Last Saturday dozens of Rio Grande Valley residents spent their morning showing their love for Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and World Birding Center. They gathered under the shade of beautiful Texas ebony trees to draw attention to the threat posed by the Trump administration’s border wall. This March Congress voted to pay for a levee-border wall that would split the state park in two, destroy acres of native forest, and wall off the state park’s entire trail system.
At the center of the event were postcards sent by participants to Texas Governor Greg Abbott and U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar, who represents the district in which Bentsen is located. They asked the two officials to advocate for the state park and save it from the destruction of the border wall and from possible closure. The crowd generated 113 postcards for each leader, and the campaign is still ongoing.
You can print your own Save Bentsen postcards here!
In addition, local artists donated original drawings of plant and animal species commonly found in the park to create a Bentsen State Park bilingual Lotería. Kids and grownups alike took tours of the park with local naturalists and returned to color in those species on the Lotería card that they had sighted. There was a lot of excitement when one group spotted a Western diamondback rattlesnake, and birders were thrilled to see an Olive-sided flycatcher, just one of the hundreds of species of migrating birds that use Bentsen for a waystation on their journey across two continents.
When the guided tours returned, participants gathered to hear local naturalist and Sierra Club member Tiffany Kersten recount the story of when brothers Lloyd, Sr. and Elmer Bentsen agreed to spare the park from the plow after they grew to appreciate the very ebony grove where the picnic was taking place, and how they donated the land to the state for the enjoyment of all Texans in 1944, with the state park officially opening in 1962.
Then Martha Garcia of the Environmental Awareness Club at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley talked about how her first experience at Bentsen on a school fieldtrip reminded her of her family’s first home in Tamaulipas, México and the importance of being able to connect with that natural heritage.
Border wall expert and Sierra Club member Scott Nicol explained how the levee-border wall would cut off the trails from the Visitor Center and how the plans called for chopping down the native forests 150 feet south of a levee-border wall to create a gravel-covered “enforcement zone.” He also spoke about the danger of the park being shut down for good, noting that the trail system connected to another World Birding Center—the one at Hidalgo Pumphouse in the City of Hidalgo–had been walled off in 2009 and was no longer accessible to the public.
The event wrapped up with families picnicking under the ebonies, whose beauty had compelled the Bentsen brothers to save the forest here for us. The question is, what will we save for future generations?
Of the three candidates running for the Texas House District 37 primary race, only one is opposed to the proposed Port of Brownsville LNG export terminals. Arturo Alonzo recognizes that the massive industrial facilities could be a blow to our tourism and real estate industries because they depend on clean air and clean water. He understands that the unsightly tanks and flares and the unhealthy pollution that the LNG companies will bring to our coastline could actually cost us jobs and decrease property values.
Submit a comment opposing the border wall by October 20th
September 17, 2017 by valleygreenspace
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is accepting comments about their extreme border wall plans in South Texas which include
You can read about their destructive plans in the letter they sent to a handful of organizations.
Please cut and paste the following email addresses and send a comment in order to express your outrage about this drastic action to both CBP and to Texas Senators Cornyn and Cruz:
commentsenv@cbp.dhs.gov, Ana_Garcia@Cornyn.senate.gov, Casandra_Garcia@cruz.senate.gov
Email Subject: RGV Wall and Gates Construction
Comments are due October 20, 2017.
Sample letter you can copy and paste from:
I am opposed to the construction of the Trump administration’s border walls. I am also opposed to the construction of levee-border walls, bollard walls, 150-ft enforcement zones, border wall gates, massive industrial lighting, and all-weather roads.
These border wall structures are symbols of racism and xenophobia, they involve the condemnation of farms and ancestral lands, and they destroy wildlife habitat and refuges. This border wall project would also violate the treaty that establishes the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo as the United States- Mexico border which forbids either nation from building structures in the floodplain that would worsen flooding.
Levee-border walls would cut off thousands of acres of farmland, put the historic La Lomita Chapel in no-man’s-land between the border wall and the border, and would restrict access to trails at the Bentsen Rio Grande State Park and World Birding Center, the National Butterfly Center, and Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. Bollard walls can act as dams and would worsen flooding conditions in communities on both sides of the river such as Roma and Ciudad Alemán.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) should release more information about its border wall plans immediately. They should also host multiple public meetings in the Rio Grande Valley communities that will be impacted by border walls. Undocumented residents attending these public meetings should be assured that they can participate without fear of arrest and deportation. CBP should also comply with all of our nation’s laws, not waive those that it sees as inconvenient.
The Sierra Club has submitted an extensive comment you can read it here.
Posted in Borderlands, Environmentalism in the Valley, Rio Grande, Safety | Tagged border wall, Customs and Border Protection, levee-border wall, public comment, Senator John Cornyn, Senator Ted Cruz | 41 Comments »