Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — After problems with its septic system and an electrical system, the new Yampa River State Park is nearly 100 percent and officials are looking forward to a good summer.

Yampa River State Park Manager Dennis Scheiwe told Routt County commissioners Tuesday that both the electrical system in the campground and septic system, which were recognized to need repairs last summer, are up and running.

"Everything is pretty much working good," Scheiwe said.

The state park, west of Hayden, opened in May of 2000 and was funded by Great Outdoors Colorado for the Yampa River System Legacy Project.

When it opened, officials estimated its construction costs were $2 million over budget, before fixing the septic and electrical system at the park.

The overrun was because of evolving plans and costs that changed the nature of the construction, including having to bring in subgrade from another location to build on because of bad soil at the site and constructing acceleration and deceleration lanes on U.S. 40, officials said.

Now, with construction problems behind them, Scheiwe said he is looking forward to a good summer managing the Yampa River.

Colorado State Parks own seven of the 13 public accesses to the Yampa River between Hayden and Dinosaur. One goal of constructing the state park west of Hayden was to manage public recreation on the river.

One of the first projects under way is marking land along the river that is private or public, so people boating or tubing down the river know where they can get off.

Scheiwe said the state will put up red symbols, probably a circle or a square, on trees along the Yampa indicating what parts of the river is running through private land.

On public land, where people can legally unload from the river, there will be blue symbols.

"I have my concerns with trespassers," County Commissioner Dan Ellison said.

So do many landowners along the river, County Commissioner Doug Monger added.

Scheiwe said the signing system will help with that problem, but added that there hasn't been many reported trespassings on the river in a while.