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From the Mushroom Beat

By Jack D. McNamara

 

At Year’s End we routinely sort and sift our papers. The papers remind us of the previous year’s alarms, crises and brouhahas, some of which are, as the bureaucrats say, “ongoing.”

 

This year’s review was especially fruitful regarding the La Entrada al Pacific (LEAP) controversy.

 

In a nutshell we have been extensively discussing the information we are NOT getting. This discussion was initiated when a large number of residents and friends initiated the idea of “commission” under a Texas statute. The “commission” would be composed of citizens from local governments who would be empowered under Texas law to contest whatever plotting and secrecy the Texas Department of Transportation may have afoot.

 

We are not alone here in the Big Bend on this. All across Texas there is revulsion and outrage at what the state has done and not done to what was previously one of our most respected institutions, the Texas Highway Department (now TxDoT).

 

Remember that as of December 28, 2007 we have little or no credible information from TxDoT, information promised more than eight months ago.

 

So Lo and Behold, we came across an El Paso Times editorial on line a few days ago. On December 19 the Times praised their U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes for successfully obtaining $4.29 million in federal money for a bridge from Tornillo, Texas to Guadalupe, Chihuahua, Mexico. The “Tornillo-Guadalupe New International Bridge" is 1950 feet from an existing bridge at Fabens, Texas. For a half dozen years numerous public and private entities have been trying to get this deal going.

 

The various entities have been coordinating with everybody including the Ft. Sill Apache tribe of Oklahoma, the Mescalero Apaches, the White Mountain Apaches and the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo.

 

Yet there has been no news here of this effort — neither from our TxDoT, their committee of “stakeholders,” nor from our representatives to the regional Rio Grande Council of Governments — which usually meets in El Paso.

 

The most articulate and sensible information concerning this LEAP option is linked on our Website. See Foster Rich, "Another Route for La Entrada al Pacifico,_to Much Larger Markets, Would be Economically Far More Advantageous to Both the United States and Mexico"

 

Foster Rich wrote about a “Fabens” option for enhanced Chihuahua to U.S. truck traffic.

 

The Internet is rich with links/documents for this project under the search “Tornillo Guadalupe Bridge.” We discover at the FONSI (Finding of No Significant Impact) posted by the U.S. State Department that the total expenditures for the new bridge, border facilities for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, and a major arterial road will be $46,544,000.

 

Last but not least, www.corridorwatch.org has excellent maps and historical material.

 

Why is it that comprehensive information is available to our neighbors in El Paso but no such information of comparable quality or quantity is provided to us from our representatives?

 

A New Year — click on Reply if you do not want to receive these emails in 2008.

(Sent by email 12-31-07 to the Nimby Readers List.)

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