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Trinidad, Colorado: News -Permit status at bridge remains perplexing Page 4 of 5 "I really can't say who actually owns that bridge," said Duckworth, "But I understand thm Hill requested the evaluation and 1 can tell you that we have environmemal people working on the problem. "I can't speak for everybody," he said, "but the big question is how are we going to handle it'? We don't even know yet what we need." Duckworth said that there are so many companies using either the bridge for light crew trucks, or the river crossing For heavy gear, especially now, that there will have to be a survey done in order to Find out "the proportional number of tons, For how many years, at what times oFday, at what volume... questions like that so we can get something done." II was good news to both Lollar and Duckworth that they now had someone to talk to get infornmtion first hand, they both said. Still, there was the maucr of the area residents' tint concern: What about all those pieces of heavy equipment s'lirring up and packing the river bottom and dripping oil and grease into the remains of the Purgatoirc River. A spokesman at Colorado's- Division of Water Resources said he knows of no regulations that control people using a riverbed as a roadway and he didn't know who would. Van Truan, chief of the Southern Colorado Regulatory Office of the Corps. of Engineers, said Lorencito Canyun Coal had been issued a permit in December for "temporary access crossing of the creek to get equipmem to the mine." Truan said, "It's slow-water crossing permit, so they can't impede spring or Flood runoff. so long as they don't employ structures to build a crossing, they should be OK, but it is up to us how long 'temporary' means. It could mean up to a year." Truan said that crossing access is defined as permanent or non-permanent depending on the use of structures. http://www.trinidadco.com/stories2002/news/Ol/08/bridQing.html 01/16/2002