Christmas Mountains Deal Imminent

According to Environment Texas, a decision on the fate of the Christmas Mountains is due next Tuesday. The group sent an email asking for signatures urging Texas School Land Board to accept the National Park Service’s offer to purchase the Christmas Mountains and add it to Big Bend National Park.

According to the Austin American-Statesman, the deal to be announced next week is likely to give conservation advocates their wish.

On Friday, the General Land Office, which controls the land and had put it on the auction block, released a proposal by the National Park Service to take over the land, which is adjacent to Big Bend. Patterson has repeatedly said that he opposes such a move because the national parks don't allow hunting.

The land office had received private bids last year worth $60 an acre that would have allowed hunting, although it's not clear how much public access would have been allowed by the private owners.

The NPS proposal says that the Christmas Mountains tract would be opened for day and overnight hiking. An old access route to an antenna on a 5,700-foot peak would be a "primary destination for remarkable vistas" for hikers and horseback riders. Should it be incorporated into the vast Big Bend National Park, the Christmas Mountains tract would amount to about one percent of the total acreage of the park.

The proposal pays special attention to hunting, which it says would not be allowed on the land. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a staunch supporter of gun rights, had said last year that he wanted hunting allowed on the land. But the National Park Service proposal says hunting access is difficult and that the deer population is low.

If this announcement signals an end to the wrangling over the Christmas Mountains, and places the land in the public realm as was the original intent, this is great news.

The Christmas Mountains is not the only tract of private land that the National Park Service would like to add to Big Bend. Nationwide, the NPS lists over 11,000 separate tracts comprising 1.8 million acres that it has designated for acquisition.

Unfortunately, the park service's budget for purchases is down from a high of $139 million in 1999 to $24 million in last year's budget. To put that in perspective, $24 million is about two hours funding for the Iraq war, or a little above the annual pay of Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson.

General Land Office Selling Land Donated by Conservation Group

The General Land Office is at it again. After the controversy over its proposed sale of land at Eagle Mountain Lake, the office agreed to the development of a park only after it became a political football in the last election. Now the office is proposing another controversial sale. It has taken bids for 9,269 acres of land in the Christmas Mountains adjacent to Big Bend National Park.

According to the Conservation Fund, who gifted the land to the state, the state was bound by deed restrictions and could not sell the land without the approval of the fund.

"It was the hope...that this land would be made available to the general public for hunting and other recreational uses," Richard Erdman, executive vice president of the Virginia-based Conservation Fund, wrote in [an] Aug. 8 letter.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson stated that the deed restrictions were probably unenforceable.

One of the bidders is Houston businessman John Poindexter, of J.B. Poindexter & Co. Inc. and owner of nearby Cibolo Creek Ranch Resort. Poindexter has been trying to buy land in and around the area for some time now. He previously made news when he initiated the sale of 45,000 acres in Big Bend State Park. After a public outcry, that deal fell through.

Poindexter's statements imply he is only interested in conservation of the Christmas Mountains land.

"The restrictions are so significant, that fundamentally, all you can do is look at the land."

Apparently, that's an argument we've heard before. Of the Big Bend sale, Poindexter had this to say.

The 46,000 acres that the state considered selling him wasn't being sought to expand his resort facilities, as some critics asserted, he added.

"The development potential — as was so frequently cited in the hearing — for this property is as close to zero as anything could reasonably be in the state," he said.

What he failed to mention was that an easement on the 46,000 acre sale allowed development of 4600 acres.

Regarding the Christmas Mountains land, the original donor, the Richard King Mellon Foundation, was disturbed enough about the pending sale of its land to issue this warning.

If the land sale goes through "the state of Texas (should) not look to the R.K. Mellon Foundation for any future help."

That sentiment was echoed by Carolyn Vogel of the Texas Land Trust Council.

"If the foundation intended for conservation to be the major outcome and it got developed instead, it could have an effect" on future donations to the state.

Hat tip South Texas Chisme and B & B.