It Isn't Over

Here's today's elpasonaturally e-letter:

It’s not over until . . . you know the rest. The Federal Highway Administration has taken some time now to rule on TxDOT’s Environmental Assessment of its Transmountain project. They will either accept the EA or notify TxDOT that they must perform a full blown Environmental Impact Study. There is a Sierra Club account to collect money for legal fees in case FHWA says an EIS is not needed. “In that case the next step would be to sue TXDOT and FHWA,” a Sierra Club official told me. The Sierra Club attorneys will obviously not do anything else until FHWA has made their decision regarding the EA.

There is, however, the petition that has been re-circulating. It does not call for Transmountain not to be widened. It does call for keeping nearly 800 acres natural and it would prevent some of the major overpasses from being built as described in the Chris Roberts El Paso Times story, Bypassed, a story that keeps being talked about and keeps angering people.

Petitioners are carefully checking each signature to make sure that they are those of registered City of El Paso voters. Download the petition here. Email me and I’ll come pick it up or tell you how to mail it to me ASAP. The petition is just a sliver away from getting enough signatures. Even if City Council were to turn down the petition, the FHWA needs to know that El Pasoans don’t like being bypassed and don’t like the project as designed. There is no virtue in getting lots of highway money for El Paso went that money is spent on environmentally bad, poorly designed and poorly presented projects.

Even if you think that you signed the petition before March or April, you can sign again. Any doubt, sign.

Read the El Paso Inc. story about the state parks cuts. The El Paso Times also did a piece on last week’s massacre of Texas Parks and Wildlife employees that hit El Paso the hardest. One of my readers questioned my use of the term “firing” when I spoke about the termination of employees here in El Paso. She suggested that “laid off” was more apropos since “firing” has the connotation that the persons being laid off did something wrong. None of these people did anything wrong except work in El Paso for the TPWD since El Paso is a city unrepresented on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Each and every one of these eight people has been hurt and will be missed. It is a tragedy and a travesty to lose John Moses, the John Wayne/Sean Connery of our local state parks. John wasn’t a pencil pusher. He got out there and knew the trails and the terrain of every square inch of our parks. I just hope he sticks around El Paso and continues to enrich our community with his leadership and wisdom.

Please support our friends at the Southwest Environmental Center. Read more here. Also, please visit Trap Free New Mexico, learn more, visit the petition page and the Facebook page.