The Trump administration is once again bypassing federal environmental laws to speed up work on border barriers and related infrastructure in the Big Bend region of West Texas, this time for a project in and around the region’s namesake national and state parks.
Background
According to a preliminary federal notice released Monday, the latest regulatory waiver will apply to more than 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in the region, from near the Closed Canyon trail in Big Bend Ranch State Park through the entirety of Big Bend National Park and into remote parts of southeastern Brewster County.
In the notice, Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin wrote that the administration is bypassing a wide range of laws “to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads” along the southern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection continues to insist it will not build a 30-foot-tall steel border wall in either the state or national park, but the agency’s current plans call for a mix of vehicle barriers, surveillance technology, and patrol road upgrades in the parks as part of a project dubbed “Big Bend 4.”
Local Reaction
Park supporters have been particularly concerned about the potential for new road building along the Rio Grande, which Bob Krumenaker, the park’s most recent former superintendent, said advocates will “continue to do everything possible to deter.”
“Their utter disregard for the will of the people, the taxpayers’ money, the actual data showing minimal numbers of border crossings inside the park, and the values that Texans and all Americans hold dear as represented by the National Parks leave us without sufficient words to express,” he said.
A CBP spokesperson said the agency is coordinating with the National Park Service, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and other agencies.
The latest waiver will allow CBP to ignore a wide range of federal laws as it moves to install or upgrade a mix of surveillance technology, vehicle barriers, and patrol roads in the parks, as the agency’s latest map of the Big Bend 4 project calls for.
Original reporting: Dallas TX News (HLL/CB) — read the source article.
