Transmountain: Done

Here's a sad message from Lawrence Gibson, the Chair of the El Paso Group of the Sierra Club:

On October 23 the Environmental Law Office of Sierra Club national in San Francisco finally recommended dismissal of El Paso Group’s lawsuit against TxDot and the Federal Highway Administration over their overblown plans to expand Transmountain Road in Northwest El Paso. If approved as expected by SC leadership, this would mark the end of a 20-month effort by El Paso’s environmental community to get back to TxDot’s original 4-lanes-at-grade road improvement plan for this once-pristine drive past Franklin Mountains State Park and over the crest of the mighty Franklins.

The Executive Committee of your El Paso Group, already $38K in debt to its lawyers, decided in July to pull the plug on the lawsuit. The litigation has been fraught with delays, taking almost two months for approval in San Francisco to begin, with a three month delay by the Austin judge on our motion for a temporary injunction to halt construction, and finally another three-month delay in granting our wishes to halt legal action.

Fortunately, Lowerre, Frederick, et al;, our Austin lawyers, agreed to “stop the clock” in July after your Excom, intimidated by a debt that might take 15 or 20 years to pay off, felt it was hopeless to continue after the judge denied our request for an injunction to stop construction.

In retrospect (Hindsight is always perfect, yes?) we can say, even the lawyers say, that we got a “bad” judge, one unlikely to go up against the development community. Of course, the idea of filing in Austin was in hopes of getting our case heard in a more environmentally sensitive court.

There were several good things to come of this debilitating lawsuit effort. We actually did a terrific job of fundraising! For the first time the Rio Grande Chapter did a special fundraising mailing targeted just to El Paso. This netted over 30 donations, some for hundreds of dollars. Unfortunately they averaged about $20; not nearly enough to cover our five-figure debt.

We also inadvertently discovered a “high-value” donor in El Paso committed to the Lone Star Chapter (That’s the rest of Texas, folks). This person, a non-member, gave our top gift of $5000 and has promised to change donations to El Paso. We also were heartened by major gifts from our coalition partner Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition and our Rio Grande Chapter overseers.

The national Sierra Club was, unfortunately for El Paso, MIA on this lawsuit, which was of course a civic effort. Its Bloomberg millions are committed to the transition away from coal. Efforts are already underway to find ways to replace that money when it is “used up.”

Many thanks to all of the donors to this cause, individual as well as institutional. The El Paso Group of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club appreciates your support!