Laserfiche WebLink
<br /> <br />A SYNOPSIS OF WHY EL PASO COUNTY IS APPLYING <br />FOR A 110 LIMITED IMPACT MINING PERMIT <br />Historically E1 Paso County has promoted safe well maintained roads <br />for the approximately 2000 miles of roads and highways they are <br />responsible from maintaining. In the eastern part of the county <br />many of the roads were established before the turn of the century. <br />Because of the lack of sophisticated earth moving equipment many of <br />the roads were built on the natural contours of the land. Because <br />the general road system was developed on section lines that run <br />north-south and east-west in certain instances to reduce the <br />extreme grades notches were cut in areas of steep slopes or high <br />ridges. On a regular basis the Department of Transportation <br />engages in operations to reduce side slopes of the roadways to <br />allow for the accumulation of snow adjacent to the roadside rather <br />than in the roadway itself. In addition these high slopes can <br />create severe sight distance problems and many are in a constant <br />state of erosion and exacerbate the hazardous situations to the ~ ~~ <br />motoring public. <br />While the vast majority of the safety projects we engage in are <br />small in scope and take only a day or two to correct, on occasion a <br />major safety project in undertaken. The Simla Highway safety <br />project is one such area. Before we are through the area of <br />excavation will be 850 feet long and 275 feet wide. The time of <br />excavation while indeterminate should last through the summer of <br />1997. While we do not feel that this site is a mining operation in <br />the strict sense of the word we understand the Mined Land <br />Reclamation Boards decision to designate it as such. It is our <br />understanding that this designation was promulgated on the fact <br />that our department is paying for the material to be removed. <br />While this is not our standard practice we felt that in this <br />specific instance compensation was due the landowner because of the <br />protracted time of removal. <br />