Judge steps aside from Ironwood contempt hearing
KSJD reported that District Judge William Furse will let another judicial officer hear the punitive contempt case over a wood-waste pile on Road T. A setting conference is scheduled for October 22.
The district judge handling Montezuma County’s long-running case over a pile of wood waste between Cortez and Dolores has agreed to step aside from one part of it, KSJD reported Friday.
Graphic: Cortez Current. Source: KSJD
According to the public radio station, District Judge William Furse ruled Thursday, October 15 that he would not preside over a punitive contempt hearing against the Ironwood Group LLC, which owns a mill on Road T. The company’s owner and one of its managers are also defendants; this site is not naming them.
KSJD reported that the defence asked Furse to step aside in a motion filed late on Wednesday, a day and a half before the hearing was due to begin, and that he rejected one of its two arguments but accepted the other. That argument rested on a rule covering indirect contempt proceedings in which punitive sanctions may be imposed: a person facing those charges may ask to have the matter heard by a different judge. Furse found the defendants could invoke that right.
The station reported that the judge was explicit that his decision covers only the contempt action, and that the rest of the case returns to his division once the contempt matter is settled.
Separately, KSJD reported that the defendants had moved on October 12 to call off or postpone the contempt hearing, and that Furse denied that motion on Tuesday. In his written order he said it was hard to believe the defendants were surprised or unprepared, given that the issues have been in litigation since 2022.
The plaintiffs are Montezuma County and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Their 2022 complaint says Ironwood ran a veneer manufacturing mill that later closed and left behind a large pile of wood chips posing a fire danger, and that the owners failed to reduce that risk. A stipulated injunction issued on November 23, 2022 set out how the chips were to be dealt with, and an amended version on March 15, 2023 required a series of steps by May 31, 2023. The plaintiffs say those steps were not taken.
A setting conference in the contempt matter is scheduled for Thursday, October 22 at 8:30 a.m. at the Montezuma County courthouse, before District Judge Todd Plewe.
The site reported the earlier ruling in this case on October 9, when Furse allowed the plaintiffs to correct the property description in the injunction. KSJD’s report on Friday’s ruling is here.