Unscientific, but still concerning

Click on image to enlarge.

I've written several times about the encroachment on state park land by GCC (previously Cemex). HERE is the most recent blog post. After the last post, Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition member, Steve Tures, emailed the map above. He said: "I did a rough and unscientific (read, not official or maybe wrong) attempt to see how close they [the park and quarry] are, and seems like they're really close or maybe over their line." He said that he fudged an overlay on what's publicly available on GM.

Tures seems to confirm what many others have also seen.

Of course, whether the quarry has encroached state land or not, they are quickly destroying this portion of the Franklin Mountains and could mine all the way to the ridge. 

Why does the City of El Paso and others do business with them?

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.

Good News for Glass Recycling?

From AndelaProducts.com

Word on the street today is that Cemex has run out of Franklin Red. That means they have gouged out as much of that beautiful rhyolite from the McKelligon Canyon Quarry as they can. That's sad news because it means the beauty of that rock has been forever taken from that large portion of the south end of the Franklin Mountains.

There is yet another tidbit of news coming from the Pendale Citizen Collection Station: Cemex wants to purchase 200 tons of recycled glass! "What for?" I inquired. "Possibly to experiment with" was the answer. Problem is that the Pendale glass crusher has only produced 10 tons of glass mulch so far. 10 tons is good news. Even better news is that El Paso residents are using it. This means El Paso's glass recycling program is working.

It also means that El Paso should think about getting a larger glass crusher. Las Cruces has a $186K crusher purchased from Andela Products. 

Again, 10 tons is great news. However, I still run into people who aren't even aware that they can recycle glass not to mention use the crushed glass for mulch, landscaping and art. 

Save your glass and take it to the collection station nearest you. Go to the Pendale Station to get your free crushed glass.

For further reading 

City of El Paso Garbage Collection Do's and Don't's 

What to Recycle in El Paso 

Benefits of Glass Recycling

Breaking News: CEMEX Sells McKelligon Canyon Quarry

This doesn't sound like good news. GCC will just continue to operate the quarry without the baggage that CEMEX had. I doubt that the new owner will sell to the State for preservation as part of the Franklin Mountains State Park. I don't know any more details. For now, go HERE to read the press release from Business Wire.

Time to Buy CEMEX?

Aerial view of CEMEX McKelligon Canyon Quarry.
Photo by Scott Cutler

Not the stock - the McKelligon Canyon quarry. Here's why:

There is no way to close down the quarry. That was tried several years ago when Caballero was Mayor. The effort failed and it helped lead to the political demise of Ray Caballero and the election of Joe Wardy. 

There is one fact in Texas law that no one can get around unless there is a huge sea change in Texas politics leading to a re-writing of its Constitution. In Texas private property is sacrosanct. It trumps all other considerations. CEMEX owns the land at the quarry to the ridge of the mountain. Although at a certain point it may become logistically impossible to do any further quarrying, CEMEX can continue to scar the Franklin Mountains for the foreseeable future and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Nor can the City easily boycott that quarry and not allow them to bid on city projects. It’s very hard to blacklist a vendor.  They have to have a really bad record with the city (or the state or the feds) such as an inability to perform. A construction industry insider said this to me: "I bet the city won’t even blacklist Basic IDIQ even after all the drama at San Jacinto.  It can be challenged legally too. You can’t blacklist CEMEX simply because they own a quarry and are destroying the mountain.  Won’t work."

The City can reduce the amount of rock and screenings used in landscaping. Although that may impact other quarry businesses, if the City ever gets serious about really fixing our streets and sidewalks, that should be a big plus for that industry that would easily offset any loss of landscaping business.

Finally, CEMEX as a corporation is in trouble. The Street, a financial media company, gives CEMEX a rating of D+. Their recommendation to stock traders:

"We rate CEMEX SAB DE CV (CX) a SELL. This is driven by a number of negative factors, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and poor profit margins."

You can download the Street's full report and get more information about CEMEX by going HERE.

Simply put, CEMEX needs cash. Their selling the quarry would be advantageous to their corporate survival.

Who should buy? Certainly not the General Land Office of Texas that owns the mineral rights. That would make no sense. The GLO would simply want to find someone else to quarry the rock so that royalties can be paid to the Texas Permanent School Fund. 

The City of El Paso can't afford it, so . . .

That leaves the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department that runs the Franklin Mountains State Park. 

The deal could be structured over a period of three or four years. Once part of the TPWD, the face of the Franklins can be conserved. Now that El Paso is beginning to realize the huge economic value of eco-tourism, working in concert with others to buy and shut-down the quarry, and preserve the face of the Franklins from any further unsightly damage will only mean economic gain for the City. 

It's time to consider that option.

Just How Far Can CEMEX Go?

Click image to enlarge.

Answer: All the way to the ridge of our mountains! In addition they can stretch almost to the parking lot of Wyler Aerial Tramway State Park. 

It's just not right. 

Consumers should stop buying materials from this quarry. All of us should not patronize companies that get materials from this quarry. The City of El Paso should stop purchasing from this quarry. The State of Texas should buy this quarry and give it to the Franklin Mountains State Park. 

This destruction of our mountains must stop now.

City of El Paso Promotes the Destruction of the Franklin Mountains

If you have ever walked on a desert path, this is nothing like it. The path that Parks and Recreation has devised at the Archaeology Museum is unnatural and is the result of the UGLY gouging at the CEMEX McKelligon Canyon quarry.

I have published about the eradication of the Franklin Mountains by CEMEX at their McKelligon Canyon quarry. I've also pointed out that the city's Parks and Recreation Department has created unnatural paths using red rock screenings from the same quarry on the grounds of the Archaeological Museum. 

Click on image to enlarge.
Read it and weep.

Take a good look at the June 17, 2015 Purchase Order above. Apparently Parks and Rec buys a huge amount of materials from the CEMEX quarry and stores it at their Land Management Warehouse on Delta. Notice the tonnage of the Franklin Red, Mesa Red, Red Top Soil, screenings and sand. Notice the bottom line: $39,692! In other words, Parks and Recreation promotes the destruction of our mountains.

But it not just the Parks and Recreation Department. Every month our Streets and Maintenance Department buys tons of materials from the quarry. 

Aerial photo of CEMEX McKelligon Canyon quarry by Scott Cutler

Bottom line: the City of El Paso is complicit in the destruction of the Franklin Mountains by CEMEX at its McKelligon Canyon quarry.

If we love our mountains, it is time to tell the City to stop. We don't need all the rock and screenings used on park paths and medians. Besides, the placement of rocks in medians must follow the plans of a graduate from the University of Ugly Design. 

Currently the El Paso Group Sierra Club has an action petition asking Franklin Mountains State Park and Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife to do a survey to determine whether CEMEX has encroached on park land. In a comment to one of my posts, Dan Knapp says that they have indeed encroached. 

Look soon for an action petition telling Parks and Recreation and Streets and Maintenance officials to stop buying materials from CEMEX. 

Help Save Our Franklin Mountains from CEMEX

Please take action NOW to save our Franklin Mountains from more destruction by CEMEX. Tell Park officials to do an official survey.

Click on image to enlarge.

I have had several posts recently about the destruction of our mountains by CEMEX. Their McKelligon Canyon quarry is quickly eating through the mountain. Here are my posts:

Cemex Continues to Eradicate Mountainside

Cemex Has Much More Mountain to Destroy

TPWD Has No Idea

Unnatural Paths at Wilderness Park

The quarry is bounded by the Franklin Mountain State Park. When I asked FMSP and TPWD officials back in November if they knew whether CEMEX had encroached on their land, they had no idea. 

Laura Russell, the TPWD attorney, told me: "According to our staff, the best available data currently is the El Paso City / County parcel data maintained by the Paso Del Norte Mapa, a coalition of local agencies. (http://www.pdnmapa.org/HTML/datasets.html) This parcel data is the foundation of the data TPWD presently uses in our GIS to depict the boundary of Franklin Mountains SP.  Franklin Mountains SP does not have a boundary survey.  It is described in the 1987 deed by Sections included in the park."

Click on image to enlarge.

In a comment to that post, Mr. Dan Knapp wrote: "If PDNMAPA is the authority, Cemex is encroaching 66 feet into the State Park on the north of Cemex property."

What needs to happen now is that the Franklin Mountains State Park and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department need to do a boundary survey immediately.

Now the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club following the lead of the El Paso Group Sierra Clubis calling for action to save our mountain. Please visit the action page and send your message to the Superintendent of the FMSP and the Director of TPWD.


El Paso Group Sierra Club Facebook page

Unnatural Paths at Wilderness Park

I've been posting about Parks and Rec's exploits on the land surrounding the Museum. (The 17 acres owned by the City were first known as “the Wilderness Park.” There have been some objections to using that old name for the Museum grounds.) I visited there today and will have more to say in the days to come about what is happening. For now, I just want to point out one horrendous fact: El Paso's Parks and Recreation Department is contributing to the destruction of the Franklin Mountains.

The work on the old paths includes spreading red rock chat (screenings) which most probably came from the CEMEX quarry at McKelligon Canyon. (I'm checking.) Although pretty, red rock paths are not natural. What they really are is rock dynamited out of the side of the mountain, crushed and then spread in landscapes.

If you like the destruction of the Franklin Mountains, you will love how Parks and Rec is contributing to it. Red chat screenings do not rock.

Makes me sick.

TPWD Has No Idea

In my November 13th post, I said that Cemex has much more mountain to destroy at its quarry at McKelligon Canyon.

I wrote: "I asked Dr. Cesar Mendez, the Superintendent of the Franklin Mountains State Park, about the boundaries between the park and CEMEX and whether there had been any encroachment that he was aware of. He replied that he is concerned about 'any potential encroachment, as well as the changes in the landscape. But there is not much we can do if they are working legally and within their boundaries.'  He added that 'for now we are neighbors and respect each other.' He and his team keep their focus on protecting the land within the State Park as well as potential land that they might annex."

Dr. Mendez advised me to contact the open records division of Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD). I sent this request:

"Please provide me with any information describing the boundary between the Franklin Mountain State Park and the Cemex Quarry near McKelligon Canyon in El Paso, Texas. Digital files are preferred."

The response from TPWD Attorney, Laura Russell:

"According to our staff, the best available data currently is the El Paso City / County parcel data maintained by the Paso Del Norte Mapa, a coalition of local agencies.

http://www.pdnmapa.org/HTML/datasets.html

This parcel data is the foundation of the data TPWD presently uses in our GIS to depict the boundary of Franklin Mountains SP.  Franklin Mountains SP does not have a boundary survey.  It is described in the 1987 deed by Sections included in the park."

I also asked about a boundary survey for Wyler Aerial Tramway State Park. Ms. Russell again responded:

"Mr. Tolbert, Wyler Aerial Tramway is totally contained within the boundaries of Franklin Mountains SP.  It does not share a common boundary with the CEMEX quarry.  Have a good day."

So on Tuesday of last week I emailed Ms. Russell and asked: "How does TPWD know that Cemex has not encroached on its boundaries already?"

No response from her to date. 

It appears that the TPWD has no idea whether Cemex has already encroached on their boundaries. At its last Executive Committee meeting the El Paso Group of the Sierra Club voted to begin a petition calling for such a survey.

Cemex Has Much More Mountain to Destroy

Click on image to enlarge.

This past Monday I posted KTSM's outstanding news story from last Friday about the destruction of the eastern face of the Franklin Mountains by CEMEX. The big question that the story raised was just how much of the mountain can Cemex eat up. What is the limit?

If you look at the 2014 aerial above with the superimposed map, it looks like CEMEX has much more mountain that they can destroy. 

Here's a look at the damage that they have already done:

Click on image to enlarge.

I asked Dr. Cesar Mendez, the Superintendent of the Franklin Mountains State Park, about the boundaries between the park and CEMEX and whether there had been any encroachment that he was aware of. He replied that he is concerned about "any potential encroachment, as well as the changes in the landscape. But there is not much we can do if they are working legally and within their boundaries."  He added that "for now we are neighbors and respect each other." He and his team keep their focus on protecting the land within the State Park as well as potential land that they might annex.

CEMEX pays a royalty to the State of Texas General Land Office because the land that they own is "Mineral classified land" sometimes referred to as Relinquishment Act Land. Although the landowner may do whatever they like with the land, since the State owns the mineral rights, the landowner must pay a royalty to the GLO if they extract minerals such as sand, gravel, rock, oil, gas, etc. All of this is to say that no one should expect the State to buy back the land to give to the State Park. 

Cemex posts this statement about themselves: "CEMEX is a global building materials company that provides high-quality products and reliable service to customers and communities in more than 50 countries throughout the world, and we maintain trade relationships in over 100 nations. We work hard to develop and deliver the best solutions in cement, ready-mix, and aggregates...so we can transform ideas into reality."

Cemex Continues to Eradicate Mountainside

Click on image to enlarge. A long, long time ago when the McKelligon Canyon Quarry was not. Sugar Loaf  Mountain is on the far right in the foreground.

Aerial of Cemex Quarry, 2014. Sugar Loaf is center right.
Photo by Scott Cutler

I was interviewed today by Daniela Pardo of KTSM El Paso. She and her crew met me at the Wyler Aerial Tramway State Park to talk about the Cemex quarry. KTSM is working on a story to air next week. The interview helped me to focus on quarrying and especially on the painful quarrying at Cemex's McKelligon Canyon operation. 

I understand the need to mind rock, sand, gravel and limestone. We need these materials for our homes, our roads, our sidewalks and, to some extent our landscaping. What I question is how much is adequate and how well we choose alternatives.

As we entered the State Park, I pointed out the use of red rock (rhyolite) to trim and landscape the entry. Much of that rock is used in our landscapes, our medians and our parkways. It comes principally from the Cemex McKelligon Canyon operation. I pointed out the caliche along the hills to the news crew. We dig up huge amounts of it all over town when we excavate for roads or buildings. Then we dump it. Why can't we use more of that in our landscaping and gouge out less of our mountains?

I know about landscapers in the Tucson area who, when digging up the caliche in the yard, then use the rock in the landscaping rather than buying rock quarried from our precious mountainsides.

With the glass recycling pilot program starting in January, El Pasoans will have yet another alternative for mulching. Rather than red rock of all sizes, we can use glass. Also, with all of the dead trees around town that many people can't afford to cut down, perhaps the City could start a mulching program. They could take down the dead trees for free, chip the wood, and use it as mulch instead of rock. 

Quarrying and especially the Cemex operation produces dust no matter how much water they spray to keep the dust down. (There's that issue of water scarcity again.) Many in the neighborhoods below Cemex have complained over the years about respiratory distress. Then there is the loss of ecosystem services and habitat. 

We just don't need this much mining and we need to find alternatives. The City of El Paso could take a giant leap toward rescuing our Franklin Mountains by refusing to buy anymore rock and setting restrictions on its use in landscaping.

Hopefully the KTSM story will be a good values clarification for El Pasoans. What are we doing to our beautiful mountain? How do my buying habits encourage the destruction of the mountains? How can my voting elect people who really care?

The Continued Destruction of Mother Earth

A Facebook friend, Rosemary Pureaverdad Martinez, posted the picture above of the Cemex Quarry at McKelligon Canyon. That operation has torn up way too much of the mountain now. Her caption reads: "The continued destruction of Mother Earth."

Before and After: Mountains and Quarries

In previous posts, I have pointed out the obvious: our mountains are not sustainable. Once mined, they are gone. I've also pointed out that our "zeroscaping", overuse of rock in landscaping our roads and homes, and overuse of cement - all contribute to the destruction of our mountains. No doubt we need materials for our roads and homes and businesses and services. No doubt we are overdoing it. We value our beautiful mountains; but see what we have done to them and are still doing to them:

Sugarloaf on far left of picture - no quarry below it (Circa 1947)

First McMillan, then Jobe, now Cemex - Sugarloaf sadly watches in background

Jobe's Hitt Canyon Quarry below NE Franklin Mountains

Arroyo 41A with Upper Sunset Trail and Franklin Mountains State Park in background

Jobe's bulldozing east of State Park

You've seen the quarries above. Now imagine what the pristine land and arroyos west of the Franklin Mountains State Park in NW El Paso will look like before long. The bulldozing has begun already. It is happening on land owned by we the people of the State of Texas leased to Jobe by the General Land Office. Is this what we want to happen to our land?

Big Rocks Mean Weeds, Trash and NO MOUNTAIN

Lee Byrd, the Treasurer of nearby Newman Park Neighborhood Association and co-owner of Cinco Puntos Press, sent the following email to El Paso Parks and Recreation Department Assistant Director, Joel McKnight:

These little pocket parks are a very sweet idea, but they don’t really seem to have been thought through.

Yesterday, my friend and I went to sit in the little park between Elm and Louisiana on Memphis and underneath the bench was covered with ants from an ant hill close by so we had to get up quickly. The big rocks (so many of them!) had caught lots of
garbage. The little pebbles had slid out of place and covered the sidewalk.

This morning another friend and I went with a broom and garbage sacks to sweep and pick up garbage, but the gravel was too heavy to sweep, plus the weeds between the rocks were hard to get it. Some were so big we couldn’t pull them out.

If the intention of these little parks was to be a pleasant place to sit and an easy place to maintain, that isn’t happening. The Neighborhood Association is concerned about these parks and glad to help to make them work. They do need maintenance. And they surely don’t need all those big rocks.

We appreciate all you can let us know about these parks and the detention ponds.

Mrs. Byrd is referring to the "pocket" park created by open space enhancement funds which also paid for the improvements and environmental art at the Van Buren Dam site. The little park is located in the 2700 block of Memphis Avenue.

Indeed there has been little thinking about landscaping around the City of El Paso.

All those big rocks at the little pocket park make it hard to manage weeds and debris. All those big rocks will eventually choke off the growth of the native plants put in the park.

ALL THOSE BIG ROCKS mean our mountainside is being removed and not one damn thing is being done to stop it. In fact, the City of El Paso enables this environmental destruction and policy of unsustainability!