the WATCH
www.watchnewspapers.com
September 16, 2010
TELLURIDE – Consultants unveiled a conceptual plan for Valley Floor trails and river restoration at a lightly attended public meeting last week that would increase pedestrian and bicycle trails on the 572-acre property and return the San Miguel River to a more ecologically functioning waterway.
At an estimated soup-to-nuts cost of around $6 million (including sewer line relocation, revegetation, bridges, monitoring and maintenance costs, and contingencies) to complete the project with professional crews, however, the consultants admitted that the vision was ambitious.
“This is what we would do if we could,” said Troy Thompson, president of Ecological Rresource Consultants, the Evergreen, Colorado based firm retained to develope the plan.
Hardly newcomers to the property awarded to the town by the Colorado Supreme Court in June 2008 after a lengthy and costly condemnation battle, ERC completed a comprehensive environmental report on the property in March 2009.