My hoe is itching to hit the back field, would you do it?
The pictures aren't great but what you are looking at is a bridge over the creek in my back yard. The creek is maybe 6-8 feet wide right there. Often times it's dry but sometimes there is a lot of opportunity for washout of the whole thing. We have yet to get a big rain where a washout was possible, or likely, so it hasn't been put to a real test, likely until next spring...
When we moved in to the house the bridge only had one 12" cement pipe allowing water to move from one side to the other, and there were frequent washouts which made it tough to get the mower over it or any other kind of vehicle.
I've since dug the whole thing up and added 2 more 16" PVC pipes about a foot lower than the cement one. We then covered that with dirt and rocks, and we had a pile of concrete bags that had been exposed to the rain that we laid out over the top, as seen in the first picture below, then covered that with more dirt and rocks, then compacted it pretty well. The second picture is a poor cross section but mostly representative of the construction and yeah there are pipes hiding behind the rocks there, we have had enough of a washout to move things around a bit.
The pipes are probably 2-3 feet under the surface, with the cement one being shallower.
My concern is driving a 7 ton backhoe over it and squashing any of the pipe. We have had a full size pickup truck over it with no issue, but not the backhoe. With my boulder hunting project the field will be my most likely chance to find good rocks while not disturbing the land too much, at least in ways I care about.
So, would you drive over the bridge in a piece of heavy equipment? If it collapses are there more disasters that I'm not thinking of that I may not be able to hoe out of?