The rumors of a border wall through Big Bend National Park have resurfaced and it would lead to the death of the heart and soul of the park and those who live in and around it.
I AM GOING to Big Bend National Park in Texas come Fall, if the health gods keep smiling and gas stays below $15 a gallon.
It will be a reunion trip, a gathering with a great group of folks who for years have been doing volunteer work in Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains National Parks in West Texas through the Sierra Club.
We’ve built trails, repaired trails, restored native grasslands, chopped bamboo along the Rio Grande, cleared out old, barbed wire fences, fixed up a unique house and basically freed up park personnel do more things for the public. We quit working a few years ago. We are aging. Some, including my wife Connie, have passed on. Now we gather at Big Bend twice a year and hike, eat camp food, drink beer and remember those gone and appreciate those still here.
What I don’t know about this trip is whether it will be a good-bye trip. I am not planning on dying or becoming incapacitated, but plans are going ahead by the Trump Administration to destroy one of the most unique things about Big Bend – the Rio Grande. The river is what gives the park its name.
The Administration seems to think there is a problem with drug runners, terrorists and child molesters coming across the river into the park. There is not, never has been. For years, ever since Texas became a part of the United States, the border has been fluid. Most of the traffic back and forth is commerce related. To the extent drugs are being trafficked it’s through controlled ports of entry.
The Rio Grande through Big Bend is both scenic and rough. High cliffs border it on the Mexico side and desert terrain makes life harsh, particularly from May to September. There is a mountain portion of Big Bend and a lot of open desert space, but the Rio Grande defines it.
If plans for the wall go ahead this beautiful, wild and unique place will cease to exist. There will be no hiking, no rafting, fishing, wading, wandering. There will be a big ugly wall that will destroy history and habitat, all to stop, well, nothing really.
WE HAVE BEEN sold a bill of goods. We have been convinced that evil lurks everywhere outside our borders; that the world is an ugly place filled with villains who dream of walking down Main Streets all across the nation raping and pillaging. It is a load of bullshit. Period. Destruction for the sole purpose of stoking fear.
I cannot imagine a wall through Big Bend. I cannot suspend belief enough to picture it. Or maybe I can it’s just that I don’t want to.
There is opposition to the wall, and it’s not just tree-hugging libtards. A lot of conservative Republicans in the Big Bend area are outrated. Family lands will be taken. Livelihoods will be disrupted and in some cases, destroyed. A great national park will have its heart and soul ripped out and stomped on by political thugs without souls.
Appeals are being made to Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican who outTrumps Trump, asking him to use his leverage to stop the wall. Back in 2016 he said he did not think a wall in Big Bend was needed but he has been silent throughout the current discussion.
Part of the problem is inconsistency of information. Earlier this year Homeland Security said parts of the planned wall would not be built, that technology would be used. But then just in the past couple of weeks word started to leak out that the wall is going to happen.
The most recent alarm was sounded this week in a New Yorker Article.
I suppose if it is built and we return to being a nation of values at some point it could be torn down. The damage done never can be totally undone but maybe years from now anything that is built can go away and nature can begin to heal.
Meanwhile, I am waiting to see if my trip come October will be a celebration of the preservation of a great national treasure and way of life, or just another good-bye to a river. (Hat tip to John Graves’ 1960 book “Good-bye to a River” about dams on the Brazos. It remains timely.)
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].