Evangeline Whorton Interview, Part 2 of 2

  • DT: When we were talking earlier, we were visiting about some of the historical values of of Virginia Point and particularly Fort Herbert and I was hoping that you could explain more about that.
  • EW: Yes, Fort Herbert on the night of December the 31st, 1862 you've read in history books about the Neptune you've read about the battle of Galveston the retaking of the City of Galveston from the Union occupation back to the Confederacy. Fort Herbert was where those cotton clad steamers that went out into the bay and where that horrible battle occurred where the son Lay was killed and his father held him one was on the Union side, one was on the Confederate side and all that whole battle transpired was originated from Fort Herbert that Scenic Galveston now owns there on Virginia Point Peninsula.
  • So it is a terrifically important historical site and when the copper smelter was proposed for Virginia Point Peninsula when you Virginia when U.T. owned Virginia Point a cultural resources was written about a Texas copper company and it said in that and I know Barto Arnold who was head of the state archaeological landmark when I served as a commissioner on the Historical Commission came down and did an evaluation of it and he was told that the fort was under water that the house of Judge William Jefferson Jones was under water.
  • That's what the Texas copper smelters report said it was written by the Texas copper smelter. Well it's not under water. It's not anything it had eleven crenulated points, it had major ammunition and cannons there that were rolled out on tarmac and you can see them in aerial photographs in the winter when the the shrubbery is all down you can still see the tarmacs going out to the points. And it its a very significant its on its a pending national register site.
  • And what I was going to say about the copper smelter that that was planned a Texas City company coming in and putting a Texas copper smelter there right on West Galon Galveston Bay, not West Galveston Bay at that site at that whole Virginia Point Peninsula site that we own now. And interestingly enough, we got this what is known as a CIAP grant in 2004 I think I alluded to it earlier but I didn't finish the story in 2004 to buy that to save it from 300 tank farms that were going to be put upon on Virginia Point Peninsula.
  • Before that, it was a copper smelter in 89 and as recently as 2004, it was going to be developed for tank farms. And so that CIAP grant which is stands for Coastal Impact Assistance Program it came about for us to be able to get that two million dollars because NOAA National Oceanicand DT: (inaudible) EW: anduh-huh, Atmospheric Administration has piers and docks and offshore oil rigs and all that kind of thing and they get revenues. This is not taxpayers money that Scenic Galveston is using. It is revenues that come to federal agencies. They cannot buy land. They appropriate it to Congress. We then grant apply for those funds and we were able to get two million dollars and we bought University of Texas lands to save Virginia Point from any more industrial petrochemical industry.
  • DT: Well you told us a good deal about how you've you've managed through grants toto both buy up wetlands along Virginia Point and also to explore them. But I understand you've also had to work with a state agency Texas Department of Transportation to try to limit some of the billboards that have been constructed along there. And I was hoping that you could talk about your experience in working with TXDOT, both on billboards but also on some of the other projects that they've been pursuing including the Grand Parkway and most recently the Trans Texas Corridor. And and I guess just today later today the Sunset Advisory Review of of of the whole agency.
  • EW: Yes, I'll be attending that Sunset Advisory Commission this afternoon. Because we own along this major transportation corridor, we've had to deal with TXDOT. And its not been a good its not been a good neighborly kind of thing. Yes, the La Marque office of TXDOT has been good to Scenic Galveston. They've helped us with cleaning and putting up metal railing and all that kind of thing, but the district twelve office in Houston has not been a good neighbor at all. We started that project out there and we had 31 billboards both sides. Were down to eleven billboards.
  • We've done it because we've either fazed them out, we've bought the license, we've bought the land and just persevered found in some illegal activity going on hired an attorney. I know one time there was a billboard they were trying to put a second face on, we went all the way to New Orleans and got it down. We have had five billboards taken down by the New Or finally by the final appeal process in New Orleans. So we have only eleven now. But its not just billboards.
  • It's other things that TXDOT has done. In evaluating a billboard that has been there as long as I have been in Galveston and let me back up and say one thing the billboards in our estuary on both sides of I-45 are was since 1983 are classified as categorically they're called non-conforming billboards. That means when you don't have under the Texas Litter Abatement Act of the 60s and 70s, you had to have one business within 800 feet of a billboard to have it be a legal billboard.
  • In 1983, the last business blew away out there and that those billboards became non-conforming during that period of time. And the Barbeque Hut blew away and the billboards blew away. One billboard very close there would is and he still advertises on this billboard is called Mario's we call it billboard number one. And that billboard just south of Bayou Vista, Viacom put a second face on it. Well if you read the Texas Administrative Code, TXDOT cannot put any substantial changes to billboards when they're non-conforming.
  • And here is this second face going on the backside of this billboard! So we appealed and they said in the real estate division of TXDOT that the original permit of 1985 had permission for a second face. 1985 billboards became non-conforming in 1983 and TXDOT cannot issue a permit for a non-conforming billboard. So Mario's is an illegal replacement billboard. Juliet Stout, the billboard person who put them all up out there Jules Love Junior Incorporated you've heard of it they started putting billboards up in our estuary in 1938. Well she gave an affidavit that said there was a business at the old blown away Barbeque Hut. We found out it was a module. It wasn't open thirty hours a week, it didn't have heat, it did have a telephone for one year and it was a bulk cutting storage facility. A lie! An illegal permit.
  • We went to TXDOT. They refused to take it down. Another one built in 1993 a storm came through and built it down and they replaced it Jules Love Junior replaced it with a six-poled multi-pole. You can't replace that's a substantial change you cannot replace a wooden six-pole multi-pole with a metal multi-pole billboard and they did. We went to TXDOT. They refused to take it down. Three billboards we did get down in this 1995 hearing of administrative hearing in Austin. We did get two billboards down but that one didn't get on the docket. We have gone back and forth to TXDOT to get that billboard down, get it back on the docket. They refused to take it down. It's going to court. Last one three we have three illegal billboards. Charles Heald, who was the head of TXDOT some years back denied a permit.
  • DT: So we were talking about billboard number three. Can you tell us the tale about that?
  • EW: The executor director of TXDOT, a good man, now retired, denied Demetrius Manectus having a billboard because the measurement wasn't correct we owned the carrying tower land underneath the carrying towers and it wasn't spaced right and there weren't two businesses. There's just one business. And you have to have under the Texas Administrative Code not the old Litter Texas Abatement Act which is defunct and has been replaced by the Texas Administrative Code you have to have two businesses. There are two businesses on that site. They're the same sexually oriented business and they are owned by the same person. And this new head of TXDOT permitted in 2003 a billboard a giant mono-pole, dove-winged billboard to go up in the middle of Demetrius Manectus three illegal permits. Okay?
  • That's three things we have against them. And we're going to court. Tim Beatny is going to take all three of them along with Margaret Lloyd who is helping him in Scenic Texas of which I'm a board member of we've had several meetings and were going to prove them wrong all on all three counts. Well win every one of them. So well go from eleven to eight I hope. The other thing: I had a good working relationship with Jose Ramirez of the La Marque TXDOT office. And we came back three or so Christmases ago and we noticed huge foundations as big around almost as this room huge, huge, huge foundations and I had been promised by Pat Henry some years back that they were going to never put any high mast cluster lights in our sanctuary in our preserves in our parkland because we have nocturnal species and we have threatened and endangered species out there and these cluster lights are the latest fad with TXDOT.
  • They're a hundred and seventy-three feet tall and there have all these huge clusters of lights on them. And they are in a four acre orb produce light twenty-four hours a day that is one hundred times more intense than the full moon. One hundred times more intense. So you know what that does to our Black Rails you know what that does to our Mottled Ducks. You know what it does to all the species that we have out there. So Jose Ramirez said I know we met with him several times. He said, I know, he said But well do something with those lights. We needed those lights there at the Causeway entrance.
  • Even though Pat Henry had promised me they would never be placed in our estuary preserve lands. So the TXDOT twelve came out and they worked out a plan where they would put baffles on all these lights. And if it if they displaced Jose Ramirez told me now he's retired and Bob Bill Babbington is there now as the La Marque office director he said, If they displace your birds, well choose alternative lighting. Try to prove that they've displaced our birds. We'll have to go to court over it. So that's another thing.
  • Then the other thing is they were not supposed to widen we did a comprehensive study we didn't; TXDOT did back in the 90s late 90s the south part of I-45 and they all agreed that it was a preserve and it did not need to be widened. Now then, they're talking about widening it. They're going to take wetlands on both sides of the I-45. So yes, do we have grievances against TXDOT? You better believe we do. Do we have grievances on billboards? You better believe we do. Do we have grievances on the Bolivar Bridge, which we finally just fought back? Yeah, they're not going to build it now for another thirty years. They've decided not to build it. Do we have grievances about the Grand Parkway? You better believe we do.
  • The Katy Prairie is just as important as our prairies on Virginia Point Peninsula. They're habitat. The Grand Parkway does nothing more than to build a 5.2 billion dollar road around Houston that is going to take the hinterlands and will lead the developers right out there to virgin new land for developments. Why doesn't TXDOT fix the existing roads that we have, amplify them, expand them, not make another grid system? That Grand Parkway is going to take 400 acres of the Katy Prairie.
  • DT: You were talking about Trans Texas Corridor when we just left off.
  • EW: Yes we actually were talking about the Grand Parkway and the the lack of TXDOT's understanding that habitat is essential to Texas. And they're just taking more and more and more until not only are our scenic roadways not protected from billboards, but we have digitized billboards coming in now on roadways Clear Channel is pushing like mad. In fact there's a vote on Thursday whether or not TXDOT is going to indeed agree to permit these all over. And they will they will do it. The only light at the end of the tunnel is perhaps John Corona. He is not one of the commissioners with TXDOT. He is a Legislative Transportation Committee Chair for the legislature.
  • And I went to Austin, maybe last spring last summer, I can't even remember to oppose the Trans Texas Corridor and there were thousands of people there. I was in an anteroom. I couldn't even speak because I was away. I was just watching it by video. But I heard John Corona say; It is time for the big power of TXDOT to stop. It is time for us to rein in TXDOT. I am going to see about further stays on billboards and about this Trans Texas Corridor. Those were not his exact words, but that's what he said.
  • And so there is great citizenry opposition to Trans Texas Corridor. We don't need more new toll roads in Texas that go from Mexico to Canada. We don't need all these entrances and exits off 59 to join up with I-69 across this country. There's no habitat left. We're dividing ranches and farms that have been in generations of ranching families. We don't need that to trans have transports coming from the port in Mexico to go to Canada. We don't need any more disturbance or taking of Texas lands.
  • DT: Maybe we can sort of switch from land to water.
  • EW: Okay to water.
  • DT: We're here right now in in Eagle Lake in Colorado County and you've been involved in protecting the groundwater here that has been threatened from from over pumping and I was hoping you could tell us about the PureTex opposition and also about the effort to get a conservation district.
  • EW: Okay. I have lived in Galveston for since 1972. But I grew up in this little cottage that you're sitting in taking this video today. And it is my home is on the edge of the Breaking Prairie and we have the wonderful sands in Colorado County that very few other counties have. And we've had attempts through the years to take I know there a few years back there was a a ploy to build or drill 200 wells on the Atwater's Prairie Chicken Refuge, which is just eight miles east of me. And U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service beat beat it back.
  • But lately, there has been another attempt to take our valuable resource our groundwater here. And that was done by a private company and the commissioners of this county endorsed it, mind you, even though the professionals that came in said don't do it. And the arrangement was, PureTex four miles from my front door here on Old Gonzales Road originally 90, now called Farm to Market Road 102 that goes to our county seat Columbus, Texas right up on Ramsey Road was negotiating to buy land from a owner here in Eagle Lake and put a PureTex water bottling company, taking our water, using the beads to build plastic bottles there at that plant and shipping our water to China.
  • Well, many, many, many, many people from Colorado County protested with the county commissioners and finally it came to the point where PureTex either gave up or the I guess the economics of it changed I do not know what. The land deal fell through and we beat it back. And in the meantime, we still have the problem of wells being dug, ponds being built in this county by the lower Colorado River authority to ship our water to San Antonio. And it may be all right. We've been studying it now and have the possibility off or a few more years of study they had proposed channel dams before and we beat that back. And now they tell us that they're not going to drill wells. They're going to take storm water or flood water and store that water in ponds and that's what they'll ship to San Antonio.
  • And perhaps that is feasible. I do not know but right now I sit on the edge of my chair worrying about our good groundwater because there is I think a certain number of wells that will be tapped if we don't have water in the ponds shipping it to San Antonio with that contract. I'm not sure. One thing we have done in this county is even though we rejected twice a groundwater commission, we have now passed it. And we elect those people that will be sitting on that groundwater commission and we will have control over the taking of anymore water by PureTex or LCRA or anybody else to take the water out from underneath us here.
  • DT: Mrs. Whorton, I you've been active in historic preservation, wetland protection, scenic issues with billboards, the water issues that you just talked about why do these things matter to you and I guess secondly, why should they matter to a new generation coming up?
  • EW: I grew up and I go back to this again on the Breaking edge of the prairie. Our oak trees in this county are 600 years old. I have one in my pasture that's 250 years old. I grew up crawling up the limbs of that tree. Texas is very diverse. It has scenery that is comparable with any place in America beautiful. But there's something in the Texas composition the characteristics I call it razzmatazz they just cannot understand and value the premier things that they see every day and understand. They take it for granted so. We give this corporation the ability to do that. We give TXDOT the ability to put grid highways all over our state. Taxpayers paid for roadways.
  • Why is Clear Channel, why is Reagan, why is Lamar, why is RTM, why are all these companies given the subsidy of using our roadways to garbage scenic thoroughfares across this beautiful, glorious state? I do not understand that. Call it my conservation upbringings by my father I don't know or looking out my window every morning and seeing this Breaking Prairie and my live oak trees? Maybe that's what it is? I just don't want Texas to be ruined. I've gone back to Vermont for the last 35 years. It is incredibly beautiful. It's spectacular. Texas can equal it if it will just quit meddling with it. I just feel like it has nothing to do with politics per se.
  • It has to do with the citizenry taking for granted God-given resources and then not protecting it by the political hierarchy and the parties that value the environment. And that I have to blame on the citizenry. If we're crazy enough to build a pipeline to the National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and we're crazy enough to put ten thousand people on the West End of Galveston Island so it looks like southern Florida, there's something wrong with the citizenry. Either they're don't care, they don't want to be involved or they don't love it as much as I do. I cannot bear to lose it. Its just its like I said earlier, there's an innate capacity in the ability of Vermonters to know what is right about their country. We Texans need to learn it.
  • DT: And how would you teach that to a young person who's growing up?
  • EW: I taught it to both my own children. My daughter, Elise Mason, grew up with this kind of atmosphere and this kind of educational background from her family and from Dartmouth and from Rice and from learning about landscape and art and all those things. And now she works side by side with me. Sometimes embattled we are, but she works right beside me. She's restored every single track that we've restored out there in the estuary. She learned by seeing and experiencing and doing.
  • And my Anna, my younger daughter, the same thing. She loves horses, she loves wildlife, she loves the mountains, she loves the Guadalupe River, she loves you know, what can I say? You do you teach your children, you teach the younger generations. We put out things like this. I don't know if you can read it or not. Its the mission statement of Scenic Galveston. It is generally recognized that acre for acre, wetlands constitute the most ecologically productive community our planet has to offer. That's what its all about. We ought to seize that, whether it be original prairies our children need to learn it and we do it by putting out this kind of information in our schools, in the newspaper, in the media just as we're doing today.
  • DT: Well thank you for helping us get this message recorded and passed on. I'm I greatly appreciate it. EW: I don't know if I answered your question quite right. DT: I think you did. Thank you.