05/17/2026
The looooong list of environmental statutes Homeland Security intends to waive (this is down by Big Bend) in order to build the border wall includes the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Migratory Bird Conservation Act.
You do not need to be a Texan to make your voice heard. There's a petition embedded in the story within this post, or you can contact DHS (Director Markwayne Mullin) at [email protected] with a copy to his chief of staff, David Natonski, at [email protected]
You do not need to be a Texan to make your voice heard.
Just like in this image, dark clouds are gathering above the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.
Of all the stories I’ve written and updates I’ve shared about the increasingly insane Big Bend border wall saga, this is probably the biggest bombshell of them all.
Earlier this week, I wrote that the administration’s top border official Rodney Scott had said in an interview that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) wouldn’t build a physical wall in Big Bend National Park. According to CBP Commissioner Scott, they’d construct paved roads along the Rio Grande instead.
“Big Bend National Park has some just, like, unbelievably huge granite cliffs. It would be kind of silly to put like a 30-foot border wall on top of a 90-foot granite cliff,” Scott said. “So what we’re trying to convey is that we are going to have meaningful border security in that entire area.”
As “silly” as it is to put a 30-foot-tall steel bollard wall on top of cliffs and in some of the most remote and wildest country in the lower 48 states, it now appears that’s exactly what CBP intends to do.
This week, the Department of Homeland Security awarded a contract of $1.7 billion of our taxpayer money to the industrial construction company Southwest Valley Constructors Co.
This is the biggest border wall contract ever awarded to a single company in American history.
How do we know this contract is actually for a border wall in Big Bend National Park? Because it literally says so: “AWARD OF CONSTRUCTION TASK ORDER FOR BORDER WALL IN BIG BEND TEXAS, SEGMENT IDENTIFIED AS BBT-4.”
BBT-4 is the section of border in the Big Bend Sector that runs through the national park, as well as through the Black Gap Wildlife Management Area.
The effects of this wall on the environment and the area’s tourism industry would be catastrophic. This is a wall that would sever wildlife migration routes, cut off river access to both people and animals alike, remove campsites and trailheads, annihilate the park’s world-class night sky viewing, and cause massive pollution.
Riverside camping: gone. Multi-day floating trips: gone. World-class stargazing: gone. Soaking in historic hot springs: gone.
Read the full story here: https://ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com/p/largest-border-wall-contract-in-us
