Fridays with the mayor
A new understanding of what the town of Saratoga can do to the Platte River and finishing Tyler Pickett Park topped the matters Ed Glode talked to the Saratoga Sun about on Friday.
According to Glode the town has already inspected two main gravel bars in the North Platte River within town limits. One is near the Bridge Avenue bridge and the other is above the Highway 130 bridge.
Glode, town engineer Chuck Bartlett and Carbon County Emergency Management Coordinator John Zeiger went to Cheyenne last week and met with the Army Corps of Engineers to discuss permitting for removing the gravels bars.
According to Glode, “without any permitting, we can go in there with an excavator and a dump truck … lift rock straight up out of the river and put it in the dump truck and drive away.”
If the town applies for a simple permit, one that would fall under a 30-day approval process, they will be able to move sediment in the river 200 feet on either side of the two vehicle bridges in town. Glode said that includes shaping bedrock and the channel of the river in those areas and that is the type of a permit the town plans to apply for at this point.
To remove the exposed gravel down to the water line in the two bars means moving about 2,000 yards of material. Glode said the town now needs to develop a cost estimate for the removal of the sediment and decide if town employees will do the work or if it will be contracted out.
Town officials also discussed how to proceed with the construction of Tyler Pickett Park last week. There are already two designs for the park, one of which is on display at town hall. Glode said the concern with that design is the limited amount of parking near the existing foot bridge to Veteran’s Island. This design was funded by private individuals, but the town would like to see the parking issue addressed. According to Glode, this means the private backers may not support the project further. The park design was on the agenda for the Town Council meeting on Tuesday.
One other item the town researched this last week is the future of internet availability in Saratoga. After meeting with Union Wireless it is the town officials understanding that four conduits were laid from I-80 to town last summer and one of those contains 72 strands of fiber-optic line. The other three conduits are currently empty. Glode said questions remain about how the three empty conduits might be utilized and how to expand fiber-optic connectivity from the main line through the town.
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