By Evelyn L. Merz
Governor Abbott is AWOL when the federal government tramples on a Texas state park.
When an irreplaceable Texas state park is under siege, especially by the federal government, you would expect Governor Abbott to be lobbing legal bombshells as fast as he could. After all, Gov. Abbot has famously boasted that he sued the Obama administration 31 times as Texas Attorney General. Now that Gov. Abbott is the chief executive of Texas, you would expect that he would be the foremost defender of the state’s natural treasures. 
But Gov. Abbott has been silent while the Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park in the Lower Rio Grande Valley faces evisceration by the proposed Borderwall through Hidalgo County near Mission, TX. The 766-acre park is a national and international destination for birdwatching. Yet the construction path favored by the Trump administration would sever all of the state park south of the visitor center and parking area. Consequently, the vast majority of the park acreage and ALL of the rare habitat would be south of a new Borderwall, i.e., on the Mexican side of the wall. Just south of an existing earthen levee, a new reinforced concrete wall would be built as high as the levee and topped with a steel bollard fence eighteen feet high. Lights would be placed on top of the fence directed southward, where all vegetation/habitat would be eliminated in a 150 foot-wide swath where patrol roads would be constructed. This wall of destruction would extend for about 9,000 feet through the park, as part of a 28-mile segment of the Borderwall.
Through documents obtained from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department via an open records request from the Lone Star Chapter under the Texas Public Information Act, we know that TPWD has repeatedly attempted to educate the U.S. Border Patrol, charged by the Trump administration to pursue the wall-building. The TPWD has offered four alternatives to the Border Patrol’s proposal. TPWD’s preferred alternative would eliminate the need to construct the Borderwall through Bentsen—Rio Grande SP largely through collaborative patrolling and monitoring the park and the use of surveillance technology. The TPWD is still awaiting a response.
Yet we DO know the impacts if the wall is constructed as proposed. Because the vast majority of the park would be on the Mexican side of the wall and crossing gate, ensuring the safety of visitors and park personnel TPWD would be the linchpin in determining how the park could be experienced. TPWD states that it is likely to end overnight camping and evening visitor activities due to safety concerns. . How safe will visitors feel when they pass through a gate guarded by Border Patrol and flanked by a fortress wall and fence? The clearing of the 150-foot strip of vegetation will effectively remove 25 to 30 acres of wildlife habitat and the all-night lighting will impair the functionality of even more. How can valuable recreational land and wildlife habitat be walled off from the rest of the United States and be protected? Would Bentsen-Rio Grande still be able to fully function as a state park?
The impacts to the local ecotourism economy are likely to be severe. About 30,000 visitors a year come to Bentsen-Rio Grande S.P. for a wildlife experience that can only be provided in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The headquarters of the World Birding Center is at the park. Providing a safe visitor experience is vital to the local economy.
While Bentsen-Rio Grande S.P is certainly not the only tract of public or private land that would be negatively impacted by the construction of the Borderwall, it bears a high profile as a Texas state park of major regional and national biological significance and a local economic powerhouse. It is wrong in so many ways to carelessly plow a wall through it without finding a better way.
Since Gov. Abbott will not speak up in defense of a Texas treasure, it’s up to citizens to contact their U.S. senators, Congressmen, and state elected officials. Let them know the Bentsen-Rio Grande S.P. is not just another anonymous parcel of land to be offered to the Borderwall.
The link to the communication between TPWD and the U.S. Border Patrol is at:
https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/sce/lone-star-chapter/CHP-TX-1900-TPWDLetter.pdf
Photo courtesy of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department