PHOTO: Archuleta County Commissioner Ronnie Maez, fair right, addresses Chris Ribera and LuAnn Baker, at the podium, during a May 2 discussion about the Pagosa Junction Bridge closure.
Archuleta County residents LuAnn Baker and Chris Ribera took turns during public comment at the Tuesday, May 2, Archuleta Board of County Commissioner meeting, to question the closure of the Pagosa Junction Bridge, which was scheduled to take place in three days… on Friday, May 5. The closure would prevent anyone living south of the bridge from using County Road 500 — otherwise known as Trujillo Road — to make the 24-mile, 50-minute drive to Pagosa Springs.
Nor would those people be able to access Cat Creek Road — CR 700 — if they prefer that particular gravel road to get to town.
It would also cut off the people just north of the bridge — on Trujillo Road or Cat Creek Road — from accessing the nearby village of Arboles and the paved highway, CO 151.
We are not talking, here, about a large number of people. The area around the bridge is only sparsely populated. Also, the vast majority of the land belongs to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, and that includes the property surrounding the bridge.
Baker stepped up to the podium, in not the best mood.
“I’m here to discuss the bridge problem. You take that bridge, and I lose my mail, I lose my medication, I lose fire and emergency help. Also, I believe I’m the last person on the 883 [telephone exchange, and I believe the bridge is holding my phone line… so I’m facing a huge problem here.
“Ive talked with Commissioner Maez and I’ve talked with the Tribe. You guys are not communicating at all. You are whacked out.”
Ms. Baker claimed she had heard the term “whacked out” from a teenager.
“You guys are whacked out. Something has to happen with this bridge…”
As a spoiler, I will share that the bridge was indeed closed on Friday, May 5.
This editorial series will also discuss Ms. Baker’s claim that the Archuleta County commissioners and the County staff are “not communicating at all.” As we all know, communication is a two-way street, and that’s a big part of this unfortunate story.
I’ve lived in Pagosa Springs for 30 years, and I had never been to Pagosa Junction until Friday. I drove the 24 miles down Trujillo Road — a gravel road that has its maintenance challenges — and snapped a few photos of the County Road & Bridge crew laying the concrete barriers on either side of the very old bridge.
Many, many years ago, Pagosa Junction was a thriving little community, and was a railroad junction for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The town’s population was noted at 200 when the post office opened in 1899, rose to a peak of 447 in the 1930 census, then began to fall when the railroad connection to Pagosa Springs closed in the 1930s. After the railroad closed, the rest of the town began to shutter its doors. The post office closed on November 30, 1954. In September 1962, the school closed, having only 17 students. By 1979, a newspaper article reported Pagosa Junction as having “3 or 4 residents”.
Or so I’ve read.
Here’s the view I had of the Pagosa Junction bridge and the Road & Bridge vehicles, from Trujillo Road. You can see the historic St. John the Baptist Church at the far right.
According to Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), the bridge — which spans Cat Creek, a tributary of the San Juan River — is unsafe and needs to be replaced.
But CDOT believes — as does everyone else, apparently — that the bridge replacement is the responsibility of the Archuleta County government. I understand CDOT has promised financial assistance.
Last November, CDOT gave the County 90 days to address the failing structure, and for reasons we will get into later in this editorial series, that didn’t happen.
Here’s a quote from the April 27 issue of the Pagosa Springs SUN, written by reporter Josh Pike. The BOCC was discussing the bridge issue with Public Works Director Kevin Pogue.
Pogue explained that he worked with a bridge manufacturer and had a new bridge designed, which would be cost effective at a price of $650,000, below the expected cost of $1 million.
He noted that the new bridge would also have its abutments further out of the floodplain, increasing its longevity.
He added that the County does not have a right of way for the road and that he reached out to the tribe to attempt to establish a temporary easement or other agreement to allow the County to construct the bridge.
“I’ve reassured them more than once that … we would minimize the impact of the construction, of the demo, that we would be very mindful of the sensitivity of the area and still it just falls on deaf ears,” Pogue stated, adding that he has not been able to even secure a timeline of when the tribe would reply to him.
“I’ve gone to their office, I’ve sent emails, I’ve done all the legwork that I could to this point, and I don’t see any other alternative until we get some sort of communication feedback from them. Some sort of participation,” he said, adding that the county is not asking the tribe to fund the project.
The ‘right of way’ question is central to this trouble.
Let’s go back to the May 2 BOCC meeting, where Chris Ribera and LuAnn Baker were asking the commissioners to reconsider the bridge closure.
Chris Ribera:
“I think it was a hasty decision based on trying to hold us hostage for a lack of communication by your staff and with the Southern Ute Tribe. I was able to get a hold of the Southern Ute Tribe, and I don’t know if they got back with you or not, but hopefully they did. She said they were going to come back and talk to you. They were waiting on you guys for a response. You said you were waiting for them to respond.
“I’m with LuAnn. I say we need to sit down and talk this thing over. Whether it be on top of the bridge or not. Somebody is not following through…”