TPWD Won't Survey Quarry; Gives away Responsibility to Cemex

Elpasonaturally has previously noted that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has no idea whether Cemex has encroached on state land at their quarry at McKelligon Canyon. TPWD as well as the Franklin Mountains State Park were urged to do a boundary survey.

We have now learned that neither TPWD nor FMSP are willing to go to the expense of a survey and will defer to Cemex. In other words, as one astute environmentalist points out: citizens and TPWD have abrogated their responsibility. 

Efforts have begun to determine whether the State will buy the land and close the quarry and end the destruction of the Franklins once and for all. The hitch may be that the General Land Office probably will fight any such efforts because it wants the royalties from mining (and destroying) the Franklins. 

It had previously been thought that the new FMSP headquarters might hold up efforts to get the quarried land from Cemex. There was some fear that the $3Million for the headquarters might vanish. However, new efforts to re-locate the headquarters to Tom Mays from the proposed site at Wilderness Park next to the Archaeological Museum may have saved the day. Although Tom Mays has neither water nor electricity, it seems that both John Balliew of El Paso Water and officials at EPEC are willing to make the new plan work.