dangerous situation with the number of contractors and the type of construction we’re doing,” Sturtevant said. “There’s very large equipment moving around, there’s a lot of activity.”

South Catamount is one of only five steel-faced dams in the United States. Four of those are among the 25 reservoirs under CSU’s purview.

These steel-faced dams were constructed in the 1930s as part of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration program — a post-Depression era program that put people back to work on large-scale public works projects.