Bill Addington Interview, Part 1 of 3

TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEWEE: Bill Addington (BA) INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW) DATE: March 28, 2001 LOCATION: Sierra Blanca, Texas TRANSCRIBERS: Robin Johnson SOURCE MEDIA: Mini-DV REELS: 2136

Please note that the video includes roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings. Note: boldfaced numbers refer to time codes for the VHS tape copy of the interview.

DT: My name is David Todd. Im here for the Conservation History Association of Texas and it is March 28, the year 2001 and were in Sierra Blanca, Texas at the Guerra Grocery and Merchandise Store and were having the good chance to talk with Bill Addington who runs the operation here and has also been very active in fighting the various proposals to dump everything from radioactive waste to sludge cake and then I guess most recently proposals to export groundwater from this area. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to us about your work over the years.

BA: Sure.

DT: Thanks very much.

BA: Any time.

DT: I thought we might start with your childhood and if there might have been people in your family that you could point to as being influences that got you interested in conservation or about speaking out as a private citizen.

BA: Sure. My family, of course, theres my mother who Gloria Guerra Addington who in the, you know, I guess it is like we said that some of this activism is inherited. My mom in thein the late 60s was a school teacher here in Sierra Blanca, Texas teaching grade school, elementary actually and saw discrimination and actual racism here at our school where kids were getting spanked, actually beat, if they did some minor infraction if they were Mexican but if they were Anglo theyd just get a talking to.

So they formed a social justice committee and with actually with help and support from LULAC and other state and national groups got in the media quite a bit and actually had a boycott of the school for darn near nine weeks, which nearly bankrupted the school because no one would hardly any of the kids would show up, just a few kids.

So it did cause some changes. Health education and welfare came down and investigated, however my mother lost her job and they tried to blackball her, thethe school board of thethe district here in Sierra Blanca.

So I guess yeah, my mom is the first one. And then, of course, like there's also my grandfather who was an immigrant from Lebanon, from Syria and came to Sierra Blanca via Valentine, Texas and before that, he actually came at eight years old he came from Syria with his uncle to Merida, Yucatan and lived there until he was about eighteen years old.

But, of course, he was real outspoken about the Diaz regime, one of the dictators there in Mexico and kept getting thrown in jail a lot in Mexico. So it was real unstable there during the revolution so my grandfather Jose Guerra who had actually translated his name directly from Arabic which is which Harib which means war and so he translated it toto Guerra and then a Spanish name.

He learned Spanish in Mexico and Yucatan. Came to..he actually got amnesty in the United States Government, came on a boat a ship to Galveston from Yucatan, its just a short trip. And they gave him like forty dollars when he got off the boat and came to the United States with some of his paisanos, his friends also from that country.

His friends settled in El Paso, my grandfather settled in Sierra Blanca. He married my grandmother in Valentine, Texas. She was from Camargo Chihuahua and actually married my grandmother there in Valentine. Her...my grandmothers brother had been living there with my grandmother in Valentine as also refugees from the revolution in Mexico.

And her brother, who was also living with her was a general with Via, Poncho Via. And so they moved to Sierra Blanca and lived here. So I guess I could say that my grandfather, my grandmothers brother, and my mom were all in their own way activists, maybe its inherited, I dont know.

DT: You've also talked about how your concern for this area has been influenced by your love of the high desert and that your grandmother, when she came to Sierra Blanca at first didnt maybe appreciate the desert but then grew to see it differently. Can you talk a little bit about that?

BA: Sure. When my grandmother came from Valentine, actually my grandfather was on his way to California but he settled on Sierra Blanca. My grandmother Im sure wanted to go to California because Camargo where she was from has two rivers going through it, its real green.

Well Sierra Blanca is, like I said, high desert and theres, you know, not a lot of rainfall here and she thought it was just a desolate, barren place, you know, cause she didnt see the beauty when she first came here and just wanted to leave. After about a year though she grew to love the the place and saw thethe beauty and the diversity that this area holds.

DT: Can you talk a little bit more about the kind of diversity that you and she have both seen in this area.

BA: Sure. My grandmother really loved nature and, of course, I have fond memories of feeding a quail at her house, scaled quail, a mountain quail at her house and she loved all the animals and she had a green thumb and plants and was always in the yard so.

The diversity in the Chihuahuan desert is just beyond belief, the diversity of this area, thisthis Chihuahuan desert region which mostly lies in Mexico but its in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas as well, rivals the rain forests in South America easily, the diversity. People have no idea when they drive through here on Interstate 10, for example through Sierra Blanca, they see nothing driving at seventy miles an hour on the freeway.

They see cactus, sand, and gravel and they think there's nothing that lives here. However, upon further inspection if they'll just get out of their cars, they would see the life, the multitude of life that exists not only in the classic desert which you see the prickly pear and the cactus and whatnot, but also into the hills and into the mountains where you actually have a different climate, more rain, different animals, different plants, forest even.

I can show you forest less than six miles from here and you wouldn't believe that just driving through but thereit does exist. Its not the classic forest like you talk about the Pacific northwest but were talking pinion pine, oak, and cedar

which can create a high desert forest and a microclimate with springs, elk, endangeredall kinds of different endangered species of plants and animals and just aa differenta completely different world than isis up there in the Eagle Mountains for example six miles from hereeight miles from here than wethan wewe have down here in Sierra Blanca which I think were about five thousand feet here.

DT: Were there people who introduced you to the outdoors near here? You mentioned your grandmother, were there others that might have taken you up to see these forests and springs?

BA: Well no, my grandmother didnt do that a lot, she waswhen I was growing up shes getting up in age, she was in her eighties when she died, however, I do remember you know we had a farm and ranch and I was always being farmed out to be working on the farm and ranch.

And also I have really good memories of being in Boy Scouts where the scout leaders from Sierra Blanca would take us on trips all in this area. And actually at that real young age of working on the farm, working on the land, working on the ranch and going on Boy Scout trips to camp and whatnot, it really did it was my first connection with the land and the earth here.

DT: Were there any particular Boy Scout trips for example that you can recall?

BA: Well I remember one to the Quitman Mountains I guess thatthat really opened my eyes to about thethe diversity and thethe life thatsthat abounds here and whenwhen you just will get out and inspect it.

We went to the Quitman mountains, they're about five miles from Sierra Blanca here and went to these mountains andon a trip and looked at an Indian actually an ancient village of the native American Indians andand arroyo petroglyphs, Indian writings, their ancient writings, and then in the stream bed we were shown and we could dig down in the stream bed like a foot down,

it would fill up with water, an underground river. So thats something else that people dont realize, theres actually underground rivers that flow through some of these dry creek beds. And thats something that I discovered, there's a river below this land here that looks pretty dry and its actually a stream, it was an underground stream is what it was, I thought it was a river.

Anyway, that stood out in my mind of something really special. You could dig down aa foot and it would fill up with drinkable water, really pure pristine water. And, of course, going to the Eagle Mountains, Chief Springs, very special, I consider a holy place out here.

DT: Speaking of water, could you talk a little bit about the ambitions of El Paso and some of the other larger desert towns to prospect for water in this area?

BA: I wouldnt call them towns, I'd call them cities first. The City of El Paso, which is about seven hundred thousand people has basically destroyed their aquifer the Hueco Bolson, they've collapsed it. It's got maybe twenty years of water left. They get about half their water from the Rio Grande now because they knew that they see that the level declined in the Hueco, which is a major aquifer in Texas.

There's been a proposal and a move since 1991 for the public service board of El Paso, which governs El Paso water utilities to build a pipeline, a five foot pipeline, sixty inches, to this area, a hundred miles to Valentine,

actually a hundred and fifty miles to Valentine, Texas, the same place where my grandmother and my grandfather got married, to tap into that ancient pristine aquifer and pump it back to El Paso. That aquifer is the aquifer that sits on the edge of Sierra Blanca, the west Texas Bolson aquifer, which is a very ancient, pristine aquifer that has very little recharge.

By pumping the amount of water they want to pump, David, were talking about fifty thousand acre feet a year or more, it would have groundwater declines and infiltration of brackish water into the fresh water. The water in Valentine and this Bolson that runs through four counties is very good but its not just one big lake, its a very finite resource and its very old water, it took a long time to accumulate.

So this is where all these towns, these small towns and communities in Marfa, Valentine, Fort Davis, Sierra Blanca, Van Horn, Dell City, thetheyou know, wewe get our water from underground sources. We dont get it from the river and so wewe must look out for ourselves and protect this water.

El Paso isthe county and city of El Paso had spent five million dollars, David, in opposing this nuclear dump at Fort Hancock, Texas before it came to Sierra Blanca, the nuclear dump that we stopped here in Sierra Blanca, the state of Texas wanted to build. They spent less than ten thousand dollars out of discretionary funds tofighting the dump at Sierra Blanca.There were legal parties, however, theythe public service board, the water utilities, and really the city council really did really nothing to stop the dump at Sierra Blanca.

And so we put them to task and says well El Paso, youyoure not really willing to protect the very water youre trying to take from us. This dump sits over the edge of the Huecoof the west Texas Bolson and yall just bought a ranch thirty miles from here, they call it a water ranch, to pump water back to El Paso.

DT: Why do they call it a water ranch?

BA: Well its ait was a ranch, its actually theand they call it a water ranch because theytheyre going to use it to pump water as aas athey call it a just in case source, just in case we might need it. Well now they say they need it. So its a water ranch, you know, to provide water. Theyre not farming or ranching, they want to use it to mine water.

DT: And what have been some of the local efforts to try to dissuade them from doing that?

BA: Well when they bought the property, the public service board from this insurance company from Connecticut theyand, of course, they also bought another twenty this is twenty-one thousand acres were talking about in Valentine, its not a small ranch, its kind of a small, well its considered small but its kind of big, and they bought another one in Van Horn, Texas, thirty miles from here, another twenty-one thousand acres and they actually want to pump a lot of groundwater back to El Paso. What was the original question?

DT: I was curious how people responded to these proposals to mine the ground water out in west Texas.

BA: Yes The first thing they did was inin response, this area, groundwater district was set up in Jeff Davis County by Bob Dillard whos the editor of the paper there. And Bob Dillard and others set up thea single county undergroundunderground water district to try to impact this plan.

Groundwater districts can actually have some regulation over their water and actually tax it if they try to remove it. So that was the first one. Several others have popped up since then, Culberson County, Presidio County, and Brewster County is now trying to start one to protect themselves from the cities.

People here are very concerned about this proposal to suck to mine groundwater and were talking about mining ground water, that's when youre taking more water out of the ground then whats annually replenished byrecharged from rainfall, thats mining and thats what they want to do. Theythey say its not mining, that theyre not going to do this and we say it is.

And we know it is as there's very little recharge coming into these aquifers. Now therewe have a groupthe fledging group we started, the West Texas Water Protection Fund which were trying to educate the people of this region, including the people in the city by the way, into thethis issue so we can work together.

We don't believe, David, that it should be an urban versus a rural war. There will be a water war if El Paso continues on its path of being arrogant in trying to run over us and take our water, there will be a water war. But we think the people in El Paso want the same things, the majority of people anyway, that want the same things that we do.

They want a good life for their families, they want their children to have a quality of life equal to theirs and its the same things we want. I dont think the people in El Paso want, once they knowhave this information, to be another Los Angeles, another Phoenix, another wanna-be Mexico City.

We have big problems already from the expansion of El Paso of over the, you know, so theres notnot to mention the resource depletion that theyre causing to the region from the river, taking water from the river and now maybe the aquifers out here, but congestion, infrastructure, schools, traffic problems, it takes a long time to drive anywhere anymore because of the gridlock in traffic and people are starting to notice that.

So I think its high time, and its a big issue now with the mayoral elections, keep tuned. Thethethe developers and bankers should not control the future of El Paso and theyre the ones that have historically controlled the city council, the mayor, and the very powerful public service board that wants to take our water.

They control them, the developers and the bankers, for the agenda of growth at any cost, explosive, unplanned, unsustainable growth at any cost, and that is a path that hurts us all, the people in the city and the people in the rural area.

DT: What is the path that you compare El Paso to? You mentioned Phoenix and Mexico City, what is it that you fear, the path that theyve taken and these other statesand

BA: Well clearly El Paso is a border plex right now. Juarez has nearly two million people right across the river, El Paso has about seven hundred thousand people in their county. However, we don't think that, most people I think out here don't want to have double the population in twenty-five years, which is projected if things don't change. It could very well be that way.

We don't believe that this area, because of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the promotion of that, should grow unsustainably just to benefit certain corporations at the expense of the people.

These jobs they're bringing in are only in the United States are minimum wage jobs, in Mexico a lot of the jobs, and were talking about hundreds of thousands of workers here, they pay three dollars a day. So were talking about basically what I consider slave labor to help corporations.

And yes were very opposed to these companies riding on the backs of the environment and the people just to make a bunch of corporate profits and this may sound like hyperbole or whatever, but this is a very serious issue when you have growth being promoted by certain so-called leaders, bankers, and multinational companies that want to make sure there's enough water for them to continue expansion off these types of twin plant operations in warehouses and manufacturing plants and so.

DT: Maquiladoras?

BA: Maquiladoras, yes. DT: We talked a little bit about groundwater. I understand that you have a farm thats on the river and I was wondering if you could talk about surface water and whats happened to the Rio Grande.

BA: Surface water. Yes the Rio Grande River, the once magnificent river, is on the brink of ecological collapse. Its very biologically challenged right now because of upstream use by cities and agriculture, both. The phrase is use it or lose it, instead of letting any water down, they want to use all they can. Theythethe river is disconnected because of that.

DT: What do you mean by use it or lose it?

BA: Well they say, well we got tolets plant all these pecan trees or lets plant all this cotton or letsletslets have some water project here because if we dont use the water, we have to release it downstream.

And that's the attitude of use the water or youre going to have to release it downstream and that's a lost commodity that they don't want to use they dont want to lose. We have to get away from that mindset so people look at the river as an entire basin ecosystem. Its one thing all the way from Colorado to Brownsville.

Because of upstream use, for example, and by the city of El Paso and irrigators in New Mexico and Colorado and in El Paso, we have this area of the river is extremely salt saline, its almost brackish. Itstheres very little water in the water in the river anymore, theres some. Theres really not supposed to be any water below Fort Quitman here, its a gauging station, all the way to Presidio.

Theres not supposed to be any water in the river. However magically, theres water in there andandand we see El Paso in wanting to take more regular water out, for example the susthe El Paso Los Cruces sustainable water project, well theres nothing sustainable about this project, wanting to take moretwenty-eight percent more water out of the river than they do now, forty thousand more acre feet,

this would send the river over the edge of collapse by decreasing flows it would decrease flows twenty-eight percent is what I should say. We intend to do everything to stop that project in court oror any other way we can politically. It is not sustainable.

Their project entails pushing water, cleaning it first with a treatment plant in El Paso and pushing it over the with lift stations over the Anthony Gap Pass, a mountainous area with another five foot pipeline and injecting about a hundred million gallons a day into the Hueco Bolson, an artificial way to recharge their already nearly collapsed aquifer because they also want to use a portion of this water I should also state for their future needs but what they cant use, they want to inject it in the Bolson.

So its kind of like well this use it or lose it thing. We want to even use more than we need and save it in like a giant holding tank, the aquifer underground, they capture it and then inject it, thats artificially recharging the aquifer using river water to artificially recharge the aquifer which is just hydrologically unsound number one, andand ludicrous and very selfish for them to want to take more water then they can actually use for their growth plans.

And, David, I mean Im going all on about this but its very important. Thewhat theywhat theyve done is get a formula that each person, in El Paso people use a hundred and sixty-three gallons per day which they say thats not too bad if you compare it to their cities down from about three hundred gallons per day per person, a hundred and sixty-three.

So they get a hundred and sixty-three times well we estimate theres going to be a million five here in El Paso in twentyso a million five times one sixty-three gallons per day, thats how much water we need to get to supply the city per year. And this is their formula on what they need. So all this water, El Paso has plenty of water right now. Theres no water crisis.

This is all for future growth. This is all for future plan growth because thesethethelike the Hunt Building Corporation whos doing the feasibility study for the pipeline free of charge is the biggest owner of undeveloped land in El Paso County. He bought two farms in Dell City Texas to sell water to El Paso and the Hunt Building Corporation intends on constructing the pipeline to sell to El Paso.

Well no wonder they're doing a free feasibility study. They can't develop all the land being the biggest owners of undeveloped land, without awith a water scare that we don't have enough water for the future.

They want that taken care of not to scare away future growth. And they're just very aggressively working hand in hand with the public service board more of the same of bankers and developers controlling the agenda through the public service board and the city counsel of El Paso.

And that we hope will change in this mayoral election. We have high hopes that Mr. Ray Caballero will become mayor who is a visionary man that we believe will change things to bring the city back to the people, where the people control the government, not a few corporations. (misc.)

DT: Bill, I was hoping that you might be able to sort of change tack right now and instead of talking about some of the projects to take resources out of the west Texas and Sierra Blanca area, such as the water plans we talked about, and now maybe talk about some of the proposals to bring, I wouldnt call them resources, butand

BA: The dregs.

DT: The dregs from other areas and dispose of here in this area. One of the proposals I think youve been most closely associated with has been the effort to stop the (?) stop the radioactive waste dump that was proposed at Sierra Blanca. And I was wondering if you might back up a little bit in time and talk about some of the earlier incarnations of that same radioactive waste dump, Sierra Blanca I guess was a later phase of proposals to dispose of waste at Fort Hancock and other areas.

BA: Yeah, actually, David, the first proposal was at Dell City, Texas. The Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, and first off theres nothing low level about some of this waste, was proposed at Dell City, Texas in 1984 shortly after the United States governmentCongress passed a Low Level Waste Policy Act.

They proposed this at Dell City, and people in Dell City, I mean this is a farming community about fifty miles from Sierra Blanca, sixty maybe, and they just said what, you know. Actually Mrs. Lynch, Mary Lynch has a very interesting story, she could tell it better than I could but Ill briefly tell you. Shethisthis stood out in my mind when she told me this years ago.

She said that she had gone to see BillSenator Bill Sims, you probably know whoknow of him, Senator Bill Sims, he used to be our senator by the way, and asked him, James, Marys husband, theyre into construction, the Lynch brothers, were looking at the potential of having a minimum security prison in Dell City.

So they asked him about supporting that proposal that the people supposedly were behind in Dell City. And he leaned back in his chair Mary tells me and says, well I dont know about the prison Mrs. Lynch but how about a radioactive waste dump? Well Mary and James just laughed, they thought he was joking.

Two weeks later, a reporter from the Austin American called up Mrs. Lynch, Mrs. Lynch beingMary Lynch being the editor of the Hudspeth County Herald, the only county newspaper and said, how do you guys feel about being the chosen site for a radioa radioactive waste dump for Texas? And they go, what? So they quickly organized with Linda and Bonnie andand they started a group which because Alert Citizens for Environmental SasSafety, ACES.

DT: What year was this?

BA: 1984, pretty sure. Its before I was involved, Linda Lynch, Mary Lynch and Bonnie Lynch, theyre sisters, and got the people involved. And I guess there were some others that were concerned and started what became later as Alert Citizens for Environmental Safety, the first environmental group in Hudspeth County.

And so they got together and they hired a lawyer and some consultants and eventually stopped this proposal about a year later in Dell City. The state, lets quickly run down the history because it is worth repeating of this very pathetic seventeen year history of the state trying to force radioactive waste, the State of Texas trying to force this waste on unwilling communities in Texas, mainall mainly in west Texas.

After the failure of Dell City, the state pulled up stakes andandand went to McMullen County. Those farmers and ranchers opposed it big time and just like they did in Dell City and I wont go into details there but through Senator Carlos Truans help, he drafted a bill thatthat prohibited it being twenty miles from a reservoir andand Corpus Christi had just built a reservoir on the Nueces River so that doomed the McMullen County site, this is McMullen County.

So they came also the bill that said they had toin this bill that Truan drafted and an amendment was put on that thethe state should look at state-owned lands in west Texas, or all state-owned lands and, of course, all the state-owned lands are mainly in west Texas. Theres verymostninety-nine percent of them are in west Texas.

So they came to Fort Hancock, Texas where I was born and proposed a nuclear dump there, less than five kilometers from the Mexican border the proposal. Those people organized in Fort Hancock. People in Porvenir in Mexico across the river helped them organize.

There was a sister there a Catholic sister that organorganizedid a lot of organizing worked to oppose the project and El Paso finally took notice andand opposed the project legally because thethe project, the dump, was over the Hueco Bolson aquifer and very close invery close to El Pasos growth pattern and just too close for comfort to El Paso.

So they sued and after a four year legal battle won, stopped the state and District Judge Bill Moody in a very eloquent, beautiful decision after four years of this, ordered the state and the disposal authority of Texas, ordered the state agency not only offout of Fort Hancock, he ordered them out of Hudspeth County, said leave in his order.

Why? Because their evidence was brought in, David, this is real important, about science overor politics over science. The map was produced by the county of El Paso showing...it was produced or developed by consultants for the county of El PasoI mean, excuse me, for disposal authority of Texas, Dames and Moore.

So the Dames and Moore working for the authority, thatthat showthe county map showing exclusionary areas in Hudspeth County of where they should locate a nuclear dump or potential or not. Well all of it was shaded except for a little bitty place in the middle of the county.

So most all of Hudspeth County was deemed exclusionary because ofof unsuitable hydrology, geology, complex geology, or hydrohydrology, scientific criteria. Andbut yet they were still trying to put the dump there. So thats why Judge Moody not only ordered them off of Fort Hancock but ordered them out of the whole county because their own map showed itshowed it wasnt suitable.

So then when Judge Moody did this, whats his name, Dan Shelly, representative Shelly from Houston introduced a bill that would force the dump onto Fort Hancock making the moot the District Judges opinion. I mean, these are very basic constitutional questions. Do we have a separation of the judicial system and the legislative system?

Can we just appeal to the legislature to get something done if we dont like it instead of appealing it to a higher court? This is what happened. There was no due process. What the county was faced with, El Paso was we spent five million dollars, thats what they spent fighting this over four years in legal work and consultants, four years of our time, five million, and we got a good decision from the judge ordering it out and theyre going to still going to put it here anyway.

What do we do? So they decided, very sadly decided to negotiate with Governor Ann Richards and the state of Texas and say El Paso (?) sponsoring a (?) El PiosEl Paso (?) sponsoring organization who had very been very active in the issue in Fort Hancock and El Paso was involved in negotiations. And Luther Jones thethe district judge sorry county judge of El Pasof El Paso County who was a real bull dog in fighting this,

they were all involved and faxes went back and forth and they decided on well, well leave Fort Hancock alone, twenty something miles away from El Paso city limits and well not put it there if you allow us to have this place near Sierra Blanca that the county judge has now said its hes okay with.

And so a deal was struck at first, thethe box that they said well this is where its going to go, actually made a box with lines was on like a little tiny reca long rectangle along our county line as far away from El Paso but still in Hudspeth county. They made a bigger box andandandand put the town of Sierra Blanca and its defined by longitude and latitude, its a three hundred and sixty square mile box before, David, they had the entire state of Texas to look for a radioactive waste dump.

The legislature by adding this amendment on, this bill of Dan Shellys thatto give them Sierra Blanca, put it in a three hundred and sixty square mile box. It gave this bill also had, I didnt mention, gavegave the state eminent domain, power to enter property. Any lawsuit filed had to be filed in Travis County, thats Austin, stripping every constitutional right we have to address the situation.

So El Paso, as Linda Lynch puts it, sold outsold us out and said, okay were not going to get it here but its going to go in no matter what yall say. The state says its going to go in no matter what El Paso said somewhere in Hudspeth County. So they justthey sacrificed Sierra Blanca.

Linda calls it thirty miles of dust and I guess if youyou multiplyIve always teased Luther Jones, five million dollars byby thirty miles you can see how many millions of dollars it took to get it one mile away from El Paso. You know, so really there was no victory at all, the victory was hollow to get to stop the dump. And it started all over and thats when I got involved.

DT: What year was that?

BA: That was excuse me that was 1991. Yeah, it was 1984 Dell City, in 84, and then from 84 to 1987, McMullen County and then from 87 to 1991, Fort Hancock and Hudspeth County and then Sierra Blanca 1991 to 1998.

DT: Maybe you could tell us a little bit of what happened in the 90s here in Sierra Blanca and how you were successful in stopping it.

BA: Yeah. Well basically first I should mentionits worth mentioning how I got involved was I was married andand I had a family and I was sitting at home at night watching the ten oclock news on television in my bed in my bedroom with my wife and son. And I seen our county judge come on television on the local news on NBC and say andand the report was about the defeat of the nuclear dump and what the state was going to do.

And here we are and Judge Billy R. Love our county judge was on there talking about well II think we should look at the opportunity of hosting this facility inin Sierra Blanca because even though we were opposed to it at Fort Hancock the people in Sierra Blanca see this as a form of maybe of economic development for jobs. So Im going uhuhwhoever asked us?

You know, I was like in shock, you know. I says, well how can he do that, you know? And sothe nextI couldnt sleep all night. I went outside with my wife, Gina, and stood out in theat my house that my grandmother left me, the same spot where excuse me the same spot where we fed those scaled quail with my grandmother and looked at the Eagle mountains.

And I didn't even know where they wanted to put it to be honest with you, but Ill tell you this, I discussed this with my wife, Gina, and said, I said look, we just have a son, we want to move to our farm our family farm and live here and develop what we have and now they want to put a dump here. And we agreed that it was our responsibility to do something,

we could not only because of the life we brought in the world but because we didnt want to leave. And so we made the decision toto well, if theres anything wrong, well just to fight it. I mean basically, David, we had three choices. Do nothing, sell out for some quarters, and believe me they'll pay them, or learn everything we can about the project pro and con and oppose it if its wrong.

We didnt feel we had a choice, we chose number three, to learn about it and, of course, we did fight it because, of course, it was wrong. Id never been involved until Sierra Blanca. My sister had been involved in Dell City helping the Lynchs and ACES some but I never really got it until it hit home in Sierra Blanca.

And I don't regret that decision but it came at a high cost, that decision that day, to get involved, very high cost. I'd do it again. I looked out, I should also say this quickly. II looked out that same day from my backyard and looked towards the Eagle mountains and its just really ironic that they wanted to put it later,

and I didnt know at the time where they wanted to put it, five miles from the Eagle mountains in between the Eagle mountains and the freeway, right off the freeway out here, east of here. And I looked at the Eagle mountains and sawandand I saw thisand I looked at them and I just feltI mean its just really bizarre and you may laugh,

but I was saying, I wasnt drunk or anything, and I looked at those Eagle mountains and I had a feeling come over me of just something so wrong. And it was like a silent scream of everything alive on that mountain, around that mountain, the rocks, the birds, the animals, the plants, everything, screamed to me.

And from that day Ifrom that moment it was a very profound moment in my life, you might say it was a spiritual moment and it may sound weird to you but it happened and from that moment on, I knew I would do everything, anything, to stop that project that was being forced on us.

DT: I think you used this term before, it sounds like being born again, like the kind of stories people tell about this kind of awakening.

BA: When people do theseyeah its an awakening. When these things happen, and its not unique to me by any means, its happened to thousands of people. When these types of things happen, theres always something good that happens out of it, its like being born again. Its like an awakening of,

you know, in the past I guess so many of us have just gone on with our normal lives and itnot that its not interesting but sometimes were just breathing in and breathing out. Were not leaving anything behind. Were not helping anyanybody for the future.

We do have a responsibility to help, you know, future generations and our children and those that arent born yet and thats not just the people. (misc.)

DT: Well lets pick up if we could about talking about many of us who walk through life breathing in and breathing out but leaving very little for the next generation and that you had this sort of awakening about some of these responsibilities with regard to the radioactive waste dump and I guess other issues. How did that affect you?

BA: Yeah, it did change my waymy life in ways that I cant even begin to describe but there is a positive side to this and its aits ait made me morea lot more aware and awake of whats going on. A little bit of knowledge can be a real dangerous thing. It can weigh on your mind,

you can suffer from it but also you can do some things thatthat leaveleave a mark to change things for the better. And thats what I hope in some way that Ive done, you know. My worst nightmare, my worst nightmare would be for children in the future tomy worst nightmare would be for children of the future to look back and say,

why didnt you try to stop any of this, why didnt yall do anything about this, now were living with this. You know, thats my worst nightmare for my son or any children to say this. So I think itit is our responsibility to look to the future and what our children will have to live with and what we've left here.

And if we can impact in any way things that are destructive to the earth and to their future, to their quality of life oror that wouldmight harm any life in the future, human and otherwise, I believe its our personal responsibility as a human being to do everything we can at whatever cost it comes. Thats my opinion, its my responsibility as humans. I mean, the earth gave us life. (misc.)

BA: Something I wanted to say when my mom interrupted us a little bit. Well never be the same, Ill never be the same after the awakening of what theyofof what we saw, what I call an awakening of what we, you know, of my consciousness about whats going on.

It is I don't think I could stop now if I wanted to, not that I want to, but Iits real hard when you see something thats wrong and that you cant do, you know, you want to do something about it, you feel like you have to do something about it.

But its real special to see people like in Monahans where this same proposed site went to, the nuclear waste, and theythisthe Enviro Care of Texas wanted to store waste above ground at Barstow, Texas privately and what they call ita shared isolation or a shared storage.

And there's a lot of opponents, theres some opponents that call me and saw my picture and quotes about our victory at Sierra Blanca in Texas Monthly and asked me for help. So yes, weI felt compelled and a responsibility to help those people with my knowledge.

And, you know, its not just about getting it out of my back yard. Its also about not having our neighbors go through the same thing and whats the right policy for all of Texas. See, David, itssometimes its hard to relate to people when you dont live there, youre disconnected.

Like a lot of people in Austin are disconnected from what happens out here in west Texas. It doesnt make them bad people, they just dont live here so why should they care. So whenwhen, you know, thisthis disconnect, I guess I was guilty of it for a long time.

I think, for example, I wasnt involved in the Dell City site and I wasnt involved and here comes someone, youll have to cut there. A salesman.

I guess also that, its real special, David, to see people that have awakened and have changed their lives from like I said breathing in and out to becoming an activist and being involved in their community where theyll never be the same.

Not just on, you know, like, a case that stands out reallyreally drove home the point to me in my mind is that I was helping these people, just regular people in Monahans, Texas fight Enviro Care of Texas plans to store waste above ground at Barstow in Ward County about a hundred and fifty miles from here.

They supported us, in fact, Ward County had a resolution against the Sierra Blanca dump, one of many, and so when they called me up after seeing my picture and story, called Clean Living in Texas Monthly, I said, yes we'll help you.

Ya'll need to start your own group, but well help you with information and Ill go there to speak or whatever we need. And I did for year but I sawI would meet with these people, they call themselves the friends of Ward County.

Laura Burnett, whos the lady that called me up and her friends, these are just people that were really opposed to this, Id see them talking and these are like, some of them little old ladies and some of them not so old and district clerk of theof the Ward County and whatnot.

And you'd see them and Id talk to them and Im saying, you know, in one of their meetings atat the city council ladys house, one lady that opposed it, Clarise Goth, you know I have to tell you this, its very special to see ordinary people that really, and excuse me, I dont mean any disrespect, not really inthat involved with their community,

awaken and become real involved afterthis bringsbrings youryour true community spirit out. I said, youyou people will never be the same, youre awakened now and now whenever you see something wrong, youre going to be involved in it.

I'll warn you that because its whats going to happthats what happened to me. So its a very powerful thing to see just ordinary people when theyre faced with something like this that's an intrusion in their lives, that may change their life

become awakened and become a person thats not just breathing in and out anymore and letting life pass by, theyre involved directly in helping people that live now and people that arent born yet.

So thats just a real special thing because we need more people like that. And so the other side, the people that are wanting to do this dont realize that theyre creating an army of people when they do this thing.

A lot of us continue on, we dont stop after we stop the project inin our home. I mean, it would be irresponsible of me, David, to scream bloody no here in Sierra Blanca and then let my neighbors take this. That would be immoral, bartering, you know, it would be wrong in a sense, so thats the way I am and so.

DT: Could you take us back a few years and talk about how you did get started at home here in Sierra Blanca with the fight against the proposal of the nuclear waste dump.

BA: How I got involved?

DT: Yeah in 91 and take us through to 98.

BA: Well sure. I did already did tell you about the awakening that I had when we saw the proposalor judge on TV saying we wanted it, right. So I already went through that part. So thats really the turning point in my life that awakened me, thats what awakened me is seeing the judge going on TV without asking anybody.

DW: Maybe the idea is to take it to you being awakened now. How do you deal with the other people around here because you cant fight every one?

BA: Okayokay. So afterDavid, after I saw there was something wrong and I needed to do something about it, we decided toI talked with other people in town that were also alarmed, not a lot but some, and we started a group called Save Sierra Blanca.

First we were called Hudspeth County Alert Citizens for Environmental Safety, kind of an off chute of ACES in Dell City. And I talked to Linda Lynch and her mom. I actually I should have mentioned this also. Before I started Save Sierra Blanca, we went toI was invited to go to Glenrose, Texas with some other people from Austin,

activists in Austin that were also opposed to this project, Don Gardner from Austin, Mavis Bellal, Lon Bernum whos now a state legislator, Karen Hadden, who now works for the (?) Coalition, Tom Smitty Smith, public citizen, Jeff Sibley, who helped stop the dump at McMullen County that now lives in Austin, and others,

I dont want to leave anyone out but we all met at Glenrose which is the site of the twin thousand megawatt reactors of Texas Utilities in a trailer park there at Glenrose. We toured the nuclear power plant and talked about starting a group, which we did and we named it the Texas Nuclear Responsibility Network.

DT: And this is the site at Comanche Peak?

BA: Comanche Peak which generates about fifty percentalmost fifty percent of the volume of all so-called low-level radioactive waste in Texas. Theres two thousand megawatt Westinghouse pressurepressure water reactors there at Glenrose inin Somervell County.

So we met there and started this group and actually Mary Lynch asked me to go because she couldnt go. And so thats how I met all these people that we started the state group. So I came back and we started Save Sierra Blanca and we had a group of about fifty people that were interested, that would attend meetings.

And then we had others that would come out for a hearing. And April 16th 1992 there was a public hearing held by law at our county courthouse. Over six hundred people came out to that hearing, mainly everyone from a lot of adults from Hudspeth County, Dell City, some from Fort Hancock and a lot from Sierra Blanca.

That public hearing in our small district courtroom, in our adobe courthouse, was a very telling moment that we just didnt want it. It was a public hearing for public comment about thethe disposal authoritys choice of the selection of the Faskin Ranch purchasing the Faskin Ranch which they eventually did for one million dollars,

well nine hundred and fifty thousand and just had to have a public hearing before they did that. And they got a big earful, just like Dr. Gibertow who the chairman of the authority said at the time, if anyone left here without a clear indication of this hearing that the people dont want it, they have a very serious hearing problem.

So there was so many people, David, there was about three hundred inside the small district courtroom and they had to set up speakers outside on the lawn just so people could hear. There was people peering through the windows, the ones that didnt walk off because they couldnt get in.

So that hearing inin April of 92 was the first time we actually had a voice and there was a lot of media from Mexico and from and from the Texas state media that was watching all this event. So thatthat happened and then, of course, wethe authority set up an office here.

They started talking about their communitycommunity benefit package plan which waswhich would, you know, as the acceptance for the dump wed be getting money. The attorney general ruled, Dan Morales, that we couldnt get any money of thefrom the planning and implementation fund, these impact fees for thefor the county in acceptance of theor to offset the placement of this dump.

Attorney General Dan Morales ruled we couldn'[t get a penny until the dump was in under state law unless the legislature wanted to revisit it. Unfortunately, and I do want to touch on this and hope we have a few minutes to talk about this later, were very politically disenfranchised here.

Our own representative, Pete Gallago worked with I mean, this is the guy that represents us in theour state capital who said he was against the facility, he wasnt, drafted a house bill to allow us to get this money,

working with our county judge, sludge judge Bill Love to get us the right to havetoto get the ten percent of the planning and implementation fund which is about a million dollars a year for public projects in Hudspeth County, Sierra Blanca mainly.

So when after that happened, there were some people in Sierra Blanca that for the love of money thought that, well maybe this isnt so bad after all and maybe we can benefit from this project. I would say they were in the minority but they were a vocal minority.

I would say they were less than ten percent of the community, but it was the banker, it was the school superintendent, it was the county judge, it was the commissioner, it was some of the people in business here, business community, all thought they could prosper and profit and make Sierra Blanca grow somehow,

which is ludicrous, by getting these monies for these public projects. And II really believe very strongly that they would have been against this project, everyonenearly everyone, if they didnt think they could make some money personally for themselves,

not just for everyone else but, you know, through a gravel contract or something. So to me thats notits a negative land use so. There were some that did buy into this project and then there wasits worthy to say that many people in Husbuin Sierra Blanca,

I mean, keeping in mind were about seventy percent of Mexican origin, the median incomes about eight thousand dollars here, forty percent of us are below the poverty level and theres only about eight hundred people in this town.

People have been historically beat down and oppressed, its especially the Mexican people and I'm half Mexican, they have been, so people were afraid they think that if they speak out, even if theyre against it, theyre going to lose their job or and,

of course, the county is the biggest employer, or and something bad is going to happen to their family and nothing good is going to come of it because we cant stop it anyway. Its a sense of being powerless and helpless is what it is and I felt it too but I overcame that

because I knew this was wrong and they couldnt force something on us if we would stand up against it and eventually we did do that. So, you know, the other towns would oppose it but since has been I mean we have to understand,

three of the four locations over the past seventeen years have been in Hudspeth County. This has been going on a long time. It gets awful tiring so people werewere saying, you know, we canwe cant this is getting old, we cant stop this, you know, and theyre going to put it somewhere here, they wont give up on us.

The people in the other towns, Dell City and Fort Hancock. So it was just, the way I became, David, its like, well no onehardly anybody wants to do anything about it, they feel like nothing can be done about it.

Even if we had a petition with eight hundred people on it, we still have it and even had a petition demanding the county judge resign, with about four hundred, but yet none of these people hardly would ever speak out.They were afraid to speak out in the media.

And so I feel like I was in the position of like making me more obsessed and more committed and a compulsive obsession is what it is of thinking, well God Ive got to do everything I can, Ive got to do more and more or the dumps going to come in.

It's kind of like a big weight a big load on your back to think that, you know. And so then its not like I like my name in the media, believe me, before this I was a very shy, introverted person but when they awakened me, you know, Ill briefly say this, this is a story worth repeating. [End Reel #2136]