May 23, 2008
|
By R.M. GLOVER MNL Editor ALPINE
– Concealed sensors, hidden cameras and drone surveillance planes packaged
together and known as “virtual fences” are likely to be the first phase of
increased border monitoring inside Big Bend National Park, Park Superintendent
Bill Wellman said last week. And,
if funding goes through, more park rangers and Border Patrol agents might be
included. Construction
of the border walls are being protested throughout the US and Mexico. US
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff recently exercised new legislation
that allowed him to essentially seize land along the border and commence wall
construction without due process. Defenders
of Wildlife and the Sierra Club have filed lawsuits against Chertoff for potential
environmental crime and, last week, the Texas Border Coalition filed a
class-action lawsuit against Chertoff for allegedly hoodwinking landowners
into waiving their property rights. “No
place is too remote to smuggle dope and people,” Wellman said during his presentation
to the Sierra Club. “The
Marfa Sector of the Border Patrol is the largest sector along the border and
the least number of agents,” he said. “We at the park also struggle with a
shortage of rangers. “A
virtual fence only does good if we have rangers and agents on the ground in a
position to react,” Wellman said. “If there is nobody there, the system has
failed.” Wellman,
who has been superintendent at BBNP for the past two years, spent five years
prior to his arrival here as the superintendent at Organ Pipe National Park
along the border in Arizona. “We
are determined not to get caught behind as we were in Arizona,” he said. “At
Organ Pipe, we had the highest over-night occupancy of any park in the
system,” Wellman said. “But only ten percent of them were registered guests. “There
were over 200 miles of illegal roads at Organ Pipe and even more trails,” he
said. “If the smugglers were being chased from the south, they headed north
across the border and, if we chased them, they drove back to Mexico.” Eventually,
90 percent of the park was closed in an effort to control the smuggling. He
said $16 billion was spent on vehicle barriers. Wellman
thinks the activity is headed our way. “Deterrence
is important,” he said. “We want to give the impression that the BBNP is
strongly defended.” Logs
painted black and strategically placed on hills to look like cannons, aka
Quaker Guns, has been considered. “Right
now we have a few mom and pop smugglers,” Wellman said. But
that’s likely to change, he said, once all the proposed border walls are
built west of the park. The
Border Patrol has proposed approximately ten miles of border wall in the form
of steel and concrete for Presidio and Neely’s Crossing, a small community
just south of Sierra Blanca in the Marfa Sector. The
patrol also proposes 60 miles of new border wall in addition to the ten miles
that already exist in the El Paso Sector. Walls
along 325 miles of the border have been completed in Arizona, New Mexico and
California with another 200 miles of wall proposed for those three states. ~ 90
years MARATHON
– A reception next week will mark the 90th birthday of Sam Cavness of
Marathon. His
wife Patsy said there will be a reception from 2 to 5 pm. Saturday, May 31,
at their home at 208 N. 4th here. “Please
come and wish him a happy birthday,” she said. MARFA
-- The 12th Annual Marfa City-Wide Garage Sale will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Saturday, June 7. In
the past, shoppers have found antiques and treasures, tools and machinery,
collectibles and junk, clothes and baby items, computers, as well as antique,
modern, and western furniture. Maps
of participating homes will be available from 8 to 9 a.m. June 7 in the lobby
of the Hotel Paisano in Marfa. For
more information and registration forms contact Kate Hunt at 432/729-4582 or
Ellen Cross at 432/729-4594. AUSTIN
— The Office of Rural Community Affairs has launched an online initiative to
gather input from rural Texans across the state regarding policy ideas and
recommendations to improve quality of life in rural communities. ORCA is particularly interested in four key focus areas
including economic development, community development, healthcare and
housing. The agency will offer the comments to the Texas Legislature at
the beginning of the upcoming legislative session. ORCA is charged with the task of identifying and prioritizing
policy issues and concerns affecting rural communities in the state in
consultation with rural community leaders, locally elected officials, state
elected and appointed officials, academic and industry experts and the
interagency work group. It is also charged with making recommendations to the
legislature to address the concerns affecting rural communities. ORCA works to strengthen rural communities and assist them with
community and economic development and healthcare by serving as the central
source for rural programs, services and activities so that governmental
resources are delivered efficiently and with best possible results for the
state’s rural residents. Silt,
sand and sediment clog river By R.M. GLOVER MNL Editor BIG
BEND – Silt, sand and sediment are choking the Rio Grande, creating islands
and broad banks of exotic vegetation that are slowing the water flow of the
river. BBNP
Superintendent Bill Wellman is working to implement natural methods to clear
the intrusions and help claim what is left of this once great river. Projecting
slides on the screen during his lecture to the Sierra Club last week, Wellman
compared a 1955 photograph of a vegetation free and clearly channeled Rio
Grande at the mouth of the Santa Helena Canyon to a recent shot of the same
place, where a small green forest of non-native salt cedar and giant cane
grew over and around an easy sloped, slightly trickling Rio Grande. “The
Rio Grande is flowing at one sixth of historical levels,” Wellman said. “The
river is unable to move the silt, sand and sediment. We’ve had an 8 1/2 foot
buildup of silt since 1991.” Salt
cedar, also known as Tamarisk and giant cane, are non-native exotic plants
that act as sediment traps. “The
river banks have become extremely stabilized by the exotic vegetation,”
Well-man said. The
clogging of the river essentially slows the flow, eliminating the braided
nature of the old river, creating a single, deeper channel. There are places
between Fort Quitman and the Rio Conchos where the river does not flow at
all. As
the population in the west boomed, both in the US and in Mexico, the demand
for hydro-electric power and water also increased. Two
major dams were completed in 1916, Elephant Butte in New Mexico on the Rio
Grande and La Boquilla in Chihuahua on the Rio Conchos, a river that flows
into the Rio Grande at Ojinaga, Coah. Today,
the dams are considered a major part of the slow-flowing Rio Grande problem,
each taking billions of gallons of water out of the confluence each
year. The
domestic and industrial water needs of the booming two million plus
population of the El Paso-Juarez metropolitan area is another factor endangering
the river. A
third problem is the farming below El Paso-Juarez where water-thirsty pecan
groves and onion farms stay wet with flood irrigation systems. The
Rio Grande at this point looks more like one of the many skinny irrigation
canals zig-zagging throughout the area. “The
question is, what can we do with what’s left of the river?” Wellman asked. “Dam
operators like steady flows,” Wellman said. “We’re having conversations with
people who control the river’s flow, trying to get them to mimic something
closer to the natural flow of the river. “We
need major releases to coincide with the monsoons – so we can move silt – not
the steady trickle they’re giving us now,” he said. “Our compacts with Mexico
specify a certain quantity of water but give no time constraints.” Doing
what he can politically upriver is one thing but closer to home at the Big
Bend, Wellman is focusing on the water-guzzling, sediment-trapping intruders,
salt cedar and the giant cane. “We
can chop down the salt cedar and the giant cane but it’s expensive and takes
a long time,” Wellman said. The
new attack plan for the salt cedar is to release the salt cedar beetle, an
insect found in Kazakhstan and the surrounding Central Asian region. They
hope to obtain an 85- percent control factor on the tree, utilizing the
beetle’s healthy appetite for the tree’s leaves. “These
beetles grow exponentially and once they eat most of the trees, most will
die,” Wellman said. “They will almost starve to death before they’ll eat
anything else.” The
Park Service presently has the beetles in cages along release sites on the
river. They expect to release them into the wild in early fall. “It
may take five or ten years for the beetles to do their job,” Wellman said. Controlling
the giant cane is almost a bigger problem according to Wellman. In
the past, burning the giant cane and then treating the reduced biomass with
herbicide was one way of getting rid of the cane. An
old fashion method, recently done at a national heritage site near Yuma, AZ,
produced “excellent results,” Wellman said, but the labor-intensive,
shovel-dig operation was very expensive. Bulldozing
is another option but Wellman said that is “more manipulative than we like to
do in a national park. Ideally, we want to use the river as our bulldozer. “Giant
reed doesn’t have the roots that the Tamarisk has,” Wellman said. “If we can
get the flow higher, cave in the banks, we can get it down river.” The
Rio Grande, like most rivers in the western US, are puny compared to their
former size, before the mass migration toward the Pacific that all started
shortly after the Civil War when the telegraph and railroad lines connected
east with west. Today,
we are left with remnants. Restoration to former glories, except in certain
places, is almost impossible. What
do we do with what we have left is key and people like Bill Wellman will
continue to seek the answers. |
Approximately
70 miles of border wall in south Texas, including Del Rio, Eagle Pass,
Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville, are also being proposed. But
virtual fences seems to be the path the government will take in the Big Bend,
at least for now. The
terrain of the Big Bend likely “precludes any hard fence,” Wellman said. Last
year the Border Patrol seized 1.859 million pounds of marijuana with a value
of $1.4 billion, 14,241 pounds of cocaine worth $420 million and 876,000
illegal residents. The
dollar value of smuggling operations along the border has attracted and
financed powerful smuggling operations. “Plazas,”
as they are known in Mexico, are sections of the border that are controlled
by Mexican criminal cartels. The
cartels not only use them for their own smuggling operations but charge other
smugglers to use their space. The
Terrell County News Leader reported earlier this year that new
bulldozed roads leading to the river have been spotted near Dryden on the Mexican
side, suggesting that the cartels may be developing infrastructure in the Big
Bend region. ~ on
July 4th MARATHON
– A queen-size quilt made by Marathon Public Library Branch Manager Carol Townsend
will be raffled off at the Fourth of July celebration here. The
Friends of Marathon Public Library will conduct the drawing at the Fourth of
July dance at Post Park. Ticket
donations are $5 each or 3 for $12. Donations are a fundraiser for the
Library Foundation Books for Children Program grant. For
information, contact Carol at 432/386-4136 or e-mail at marathonlib@yahoo.com. along
the border By R.M. GLOVER MNL Editor ALPINE
– “Push and pull factors” were among topics discussed at the Big Bend Border
Wall Conference here Saturday. Guest
speakers included Dr. Mark Saka, who presented a historic outlook on the push
and pull factors of illegal Mexican immigration into the United States and a
potential solution lurking on the horizon. The
conference, organized by The ReViva Collective here, brought together a
number of diverse voices speaking on US Homeland Security’s proposed Border
Wall. Marfa
Sector Border Patrol Chief John Smietana and Assistant Carry Huffman
presented an hour-long lecture on the merits of the border wall, including a
seven-minute video showing historic violence along the 1,950-mile border. Bill
Addington spoke on grass roots organizations and how to stop the border wall. Addington,
a citizen of Sierra Blanca, was instrumental in stopping the Sierra Blanca
Nuclear Waste Site. The
proposed venture included transporting New York’s spent radioactive waste and
burying it in Hudspeth County. Both Govs. Ann Richards and George W. Bush endorsed
the operation. “It
was an eight-year battle,” Addington said. “The first five years was a very
lonely period. But once we got momentum, we stopped them.” Today
many of the New York promoters of that dump operation are serving time in
prison and were apparently connected with the Gambino Crime Syndicate. Nat
Stone spoke later in the afternoon, showing videotape from the March rally
against the border wall in Brownsville, sponsored by the Texas Border
Coalition. He
also spoke briefly on the Forgotten River, that environmentally endangered
segment of the Rio Grande running from Fort Quitman to the Rio Conchos. The
final speaker was Enrique Madrid of Redford, who spoke on the militarization
of the border. Madrid
suggested that the border limitations were artificial and that an open borderland
without checkpoints similar to the European Union might be the best possible
alternative to a cement and steel wall. Saka,
a professor of history at Sul Ross State University, proposed that there are
several basic factors pushing Mexicans north to the United States. A
lack of jobs and a weak peso have much to do with the export of people across
the border. The
evolution of the “Maquiladores,” factories that are set up along the border
allowing US corporations to take advantage of cheap labor, push a number of
interior Mexicans to the border. The
demographics of the traditional big family in Mexico, where contraception is
infrequent, and wives that generally do not attend college are primary factors
influencing rapid population growth. Saka
said the North American Free Trade Agreement is another major push influence. Whereas
the European Union created a “hyper state” economically and politically,
NAFTA only allowed for an economic union. In
Europe, the fifteen countries of the EU have open borders similar to that proposed
by Enrique Madrid. One
of the major negotiating items during the creation of NAFTA was the United
States’ insistence that either PEMEX, the giant nationalized oil entity of
Mexico, be broken up and privatized or that the Mexican government quit
subsidizing their farmers, thus allowing US grain merchants to capture the
Mexican grain market by virtue of our rich grain producing fields in the
Midwest that few countries can compete with. Mexican
farm subsidies ceased to exist this year and the subsequent farmer unemployment
in Mexico has caused another surge of illegal immigration. Saka
continued with a series of pull factors, the conditions in our country that
generate demand for Mexican labor. The
aging of the American population was one factor. Since the 1960s our
population growth has been about 1.8 per cent per year. “Barely
positive,” Saka said. Use
of birth control and women attending college are another factor for smaller
families and thus smaller pools of available labor. The
restructuring of the American farm, including the shift from basic staples to
labor intensive crops such as asparagus, lettuce and artichokes, crops that
don’t lend themselves easy to machine harvesting, is another labor demand
area along with the robust labor-intensive garment, steel and meat-packaging
industries. Saka’s
solution: “Just
wait,” he said. “By 2015, the Mexican population will not be growing and
their economic picture will be better. There will be no need to go to the
USA. “In
100 years from now, historians will graph the immigrant epochs of the last
century in our country,” he said. “Poles from 1900 to 1930, Italians from
1900 to 1920, Irish from 1905 to 1925, Cubans 1957 to 1977, Vietnamese 1970
to 1980 and Mexicans 1982 to 2015.” Just
a little blip in the radar screen, he said. Friends
of Marathon Library News By ARLENE GRIFFIS Library Friend MARATHON
– I am continuously amazed at the variety of books available to us through
our public libraries. If you have not visited the Marathon Public Library
lately, I encourage you to put that on your agenda. In
addition to books, the library also offers VHS and DVD movie rentals, free
Internet access and a growing collection of reference materials. Librarian
Carol Townsend will gladly assist you in finding exactly the information you
seek. I
have read two more books this week. I will discuss each of these in hopes
that some of you readers out there will want to come in and check these out
after I return them. The
first book is “A Great Day to Fight
Fire: Mann Gulch, 1949,” by Mark Matthews and published in 2007 by the
University of Oklahoma Press. This
is the true account of the people and the events surrounding a tragic fire in
Montana in which sixteen “smoke jumpers” parachuted into Mann Gulch but only
three came out alive. Norman
MacLean first wrote of the tragedy in his award-winning book, “Young Men and Fire,” which, due to
the reluctance of victims’ families and of the survivors to discuss the
tragic event, focused primarily on the fire itself. Not
until 1999, the 50th anniversary of the fire, did people begin to open up
about it. After
this emotional dam broke, Matthews achieved what MacLean had been unable to.
He was able to tell the stories of the people whose lives were forever
changed that August day. Most
of the chapters are named for the men who were involved in the fire, either directly
by actually jumping into the conflagration or indirectly by working offsite
to influence the events at Mann Gulch. Most
of the men in the smokejumpers program were very young, either in their teens
or early twenties. Many had recently returned from World War II. Matthews
also devotes a chapter to the explanation of what actually happens to cause a
lightning strike, as well as the scientific and environmental factors, which
cause the resulting fire to spread. I
found this to be of particular interest in light of the fact that Marathon
residents have had several fires in our area in recent weeks. In
“A Great Day to Fight Fire,” Matthews manages to capture the
personalities, the dedication and the bravery of these young men while, at
the same time, comparing the rudimentary practices and equipment of the US
Forest Service to those we have today. He
also emphasizes that the tragedy of Mann Gulch prompted the Forest Service to
develop safety equipment and training programs, which are being improved
continually. I
found this book to be real page-turner and I feel it would appeal to both men
and women as well as to high school students who enjoy reading non-fiction. The
other book, which is different in every way from the one just mentioned – I
have very eclectic tastes in reading – is a work of fiction entitled “The Lace Reader” by first-time novelist
Brunonia Barry. This
book is not due for publication until July, but I received an advance
reader’s edition when I attended a panel discussion at the Texas Library
Association conference in April. This
copy is in the library but is an advance copy. You may notice a few errors in
spelling, typesetting, etc., which were hopefully corrected in the final edition. There
was also an error in describing the relationship of the narrator, Towner
Whitney, to Eva Whitney, a character in the book. Towner
refers to Eva as her great-aunt, yet she states several times that Eva is actually
the second wife of her deceased grandfather, which to me would make Eva her
step-grandmother. This
contradiction does not really take away from the story but it bothered me
nevertheless. Because
my husband is in publishing, I get the opportunity to read many manuscripts and
uncorrected proofs, which I always do with a highlighter in hand, marking the
mistakes I find. When
the book is actually published, the first thing I do is look and see if they
have been corrected. “The Lace Reader” is set in Salem,
MA, in modern times but the town’s association with witchcraft in the 1600s
helps to blend the supernatural stories of old with those of the present
day. All
the women in Towner Whitney’s family have been able to read the future in a
piece of lace, although Towner has left Salem at age eighteen, vowing never
to return, determined to renounce her power of lace reading, as she believes
that nothing good can ever come of it.
When
her great-aunt – or step-grandmother – disappears mysteriously, however, she
is forced to confront her troubled past when she returns to Salem to help
find her. The
story that unfolds is one of tragedy, evil, and mystery. A book reviewer for
the Salem Gazette says, “Mysterious and evocative, steeped in history and
atmosphere, filled with unforgettable, crisply-drawn characters, ‘The Lace Reader’ blurs the line between
the real world and the world of the possible.” I
found this statement to be very true as I sometimes had a hard time
distinguishing between the two. Nevertheless,
I was caught up in this book from the very beginning and definitely found it
to be worth reading. If
you choose to read it, as well, you will do well to keep in mind the opening
lines. “My
name is Towner Whitney. No, that’s not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time. I am
a crazy woman . . . that last part is true.”
Happy
Reading. Arlene
Griffis is a volunteer at Marathon Public Library, which is a branch of
Alpine Public Library. |
Meantime, The El Paso Times reported
Sunday that 25 people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, Chih., last week as rivaling
drug cartels wage war against each other. Three politicians were involved in the violence, including former Juarez Police Director, Juan Antonio Roman Garcia, who was shot down near his home on May 10. By Andrea Johnson Special to the News Leader MARATHON
– The Marathon Elementary grades Pre-K through fourth spent a day in Fort
Stockton Friday. T.J.
Joyner drove the group including teachers LaVerne Avery, Selena Martin and me
to the Annie Riggs Museum, the old fort and Entertainment Stockton. Also
making the trip were educational aides Chelo Salmon and Martha Abrego. Parent
Teacher Organization President and parent Judy Briones, PTO Vice President
and parent Rosie Bowers and grandparent Diana Cook followed along. At
the Annie Riggs Museum, students saw the desk from Sheriff A.J. Royal’s
office. The
inside of the top drawer was stained with his blood. His 1894 murder has
never been solved. In
the Archeology Room they saw the tusks of a Columbian mammoth and related
artifacts found at a site eight miles from town. Part
of Officers’ Row, the Guardhouse, the Enlisted Men’s Barracks and the Parade
Grounds have been restored at Historic Fort Stockton. Marathon students were given a tour by a
laundress dressed from the time period.
They tried out the cots used by the enlisted men. After
all-you-can-eat pizza and soda, the rest of the afternoon was spent on
miniature golf and bowling. Dominic
Paredez, Noah Lopez and Sarah Arenas all made strikes on the bowling lanes.
Alexis Bowers and Cameden Lujan picked up spares. Sarah
Arenas had the top score for the day. Alexya Grano and Giana Gonzales were
the youngest bowlers and were strong enough to knock most of their pins down.
“I
liked bowling the best,” first grader Tristyn Galindo exclaimed. “I want my
dad and mom to take me back.” “I
liked golf,” said kindergarten student Monique Pineda. “I hit my ball in the
water three times.” Zane
Roberts was top golfer for the day but no one had a hole-in-one. It
was a tough course. The Marathon PTO sponsored
the trip with proceeds from the Easter Basket sales. next
week MARATHON
– Three Marathon Mustangs will graduate at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 31, in the
Elementary School Auditorium. Victoria
Zimmerman has been named valedictorian and salutatorian is Devin Kolesar. They
were prom king and king this year. Devin played football and basketball and
participated in track. Victoria was a cheerleader and played basketball and
volleyball. Randy
Ramirez also will attend to graduate with his class. He will be on a 24-hour
furlough from the state prison system in Brownfield where he is serving time
for a probation violation. It
will be a busy week for Mustangs. Today,
May 23, is Field Day at the Elementary school all day and the reading program
is at 1 p.m. at the Elementary. Monday,
May 26, is Memorial Day with no school but Tuesday and Wednesday the students
will be busy with finals. Thursday,
May 29, is the Elementary School awards ceremony beginning at 10:30 at the
Elementary school auditorium. It
is also the last day of school for the kids. Building
ecotopia: becoming an ‘expert' By CHUCK HALL Culture Artist So
far in our series on building Ecotopia, we’ve covered the basics on food,
clothing and shelter in an “Ecotopian” society. Before
we continue, I think we should pause for a moment and reflect on what it
means to be a citizen of an industrialized Western nation in the 21st century. As
technology has become more readily available over the centuries since the
Industrial Revolution, the day-to-day tasks of living have been broken down
into specialized areas. Each of these areas requires a group of experts. For
example, primitive humans built their own homes out of materials readily available
in the natural environment. But,
as the technology for homebuilding became increasingly complex, it became
more difficult for an individual family to build their own home. This
meant that experts called “masons” and “carpenters” and “plumbers” arose to
meet the need. This
can also be seen in the way we now feed ourselves. There
was a time when the human race consisted primarily of hunter/gatherers. Each
family found its own food directly in the environment that surrounded them. With
the rise of agriculture, food became a commodity that farmers could trade to
other artists and crafters for goods. Thus
the farmer became the “food expert” as did the husbandman who kept livestock
for the same purpose. Technology
has greatly improved our quality of life but somewhere along the way the
“experts” took over. While
we have reaped the benefits of our ingenuity, we have also sacrificed the
confidence that comes with knowing exactly how to survive in nature on our
own. Don’t
get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that the human race should abandon our
cities and towns to go live in caves. What
I’m suggesting is that in this over-reliance on “experts” for our day-to-day
living needs, we’ve sacrificed some of our freedom. This
lost freedom most often translates into dollars and cents. Consider
the example of building your own home. An average starter home in the US
costs around $100,000 to $150,000. A
large part of this cost is due to the fact that machines run by “experts”
produce the building materials. Other
teams of “experts” assemble all of these goods into the final product. Along
the way, each of these “experts” takes a cut of the cost of the final home. On
the other hand, if you are able to provide most of the labor for a home
yourself, you eliminate the need for all of these “experts” who have to be
paid for their expertise. While
building your own home out of natural materials may be a labor-intensive process,
sometimes taking anywhere from one to five years to complete, the tradeoff
here is that you don’t have to pay all the “experts” in the construction industry. Not
only that, but when your home is finished, you have the satisfaction of
knowing that you completed the entire thing yourself without the help of any
“experts.” How
inexpensive is it to build with natural materials like cob? Ianto Evans, a renowned
cob builder, wanted to find out. His
team succeeded in building a home for under $500. For an account of this
project, visit: http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/good_wood/cob.htm. One
of the ideas behind Ecotopia is returning control of our lifestyles back to
the people. By
learning that we can do it ourselves by building our own homes, producing our
own energy and growing our own food, we take our lives out of the hands of
“experts” and put them back where they belong – safe in our own hands. Chuck
Hall's latest book, “Invasion of the Vegans!” will be available at the
Culture Artist website at www.cultureartist.org
later this year. Contact
Chuck by email at chuck@cultureartist.org. |