Galisteo residents are lobbying a resistant state Department of Transportation for weight limits on two old bridges on N.M. 41 just south of their village.

The Galisteo Creek and the San Cristobal Arroyo spans are ranked among the six most deficient bridges in District 5, which covers Santa Fe, Taos, Rio Arriba and San Juan counties.

Although DOT wants to replace or repair the bridges with federal money and has lowered the speed limit through Galisteo, district officials say there's no reason to put weight limits on the bridges, which were built more than 70 years ago.

Galisteo, a historic ranching village 20 miles south of Santa Fe, has become an affluent, artistic enclave of some 250 families. Most residents say they support rehabilitating the bridges while putting weight limits on them. Some say they believe DOT's reluctance to weight limits is related to plans to pave the country road from Cerrillos, to explore for petroleum in the area and to expand a pipeline distribution center at Moriarty.

For years, the Navajo Refining Co., now owned by the Holly Corp., has pumped gasoline and diesel fuel from its Artesia refinery via a pipeline to a distribution terminal in Moriarty. But that could expand in coming years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Shell Pipeline Co. wants to add new pipelines on the right-of-way to move refined petroleum between Odessa, Texas, and Bloomfield, and to build a new terminal at Moriarty.

Elizabeth Rose, a sculptor who lives in Galisteo, said she has noticed an increase in oil tankers using N.M. 41 in the last decade. She said the rumble of the big trucks bothers her husband, who has Parkinson's disease, and has caused the adobe walls of some of the village's older structures to crack.

Rose said she supports weight limits to prevent the tanker trucks from taking a shortcut from Santa Fe to Moriarty through Galisteo. Using U.S. 285 and Interstate 40 takes only nine minutes more, she said, noting several oil-tanker accidents have occurred along N.M. 41 in recent years.

DOT District 5 public information officer Karyn Lujan said the Federal Highway Administration sets load-limit guidelines on bridges, and it has not recommended posting weight restrictions for the Galisteo spans. ``It's not required,'' she said. ``The DOT can't just post a bridge because a community wants us to. We can't discriminate.''

Denise Pruitt, a member of the Galisteo Roads Committee, a volunteer group working with Santa Fe County, said it took her committee almost a year to get a N.M. 41 traffic study from DOT. ``We finally had the attorney ask for it, and we got it lickety-split, and we know the reason why,'' she said. ``Out of about 3,000 cars (a day), 2,800 of them were over the speed limit, up in the 60 and 70 mph range. ... We just feel like they're dragging their feet.''

Lujan said the latest traffic report, due in August, is still being prepared. But a year and a half ago, she said, the speed limit was lowered from 45 to 35 mph through the village of Galisteo and across the Galisteo Creek bridge. Lujan said DOT purchased solar-powered speed-monitoring signs for Galisteo, but hasn't installed them because some residents were bothered by the signs' flashing lights.

``I just find it so interesting when they say that we're not working with them when we are trying to address these issues,'' she said. ``One effort we've made to try to mitigate that speeding issue, we have posted it at 35, which on a state highway is pretty slow. We're being very reasonable.''

Lujan took issue with the implication that her department is dragging its feet. ``When they were asking for information, we were still compiling it,'' she said. ``When the attorney (for the Roads Committee) asked for the information, we already had it. So that's why it was faster.''

Another committee member, Mary Chase, said District 5 Engineer Phil Gallegos said at a public meeting in Galisteo last January that weight limits would keep emergency vehicles from using the highway through Galisteo, even though emergency vehicles are exempt from weight restrictions. ``So they don't give us the correct information,'' Chase said.

Lujan, however, insisted all vehicles are subject to weight restrictions, although emergency vehicles are not likely to be ticketed for violating the restrictions. ``We're not law enforcement,'' she said. ``We can say they're posted, but we don't really have any control over whether they're going to go over the bridges or not.''

In its invitation to the January meeting and on its Web site, DOT said the two Galisteo bridges were among ``the top eight deficient bridges'' in the district. But DOT was slow to prove that. Asked for the list of most deficient bridges, Lujan said the Web site information is ``all we're giving out to the public'' and directed a reporter to DOT's statewide public information officer S.U. Mahesh.

Mahesh told a reporter to put his request in writing. The same day the request was e-mailed to Mahesh, another DOT public-information employee, David Coriz, wrote back to say that providing the list of deficient bridges would take up to 15 days -- the maximum under the state Open Records Act. Asked why it would take so long, when the information had been available eight months earlier, Coriz e-mailed a reporter a list of 45 bridges in the district with deficiencies.

According to that list:

u The Galisteo Creek bridge, a 240-foot, steel-girder span with a cast-in-place concrete deck, was built in 1936 and is rated at 30.5 on a sufficiency scale of 1 to 100 -- tying for second place in the worst bridges in the district.

u The San Cristobal Arroyo bridge, a 21-foot, steel-girder bridge with a cast-in-place concrete deck, was built in 1939 and is rated at 37.3 -- giving it a sixth-place ranking among the district's most deficient bridges.

Lujan said DOT is trying to determine whether to replace or rehabilitate the two bridges, which are eligible for $3.3 million in federal bridge funds available in October 2008. ``We need to have all of our ducks in a row so the timing will work out, but if we can't reach an agreement, then we may have to put this money on hold or allocate these moneys somewhere else,'' she said. ``In the meantime, we've got to use maintenance money to patch and keep these bridges open.''

Santa Fe County might pave all of County Road 42, which runs 10 miles from N.M. 14 near Cerrillos to N.M. 41 near Galisteo. Two miles on the east end of Country Road 42 and 2.5 miles on its west end have been paved since 1998, and the country might add two 10-foot driving lanes plus two 6-foot bicycle lanes to the road's five miles of dirt. But county Public Works Director Robert Martinez said that plan could be scaled back due to objections from some residents.

One of those critics, Kim Sorvig, who teaches landscape architecture at The University of New Mexico and lives off the west end of Country Road 42, said he doesn't think paving all the road is necessary, given it handles about 250 vehicles a day. The paved portions, he said, have caused severe erosion that has left 8-foot-deep trenches along the roadside.

Sorvig said some local residents think the proposed improvements of Country Road 42 and N.M. 41 are related to Techton Energy's leasing mineral rights in the area and exploring for petroleum. ``There's some speculation that there are political pressures,'' he said. ``Of course, as secretive as those interests are, as well as the politicians who support them, we can't really find out.''

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.

1. Rio Arriba County, N.M. 111 bridge over unnamed waterway, 1 mile south of junction with N.M. 554, built in 1950,  28.2 sufficiency rating on a scale of 1 to 100.
2. Santa Fe County, N.M. 41 bridge over Galisteo River,  6.3 miles south of junction with U.S. 285, built in 1936, 30.5.
3. San Juan County, N.M. 170 bridge over unnamed waterway, 17 miles north of junction with U.S. 64, built in 1955, 30.5.
4. Rio Arriba County, Onate Street bridge over Rio Grande in Espanola, built in 1940, 36.3.
5. Taos County, N.M. 240 bridge over Rio de los Cordovas, 3.9 miles north of junction with N.M. 68, built in 1961, 37.1.
6. Santa Fe County, N.M. 41 bridge over San Cristobal Arroyo, 6.6 miles south of junction with U.S. 285, built in 1939, 37.3.
7. San Juan County, N.M. 516 or Chaco Street bridge over the Animas River just east of  N.M. 516 in Aztec, built in 1929, 39.2.
8. Taos County, N.M. 578 bridge over roadway slide area, 1.4 mile south of junction with N.M. 38, built in 1975, 40.0.
9. Taos County, N.M. 567 bridge over the Rio Grande,  6.1 mile from junction with  N.M. 68 at Pilar, built in 1957, 43.3.
10. Rio Arriba County, N.M. 554 bridge over El Rito Creek,  .2 mile north of junction with N.M. 215/N.M. 110, built in 1957, 44.3.