Highway exchanges in the works

The Hot Springs County Commissioners were on hand as Road and Bridge Superintendent Dave Schlager opened a pair of proposals for a municipal lease of equipment.

The first bid amounted to a lease payment of $25,497 per year for three years. The second bid had a payment listed as $7,785, but Shlager nor the commissioners could determine if that was a monthly payment or a quarterly payment.

Schlager will call the bidder to get clarification on the bid since three different offers were included in the bid. The commissioners will then award the bid at their first October meeting.

Rocky Mountain Power is asking the commissioners for a right-of-way permit for a section of Lane 12 south of Thermopolis.

The commissioners approved the request, but it brought up some questions for them since when the original development of the area was approved there was apparently no intention for there to be electricity provided since the area was for storage only.

Now the commissioners would like to meet with Land Use Planner Bo Bowman to find out what kind of follow ups Bowman does after land use change conditions are granted.

The commissioners also approved a letter to be sent to the District 5 Engineer of the Wyoming Department of Transportation regarding a CRIP (Commission Road Improvement Program) application for Black Mountain Road.

In the letter, the commissioners would like to pursue a CRIP project that would reconstruct and/or rehabilitate 8.6 miles of Black Mountain Road in exchange for taking ownership of 5.67 miles of State Highway 170 (Hamilton Dome) and .60 miles of State Highway 174 (Anchor Dam).

In exchange, Hot Springs County would entertain taking 8.63 miles of State Highway 171 (Grass Creek).

The letter stipulates that the state overlay the Grass Creek Road prior to the county taking ownership and that the cattle guards on that section be reset or replaced prior to the exchange.

Before any kind of deal can be made, the state is pulling seven years of records on all of the roads involved before making a final agreement.

It appears there are not a lot of funding requests for CRIP funding, so the program approval looks very promising.