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ThoT~as 0. David ~ECEI`/ED ~- mace 2 4 July la, 19ao The next farm west of Dir. Bailey's belonged to George and John Hokestra from which the present pit gets its name. Again, it was the request of the fiokestras that the County straighten the river so as to prevent further erosion of land belonging to the I fiokestras. The next farm !vest of the Hokestra farm .belongs to a person by the name of Lasley. Ms. Morgan informed me that while Dtr. Las- ley had no problems in terms of erosion of his pasture lands, he did agree to allow t~Teld County to build a dike to straighten the river in order to help Dir. Hokestra with his problem. The land to the f•7est of Dir. Lasley (part of o;hich is now owned by DIr. Slovik), was formerly owned by Dir, tdilliam Keeler. It was Dlr. Keeler's desire to establish a fish pond on a parcel of land which is located immediately to the East of the aresent ??okestra Pit. The present Hokestra Pit and the area o;here I~fr. Keeler desired to have the fish pond at that time comprised a loop in the river. In order to~establish this fish pond and remove the materials from the fish pond, a dike was constructed ~rhich straightened the river and cut off the flop; of water to the sites. Aerial photos clearly indicate that o:hile the dike ':gas constructed and the river straichtened by June 19, 1975, it appears that no significant mining operations had occurred on either site by that time. Another aerial photo taken on April 25, 1977 indicates that mir.ina operations on Dir. Keeler's (noe, Dlr. Slovik's) property :were substantially completed. D?r. Diorgan indicated that the fish pond which was constructed for D?r. Keeler is of a depth of approximately 30 feet and that the bottom of the fish pond is bedroc}:. At the time that mining operations were commenced on the property Piest of Mr. Keeler's property, that parcel was owned by Mr. Frank G'1°rtner. S1nCe 197x, I';elp CoUntj' naS b2En piirCtiaSiIlg materlal ~:*;-iich has been extracted from the present Y.okestra pit site: Prior to 1978, weld County never made any payments other than the above described services which Caere paid in exchange for the materials. Further, no action o;as taken by f9eld County to straighten the path of the South St. Vrain except at the request of the various landowners who felt that such straightening was in their best interests. ~e.~z..~ ,~ ~ J I ROBERT LOr^?E'_`i5A H A SISTANT COUNTY ATTORe~iEY JP.L:ss