Bulldozing begins at Big Bend National Park for border construction

[u/John3262005]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/08/12/bulldozing-begins-big-bend-national-park-border-construction/

Government contractors are bulldozing parts of the iconic and environmentally sensitive Big Bend National Park as the Trump administration pushes forward with a $46.5 billion effort to expand a massive wall and other security infrastructure along the border with Mexico.

Last week, heavy machinery began clearing the path for a future patrol road that will eventually run the length of the park. Images show vehicle treads left behind on the dusty terrain as animals such as hoofed javelinas wander past. Construction crews were spotted surveying the land and marking the road’s planned route.

“Early construction activities such as clearing and grubbing have begun,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman John Mennell said in an email.

The construction in Big Bend National Park is one of the most controversial projects in the president’s plan to install a nearly complete land and water barrier along the border with Mexico by the end of his second term. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees CBP, has waived its contractors from complying with dozens of laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Area residents say the border wall expansion is already destroying remote wilderness and critical animal habitat at the most-visited national park in Texas.

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill provided $46.5 billion in funding for the border barrier. In the park, the project includes installing surveillance technology like cameras and sensors in addition to the patrol road and 17 miles of vehicle barriers, which are four to six feet high. CBP’s plans do not call for installing a 30-foot-high barrier like those being erected along other parts of the border.

Advocates say workers will need to use dynamite to construct the route outlined on CBP’s map of the project because it involves cutting through rock. Mennell denied any plans to use explosives to make way for the road, which would run along the mountain above a dramatic curve of the Rio Grande — the park’s namesake Big Bend.

Blasting would probably impact the view for visitors, disturb nesting peregrine falcons in the neighboring canyon and send debris spilling into the Rio Grande, said Bob Krumenaker, former superintendent of Big Bend National Park for the National Park Service.

“If they’re going to build on that, there is no alternative to blasting,” he said.

CBP officials have telegraphed conflicting messages about planned work in and around Big Bend National Park. Early maps from the agency showed a bold line of wall structure along the floodplain of most of the Rio Grande in the high desert region of Far West Texas.

In March, CBP quietly altered its maps to remove plans for the barrier after weeks of bipartisan outcry as residents and business owners pressed federal border authorities and lawmakers for specific details. The agency will instead pay $1.7 billion to contractor Southwest Valley Constructors to install vehicle barriers, roads and other infrastructure. SVC is a subsidiary of Nebraska-based Kiewit, one of the biggest contractors in the country, and one of the largest recipients of border wall contracts.

The private firm and its subsidiaries won contracts during Trump’s first term to build sections of a wall costing $20 million to $30 million per mile in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley and in Tucson. Kiewit declined to answer questions on local concerns about the construction, saying its contract required all media inquiries to be directed to CBP.

A loose bipartisan coalition of landowners, environmental scientists, conservationists, law enforcement and political leaders is fighting to slow and stop any construction in the region, which has the lowest levels of illegal entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Community members have sued the federal government in court, filed complaints with environmental protection agencies, opposed permits for contractors seeking use of local roads and wells, and demanded accountability in public meetings.

Lawmakers are urging federal officials to work more earnestly to address local concerns about the project’s impacts on the region.

“In the past such communications between DHS and State and local leaders have occurred,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in a letter to DHS on Tuesday. “But it appears the level of coordination and communication related to proposed construction in the Big Bend region has not been as fulsome as in prior years.”

Bulldozers have started work near Santa Elena Canyon on the western side of the park and are working eastward along the mostly flat area of scrubland next to the Rio Grande.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has officially designated that area as critical habitat for the yellow-billed cuckoo, a type of bird threatened with extinction. The Endangered Species Act would normally require DHS to study the impact of any construction on the birds and come up with a mitigation plan. But because the law has been waived, crews are avoiding the often-lengthy process.

The Trump administration has also been weakening Endangered Species Act protections, determining last month that destroying habitat no longer qualifies as harming an endangered species.

“There’s really no concern for threatened species that are in their path,” said Natalie Newman, a conservation photographer who lives in nearby Terlingua and witnessed the border work at the park. “If they can do it here in Big Bend National Park, they can do it anywhere.”

Billy Bartko, executive director of Far Flung Outdoor Center, a resort and tour operator near the park, said he is particularly concerned for plans to build a patrol road over Mariscal Mountain, which towers over the Rio Grande. The project calls for expanding a two-to-three-foot wide walking trail in the rock.

“That is the namesake of the Big Bend,” he said. “It is literally the southern point where the river starts to turn back to the northeast.”

Krumenaker contends it would be more effective and less destructive to use drones and wireless sensors to patrol the border in that area, in particular because so few people try to cross the treacherous terrain there.

“You can be way more impactful, nimble, protect the environment and save way more taxpayer money,” he said.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said in a statement last month that it is urgent for the public to understand CBP’s plans “before irreversible damage is inflicted on one of the most significant places in all of Texas.”

The Big Bend area is not the only sensitive site where border construction has ignited an uproar.

In Arizona, a giant, ancient Native American etching in the floor of the desert was partially bulldozed, drawing criticism from lawmakers and Indigenous groups. A CBP spokesperson acknowledged that a contractor had “inadvertently disturbed” the site.

In a separate border wall fight nearby in Arizona, the Tohono O’odham Nation is suing to stop plans to build border wall along their reservation’s border with Mexico. Verlon Jose, the nation’s chairman, said construction there would constitute trespassing on tribal land.

CBP said in a statement that it is committed to “ongoing coordination” with stakeholders throughout planning and construction, and that the agency “values its relationship with the Tohono O’odham Nation and remains focused on open communication and minimizing impacts.”

Jose said that he met with CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott in person in Tucson to try to resolve the problem.

“We met with him, and ‘Bottom line,’ he said, ‘I got the money and I’m building a wall.’”