The DEP didn't budge.

By order of DEP Secretary David Struhs, the $56 million Garcon Point Bridge cannot open until all requirements of a signed environmental permit have been met.

Before plans to allow traffic to flow Monday can be realized two things must be accomplished:

Completion of wetlands restoration work.

Compilation of a long-term plan for taking care of surrounding wetlands.

The Bridge Authority met Thursday seeking to avert having to put off its planned Monday opening. A Saturday ribbon cutting will go on as scheduled.

Members tried to convince Bobby Cooley, director of district management for DEP's northwest district, that almost everything would be completed by Monday, and the rest could be finished after the opening.

"I think it's pretty clear it has to be complete," Cooley countered.

That inflexibility did not sit well with authority members.

"One little word called complete," muttered David Morres, the chairman.

With its efforts to win a reprieve thwarted, board members discussed filing a lawsuit against DEP. But before taking that step the authority first wants to be sure its biggest hurdle - completing work to create a pond for stormwater runoff - can't be cleared by Monday.

The board will meet again Monday at 9 a.m. to assess progress on the work needed to meet DEP permit requirements.

At that time, if it is apparent terms of the permit can't be met for the Monday opening, the board could vote to seek a declaratory judgment against DEP.

Frank Doddi, general superintendent of the company doing the wetlands mitigation, told the authority he didn't think his crews could finish its work over the weekend.

"It would be a real reach by Monday or Tuesday," he said. "Wednesday I can guarantee it, if we don't have torrential rains."

Frustrated by Cooley's failure to respond to their compromise efforts, board member Clyde Grayce fired a verbal pot shot at his boss, Struhs.

"You'd think once in a while we'd get someone down in Tallahassee with some common sense," he said.

Mahlon McCall, executive director of the Bridge Authority, blamed politics and the leadership of the Pensacola-based northwest district of DEP for the bridge delay.

"They're determined to throw up every roadblock they can," he said. "They were opposed to the initial permitting and they've just had a plan to make it difficult for us and interfere with us any way they could."

Cooley said authority members are simply complaining now about matters they've had since 1994 to address.

"They have a permit agreement. They agreed to it. They signed it," he said. "This is not an issue of throwing up roadblocks. The issue is they didn't meet permit requirements."

Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin can be reached at 682-5608.