Exulate Justi: Dillon Dam road shut after suspicious activity

This, I don’t like

From The Denver Post, about 20 minutes ago -

Road to Dillon Dam closed due to ’suspicious activity’

Denver Water and Summit County officials have closed the road across Dillon Dam, a link in the reservoir system that supplies drinking water to Denver, after suspicious activity was noticed.

They have not described what they say appears to be more than one suspicious incident near the road.

“We are working with Summit County officials on this and I can’t release any other information,” Denver Water spokeswoman Trina McGuire-Collier said today.

Officials plan to assess safety and security risks at the facility early next week before determining when the road might reopen.

The mile-long road travels over Dillon Dam, a primary reservoir storage facility in Denver Water’s collection system.

We’ve got some mammoth vulnerabilities in this nation that have nothing to do with “sexy” threats like nuclear or radiological weapons, etc. Infrastructure is a huge issue.

Back in November of 2001, my family and I were at Cherry Creek Reservoir, here in the southern Denver metro area. It was a Sunday afternoon, and the place was pretty well deserted. We had gone for a walk on the nature trail, when I noticed a guy standing near some bushes down near the water line. I’m kind of in the habit of taking note of the people I see around me, so I made some mental notes, and didn’t really think anything of it – until I saw the spotting scope.

The guy was looking through a scope toward the northeast side of the dam (he was down near the water line near the picnic areas on the South side of the reservoir – the dam is to the north.

Here’s a map:

At about the time I started to really pay attention to the guy (who was about 100 feet away), an airport shuttle van pulled up behind another car parked in the area, and sat idling for a few minutes. Eventually, the driver stepped out, and began to walk down to the water line, where he joined the first fellow.

The two men both looked to be Somali in origin, and they spoke Arabic to one another. When they noticed me watching them, they both stared at me for a bit, and then walked further down the beach, where they stood, speaking quietly to one another, and taking turns looking through the spotting scope at what I could only figure to be the Army Corps of Engineers’ flood control tower. There’s just nothing remotely scenic in the area they were focused on. I moved a bit further up the picnic area, and sat where they couldn’t see me, where I got license plate numbers, as well size and clothing descriptions for the two.

When I got home, I called the FBI Field Office here in Denver, and let them know what I’d seen. Did anything ever come of it? I doubt it. Probably nothing untoward going on here, either, but nonetheless, there’s always an alarm going off in the back of my head when I hear about this stuff.

Pay attention, folks.

UPDATE
Denver’s KMGH TV has more detail – doesn’t look to be anything to be concerned about. Still an excellent reminder, though.