El Paso Group

By Laurence Gibson, El Paso Group chair

March 6, 2012, may go down in history as the day El Paso decided to change itself. On that day El Paso’s City Council voted unanimously to adopt Plan El Paso.

The Sierra Club filed suit in the Federal Court for the Western District of Texas challenging the Federal Highway Administration and Texas Department of Transportation on the Transmountain road expansion. The Club is asking that a full environmental assessment be completed prior to construction.

The plan to widen El Paso’s Transmountain Road continues to concern El Paso Sierrans. The city’s engineering department recently weighed in with these three alternatives and comments:

The battle lines have been drawn: El Paso’s Public Service Board (PSB), which controls thousands of acres of open space around El Paso (ostensibly to protect the watershed), supported by the City Plan Commission, Mayor Cook and the El Paso Times, versus the city’s Open Space Advisory Board, the Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition, the El Paso Group Sierra Club Executive Committee, City Councilor Susie Byrd and El Paso’s environmental community. At issue is rezoning of about 800 acres of foothills north of Transmountain Road below Franklin Mountains State Park.

EL PASO, TEXAS, APRIL 12, 2011 – The Austin law firm of Loweree, Frederick, Perales, Allmon & Rockwell submitted comments on behalf of the El Paso Regional Group (Rio Grande Chapter) of the Sierra Club on April 1, 2011, to TxDOT regarding TxDOT’s recently submitted Environmental Assessment (EA) of the proposed Transmountain Freeway Project. The law firm noted that the EA failed to adequately analyze the noise, visual, vegetation, wildlife, and cumulative urbanization-inducing impacts of the proposed Project.

See the story in the El Paso Times

Opponents of the Camino Real Landfill in Sunland Park found an unexpected champion in their campaign to close the landfill: the El Paso City Council. On Aug. 24, the council took the forward-looking step to adopt “Flow Control,” an ordinance that will require all commercial waste in the city be dumped at city landfills.

There have been a number of promising developments recently in the El Paso area which bode well for us living up to our “Sun City” nickname.

El Paso’s City Council voted December 15th to accept a $4 million grant to help low-income families weatherize their homes, thereby reducing their energy use and lowering their utility bills.

The money is from the federal government’s stimulus program and is being funneled through the state of Texas under contract with the city of El Paso. The program will help about 600 low-income households replace insulation, windows, and even energy-wasting appliances, according to Bill Lilly, the city’s Director of Community and Human Development.

TXDOT says we have two choices. We can take their $85 million and build a four lane freeway with two lanes of frontage on each side and four overpasses running up sidethe mountain. Or we can doom our citizens to a safety hazard of a road because if we don’t like their idea they are sending the money back to Austin.

El Paso Group News
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