For immediate release: March 21, 2023
Contact: Laurence Gibson, El Paso Group chair, Sierra Club Rio Grande Chapter, laurenceagibson@gmail.com

Sierra Club El Paso Group statement on Castner Range designation as National Monument

On Tuesday, President Biden announced the designation of Avi Kwa Ame in Nevada and Castner Range in Texas as the country’s newest national monuments. The designation provides permanent protection for roughly 514,000 acres of Nevada and Texas landscapes.

Castner Range  located in Fort Bliss, will encompass about 6,600 acres that contain prehistoric habitations and agriculture dating back more than 10,000 years and rare and endangered wildlife. In the past, Castner Range served as a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War and has historic connections to the military and veterans community.

In response, the Rio Grande Chapter’s El Paso Group chair, Laurence Gibson, issued the following statement:

It has a been a long, long battle for National Monument designation, almost 30 years. Early on we fought and lost over and over. TxDot got a chunk of it. The US Border Patrol got a piece of it. Then, when El Paso’s Regional Economic Development Corporation targeted it for development, we fought and won. The development forces were hindered by the unexploded ordnance that littered the thousands of acres, making it too dangerous for immediate development.

Sierra Club members, working through their single-issue organizations like FMWC, gradually raised awareness of Castner as a potential partner of Franklin Mountains State Park, the largest urban wilderness park in the nation. If there is any one person who deserves credit for this victory, it must be our late member, Judith (Judy) Ackerman.

Credit must also go to U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, who succeeded where others had failed. She brought Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland to El Paso for an on-site visit, as well as touting the designation to President Biden. Judy Ackerman was in on that visit as well as several other non-profit leaders.

So, Hallelujah and kudos to all who worked for this achievement.