RUMFORD — The Rumford-Mexico Active Community Environment team will meet from 2:30 to 4 p.m. Monday, Feb. 29, in the Rumford Town Hall conference room to hear updates on its efforts to use land along the Swift River to construct a recreational bridge.

The process began four years ago when Carl Constanzi, program coordinator for the “Let’s Go! 5-2-1-0” program in Oxford County, received a Community Transformation Grant that created separate environment teams for Rumford-Mexico, South Paris, Bethel and Sacopee Valley.

One of the projects the Rumford-Mexico team chose was building a recreational bridge a short distance north of the Hosmer Field complex — the site where a wooden covered bridge, built in 1870, was destroyed 30 years later by a windstorm.

Since the beginning of the year, the ACE team has met and discussed which locations would be most viable to build a recreational bridge. They narrowed down the location to two plots of land that Rumford owns on both sides of the river.

During its Jan. 25 meeting, the team agreed to research a list of landowners who own property abutting the Swift River snowmobile trail to see if they would accept upgrading the trail for walkers and bikers.

They also agreed to search the town records to determine whether the road adjacent to land on the Mexico side of the river is privately owned, or if it’s an unused (public) road.

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net