FWIW, emergency restoration work is exempt from most environmental requirements. Though they did enough grading below that bridge that if it weren't completely dry around there some kind of fish agency might have been a little disturbed. CEQA and NEPA, though, both have fairly wide-ranging exemptions for emergency work.

I do notice in the Dry Canyon pic that UP improved the deck. It's now ballast rather than wood, so there's less to burn next time. And there *will* be a next time, count on it. They did something similar in Sacramento when the homeless crowd started a fire that burned down a wood trestle bridge approach on the main line to Roseville; replacement with concrete started before the wood stopped smoking.