A park bench that was unusually close to a sewer vent has been uprooted and thrown away by the city of Durango.

The bench, made out of metal with a rubber coating, would have been relocated, but it didn’t make sense to chip away all the concrete on the support posts before reinstalling it at a new location, said Cathy Metz, director of Parks and Recreation.

“Sometimes you have to weigh the cost of a new bench versus the cost of chipping off that concrete and trying to salvage a very old bench that had gotten sun-faded,” she said.

“Those benches last a long time ... but it had been installed for a very long time.”

The bench was on the east side of Demon Bridge near Memorial Park. It overlooked a popular section of the Animas River but was about 10 yards from a sewer vent that put off an odor.

Metz said she had the bench removed Tuesday after speaking with Mike Smedley, who writes Action Line, a weekly column for The Durango Herald, that answers readers’ questions.

His column on Monday poked fun at the park bench and its close proximity to the sewer vent.

But one passerby who observed the bench being removed said the city used its heavy equipment to crush the perfectly good bench shortly after pulling it out of the ground.

The man, who refused to be identified, asked why the bench couldn’t be relocated or donated.

“I just thought it was a waste of taxpayer money,” he said. “Everything is disposable now, and it’s just buy new. If nothing else, they could have just given it to somebody else.”

But Metz said it was an older bench, and the removal couldn’t have been done without damaging the bench.

“It was not able to be reused,” Metz said. “It was at the end of its useful life.”

A new bench will cost $513, she said. But the Parks and Recreation Department receives requests all the time from residents who want to create a memorial bench, in which case they pay for the bench with a plaque.

shane@durangoherald.com