Save the Stacks!

There are several items of special interest on tomorrow’s City Council agenda. Let’s take them one by one.

Item 20D on the agenda could simply be called the Save the Stacks resolution. There are back-up documents including the resolution, a response from the Trustee, Robert Puga, a map, and a “review” of the HKN study which disputes the HKN findings that the stacks are “strong, straight and solid.” However, the HKN document itself is not provided with back-ups.  You can read the HKN report and executive summary on elpasonaturally.  I doubt seriously whether City Council members will read it by tomorrow as it is not part of the agenda back-up materials unless, of course, they read elpasonaturally.

Both the El Paso Inc. and the El Paso Times have done stories about the resolution and the City’s consideration of purchasing the stacks in order to save them. Those stories can be found here and here.  The obstacle seems to be Trustee Robert Puga’s insistence that the stacks be torn down come hell or high water. When citizens first were asked about the stacks, a majority voiced a desire to save them. Then it was announced that saving them would mean a $14Million price tag plus ongoing maintenance, liability, yada, yada, yada. The thrust of the HKN report is that saving the stacks will not mean a $14Million fix but only a $4Million fix. $10Million is the amount that Mr. Puga insists the City pay for the entire site since he hopes to prevent the City from buying just the stacks and the area around the stacks for a monument. It is this $10Million price tag that Puga now threatens the City Council with in an effort to carry out the plan to demolish the chimneys.  Some of the stacks supporters on the Council are willing to save the stacks but not buy the entire land. Frankly, I don’t know why City Attorneys can’t compel Puga to sell just the area with the stacks if he is going to continue to change the rules of the game.

The stacks are safe. They are historically significant. They are and can be objects of art. And they can be much more.

Imagine a commercial area with shops and restaurants. Call it “The Stacks”. Beckoning El Pasoans and eager tourists are two very tall chimneys artistically repainted. These chimneys become beacons of economic opportunity and development for the City of El Paso. They attract not just shoppers but millions of dollars of tax revenue for the City. What better marketing can you have then attractively decorated chimneys? Puga is wrong. Any developer or investor with any amount of imagination can see the value of keeping those stacks.  Historic smokestacks in Baltimore, San Antonio and Cleveland “have been converted into attractions that have generated revenue for their owners,” according to Robert Ardovino of Save the Stacks.

What happens if Puga and company drop the stacks? Two things: First, even though the stacks would be collapsed into a ditches created for them and dropped while huge water sprayers attempt to keep down most (but not all) of the dust, there is still the possibility of contamination now contained within the strong, solid and straight walls of the chimneys. Second, as elpasonaturally previously surmised, the “evidence” of more insidious contamination will be destroyed. Some future law suit which would benefit all not just the victims will be impossible, because the evidence of insidious contamination will have been destroyed – the crime scene compromised – the evidence now locked away in the chimneys forever gone.

Bottom line – Save the Stacks.  They are monuments now and can never be used again industrially – never.  Ask your City Council member to save the stacks and to read the HKN reports:

Ann Morgan Lilly: district1@elpasotexas.gov
Susie Byrd: district2@elpasotexas.gov
Emma Acosta: district3@elpasotexas.gov
Carl Robinson: district4@elpasotexas.gov
Dr. Michael Noe: district5@elpasotexas.gov
Eddie Holguin Jr.: district6@elpasotexas.gov
Steve Ortega: district7@elpasotexas.gov
Cortney Niland: district8@elpasotexas.gov
Mayor John Cook: mayor@elpasotexas.gov

Item 18 asks Council to approve the same resolution already passed by the PSB to make the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park part of the PSB’s holdings. The plan means more water for the Bosque and millions of dollars of eco-tourist dollars for El Paso. Read the Chris Robert’s El Paso Times story.  Also read Water Prospects Brighten in this month’s Rio Bosque news.

An issue that probably won’t go away any time soon is considered in item 20E. The issue in short is this: Although the City owns the land (and it is part of the PSB inventory and part of the NE Master Plan), the mineral rights beneath a square mile of the land are owned by the General Land Office of the State of Texas. They have agreed to lease that land to Jobe to quarry. Jobe currently operates a quarry adjacent to and north of this land. The Chris Roberts story in the Times provides good summary and insight. See the Council’s back-up material on this agenda item. There is a significant archaeological site on the land which raises the concern that the Texas Historical Commission may still object. Jobe will have to remediate the land that has extensive archaeological materials – something which may take time and great expense. The lease impacts the NE Master Plan. Although asked how much revenue the City may lose, Ed Archuleta, so far has not responded. Another keen observer calculates that the 900 acres of land lost at $35Thousand an acre will be a loss of $31.5Million in  income. If $300Thousand can be recouped each year from royalties, it will take 100 years to make up the difference. Jobe is currently doing a survey to determine how much and what part of the land will be quarried.

Items 14A and 14B are simply an update on the NW Master Plan/petition process.  “We’re finalizing the survey, Low Impact Development, and Dover Kohl regulating plan,” Carlos Gallinar told me.  “The PSB is still finalizing the deal with Texas Parks and Wildlife but still needs an official survey,” he said.  Gallinar will ask Council for one more postponement and will get its final report to council in early 2013.

Finally, an estimated 200 people packed the Mecca Lounge at Ardovino’s Desert Crossing yesterday to celebrate and pay tribute to the life of Kevin Von Finger. See some pictures. Be sure you read the best online tribute to Kevin written by Kevin Bixby of the Southwest Environmental Center.