The Arkansas Highway Commission voted Wednesday to ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the compatibility determination on the old U.S. 79 bridge at Clarendon, which formed the basis for its removal.
The commission vote came after three state senators, in a letter dated Wednesday, asked the commission to request the federal agency to "re-evaluate the Compatibility Determination to determine whether keeping the bridge under existing conditions would be consistent with refuge purposes."
The structure, which dates to 1931, stands in the midst of the environmentally sensitive Cache and White River national wildlife refuges, which are maintained by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
A condition of the federal agency's approval of construction of a new U.S. 79 bridge was the removal of the old bridge, restoration of the area's topography and the re-establishment of native hardwood trees.
The nonprofit Friends of the Historic White River Bridge at Clarendon wants the old bridge preserved and adapted for bicyclists and pedestrians as part of a planned bicycle route between Little Rock and Memphis and to foster tourism in the depressed area of the Arkansas Delta.
The Arkansas Supreme Court dismissed an appeal from the group on June 6 that would have blocked the Department of Transportation from removing the old bridge.
Metro on 06/13/2019