City officials will require that developers install outlets for an unfinished detention pond to prevent Woodmen Road from washing out, a possibility that forced the closure of the road during heavy rains the past weekend.”Now we will mandate in a letter that we need design and construction timetables to get something in place … until a permanent structure is in place,” Brian Kelley, engineering programs manager, said Monday.After heavy rains Thursday night and Friday, the pond’s earthen dam threatened to give way, endangering Woodmen Road between Tutt Boulevard and Marksheffel Road in eastern Colorado Springs, city engineer Cam McNair said.City officials closed Woodmen on Saturday, reopening it Sunday after a construction crew building westbound Woodmen Road installed a temporary outfall to relieve the pressure on the dam and channel water into Sand Creek’s main channel.The problem was discovered by a state dam inspector reviewing plans for the pond’s final design. He went to have a look and found a sinkhole forming, McNair said.”The embankment was built but didn’t have an outlet to release the water,” McNair said. “The fear was that it would overflow and could take Woodmen Road with it.”Woodmen Heights Metropolitan District, overseen by Terry Schooler, began building the 150-acre foot, or medium sized, detention pond after it was permitted in October 2006.Kelley said due to the real estate crash and construction slowdown, no work has been done on the pond for about a year.”We’re going to have to get them to finish that before we have more of these (problems),” McNair said.He said a letter would be issued this week demanding work proceed as soon as possible. “They (developers) are fully aware of what needs to be done, and I’m sure they’ll take action to finish it in a more stable condition,” Mc-Nair said.The costs of temporary fixes done by R.E. Monks Construction on Saturday will likely be billed to the county, because Monks was working on a county road project there when it dealt with the flooding. The county, in turn, likely will bill the metro district, McNair said.McNair said the only other major problem of the weekend’s rains was the washout of a drop structure on Sand Creek south of Platte Avenue and west of Powers Boulevard.He said the project has been bid, and construction was to begin soon.City workers are assessing damage to the drainage system across the city and will know more by week’s end, but an early appraisal didn’t reveal additional failures, city spokeswoman Mary Scott said.Colorado Springs Utilities, which has spent more than $100 million in recent years to shore up creek-crossing pipes and other preventive steps, reported no problems with pipes crossing the city’s chief creeks – Fountain, Sand and Cottonwood.-Contact the writer: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazettedev.gazette.com

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