Dust from Gold Hill Mesa plagues trailer park

Linda Vogl couldn�t see Fountain Creek just 200 feet from her trailer home Sunday as a thick, red dust cloud blew off the Gold Hill Mesa construction site on the west side. �It was the most hideous thing in the world,� Vogl said. �You couldn�t open your mouth. You had to close your eyes and hope it ended.� Her neighbor, Chuck Graner, constantly cleaned the powdery grit from his home as winds blew for two hours, choking him and others in the A1 Mobile Village on the mesa�s eastern edge. �I cleaned the window sills three times,� Graner said. �It�s like fine sand. It�s terrible.� Alvin Gutierrez was outside when the winds erupted, pounding the mesa and blowing up the dust. �It blinded me, like sand-blasting me in the eyeballs,� Gutierrez said. Neighbor Lynn Kelly said he couldn�t escape the red dust: �It covered the entire trailer.� While Sunday�s dust storm was the worst A1 Mobile residents can recall, the problem of powdery red soot choking their homes is not unusual. Not since April 2006, that is, when development began on the Gold Hill Mesa subdivision atop a massive pile of mine tailings. Developers envision 1,400 homes and a retail and commercial complex on the mound. Before houses could go up, a layer of barrier dirt had to go down to protect future homeowners from the remnants of the gold and silver mill that processed Cripple Creek ore until 1949 and left behind a 100-foot-high pile of tailings awash in arsenic and lead. Over the years, erosion gashed deep gullies in the pile, carrying its toxic waste into adjacent Fountain Creek. (See photos and a map on my Side Streets blog at www.gazette.com) The dirt was supposed to help by capping the tailings and filling the gullies to prevent the witch�s brew from blowing or draining off the site. But A1 Mobile residents say the plan isn�t working. In fact, they say things are worse. �I�ve lived here 22 years,� Graner said. �Before construction started, we�d get this once in a while. But not like this. Since they dug it up, it�s gotten really bad. This isn�t dirt we�re getting. It�s like a fine sand. Like tailings.� Experts with the state Public Health and Environment agency say the dust probably contains toxins, but they say brief exposure is not a danger. A1 residents scoff, cough and worry. And it isn�t just airborne particles punishing A1 residents. When it rains, thick mud flows off the site, turning the yards around their trailers into a muddy swamp. �We got 8 inches of mud that covered the street one day last summer,� Graner said. Even more frustrating than the dust is the response of Gold Hill developers to the problem, A1 residents say. Gold Hill wasn�t always unresponsive, Graner said. Early in the project, before the economy soured and home sales tanked, construction managers would regularly water the dirt to keep it from blowing. Not now. He said there�s no one around to do any watering. Or to call. �I haven�t seen any heavy equipment in over a month,� Graner said. �They�ve just quit. Given up. No one answers when we call. What are we supposed to do?� Despite repeated calls and messages, Gold Hill Mesa officials could not be reached for comment. Tell me about your neighborhood: 636-0193 or bill.vogrin@gazette.com