Dear Editor,
Big Bend Conservation Alliance was grateful to be able to present Dance and Plants for MISD second graders as part of this year’s Summer Shake Up. Calletana Vargas created Dance and Plants, and it was a program that she had been envisioning for months prior. Her vision was to create a fun learning environment for kids that would take place in gardens throughout Marfa, a place where dancing and celebration would be used to help the plants grow. Calletana did just that — there was dancing, planting and garden tours from local gardeners — and each day focused on the four things that plants need: soil, water, air and sun.
We are grateful to Calletana and her teaching team — Tina Rivera, Frankie Vargas and Samatha Salazar — for an exciting project, which fully engaged kids each day. We’re also grateful for all the students who brought their curiosity — Sabrina Amoro, Nayemi Ortalejo Araceli, Alexandra Clifton, Amaya Fuentez, Roman Fuentez, Nyla Gonzalez, Liam, Elijah Mackie, Alex Martinez, Jade Martinez, Ezra J. Medrano, Edie Melgaard, Kaleeah Rodriguez and Briseis Valenzuela — and their supportive parents.
Each garden and each gardener brought something unique to the program. Thank you to Bob Schwab, Faith Gay, Peggy O’Brien — along with the team at the Marfa Food Pantry, Genevive, Elbert and Kate — you shared your passion and your spaces helping engage kids with harvesting onions and carrots; cutting flowers; sunflower seeds; talks of bees, compost, worms, chickens, chicks and turkeys; how to spot a peach tree; and, critically important, how to watch out for snakes! These kids have a newfound love of beets because of your care and creativity each morning.
Our gratitude to the Judd Foundation for hosting our final day. Students got to plant radishes in the Judd garden, learn about Donald Judd’s family home, had storytime, danced and were treated to homemade empanadas and Socorrito’s tamales. Thank you team Judd — Jesse Dominguez, Yasmine Guevara, Rainer Judd, Jonathon Lujan, Jeff Matheis, Caitlin Murray, Rico Roman, Randy Sanchez — for opening The Block to this program. We were honored, too, to have Primo y Beebe perform a set for this final celebration with parents and friends joining the fun.
Our heartfelt thanks to Porter’s for providing us with fresh fruit and vegetables that we could serve each day and bottles of water to keep everyone hydrated during the summer heat. Thank you, too, to the many who helped support us along the way: Oscar Aguero, JD DiFabbio, Raina Dodson, Tim Johnson, Diane Lujan, Maria Medrano, Socorro Mena and Michael Roch.
As part of the curriculum, the focus was on four things plants need — soil, water, air and sun. On the final day, the teaching team added one more thing for kids to remember … every garden needs love … something that was on display each day.
Shelley Bernstein
Executive Director
Big Bend Conservation Alliance
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Dear Editor, Citizens of the Marfa Community, City Council Members and Mayor,
My name is Jennifer Esperanza and I believe we should find a way to open the MAC pool this summer. We need to have a real dialogue about what it would take to maintain the pool as a year-round community resource.
When I moved to Marfa two years ago, I found the kindest welcome from swimmers and members of the water aerobic class {The Marfa Mermaids} who I met at our community pool. My husband and I swam most every morning that summer. It is a fantastic pool. I am a swimmer and have been swimming my whole life. I was blessed to grow up swimming in pools, lakes, rivers and the ocean. I was a lifeguard for many years, on the swim team in high school, and a swimming teacher, when I was a teenager and in my twenties. I’ve taught people with phobias of the water how to swim, and drown-proofing skills to GIs. I know what a good pool is and our Marfa Community pool is not only a good pool, it is a GREAT pool.
My husband and I did notice that the decks of the pool were neglected and not kept clean and that the bathrooms were funky; this can be easily remedied. I do understand that the pool needs work and also understand there are many talented and capable people in Marfa who can come together quickly to fix up this local treasure. One wall at the pool is a bank of windows, and in the morning, the pool is flooded with light, it is magnificent to experience while swimming. Swimming in the MAC pool was a positive way to start our day.
Swimming is an exercise that uses nearly every major muscle in the body. It helps improve blood flow to the brain, is therapeutic and helps people with mood elevation. Swimming is awesome. As temperatures in town hover in the 90s, the kids of Marfa need this pool to be open, the elderly need this pool to be open. We all need our community pool to be open. Now!
Our MAC pool is a historic Marfa resource. This pool can be repaired, maintained and open all year. Recently, I was in contact with the manager of the Alpine pool. He told me when HR put out a call for lifeguards this season, fifteen people from the region applied. There is a woman in Alpine who certifies lifeguards. Obviously, the pool staff would have to be paid a living wage and there would have to be a dedicated cleaning team to keep the decks and bathrooms sanitary. This is not the job of lifeguards. Finding a strong staff for the pool can be achieved by recruitment, forward thinking and truly caring about our local families and Marfa citizens. Our community needs safe public spaces for the people of Marfa to gather, exercise and experience positive good times.
Let’s get this pool open this year for our community. Let us all care about the people of Marfa who don’t have their own pools. There are many people who would like to be given a tour of the facility. We feel the issues at the pool are not as drastic as reported. I have spoken to skilled workers who would like to pitch in and help. We all need our pool open. The pandemic was hard for us all. We need to swim, float and play; it is worth the effort.
Thank You & In Kindness,
Jennifer Esperanza
Marfa
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Dear Editor,
It was with great dismay that I read in a previous edition the article on the petition to Presidio County for the establishment of a racetrack just outside the city of Presidio. I was a breeder and owner of thoroughbred race horses in Maryland and West Virginia and was very invested in the racing industry for a number of years. I can’t think of a more problematic business to bring to the Big Bend. To mention a few of the obstacles:
Racing has been always known as the “sport of kings” and that is most accurate in that only kings can afford to raise and run horses. With income dependent on winnings, desperate measures are often taken to win.
Control of illegal drug use in the horses has always been a serious problem and requires continuous oversight through veterinary drug testing and diligent law enforcement. This is evident even at the very top by the recent positive drug test of this year’s Kentucky Derby winner resulting in the trainer being banned from racing for two years. Will a track in Presidio have the resources to address this problem?
Will there be a full time veterinarian checking for drugs, sending samples off to labs for testing and checking horses for soundness? The amount of horse breakdowns during a race was documented by the track veterinarian at Charles Town, West Virginia, to be directly proportional to the number of horses scratched just before a race for lameness. Unsound horses result in more breakdowns which endangers the lives of the jockeys and usually results in euthanization of the horses in full public view. This upsets the public and gives the track and racing a bad name.
Who will be providing the stewards to oversee the safety and handling of the horses? Race horses literally “run for their lives.” If unsuccessful as a runner, there are few alternatives for the horse. The racing industry already has a cloudy reputation because of the number of unsuccessful horses being sent to slaughter. Is the easy access to the Mexican slaughterhouses considered a positive consideration for locating in Presidio?
Ruidoso Downs is located at an altitude over 6000 feet where the temperature is more suitable for a physically extreme sport like racing. In Presidio, horses will suffer from heat exhaustion unless racing days are carefully scheduled which greatly reduces the available racing timeframe.
What is really behind the motivation for wanting to locate a racetrack in this area –– more money for some or more problems for the community?
At a thoroughbred breeders conference which I attended years ago, a 92 year-old trainer was asked to stand up and say a few words. The trainer had been in racing all of his life as had his family and they were very highly respected throughout the industry. The trainer quietly took the podium and said “Throughout my lifetime I’ve learned there aren’t many honest people in this world … and I don’t think that any of them are in racing.”
Fonda Ghiardi
Fort Davis
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Dear Editor,
Thank you, Far West Texans in Brewster, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties, for participating in a broadband internet survey the Rio Grande Council of Governments recently completed in partnership with Connected Nation/Texas and the TriCounty Broadband Alliance.
You all achieved a combined survey completion rate of 101 percent, as Presidio County responses totaled 129 percent, Brewster County 103 percent, and Jeff Davis County 80 percent.
Responses were received in every category: residential, agriculture, business, government, healthcare, higher education, K-12 education, libraries and community organizations and public safety.
Connected Nation/Texas will now take the data and create maps where internet is and isn’t available and prepare a technology action plan. With that, our cities, counties and school districts, along with broadband providers may apply for grant and loan funds to bring the technology to our friends, neighbors and schoolchildren who are unserved or underserved.
“Access to broadband is not a luxury, it is a necessity,” Far West Texas state Sen. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, said. “Almost 65% of people without broadband live in our rural communities. During the pandemic in those communities without access, students fell further behind, the elderly avoided doctor visits and small businesses were unable to stay connected with their customers. I co-sponsored HB 5 to establish the State Broadband Plan and Broadband Development program to move Texas forward to bridging the digital divide.”
Congressman Tony Gonzalez, R-San Antonio; state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio; and state Rep. Eddie Morales Jr., D-Eagle Pass, who all represent Far West Texas, also supported the effort.
Thank you to the public libraries in Alpine, Marfa, Fort Davis, Presidio and Marathon and Terlingua CSD who advocated for us and printed at their expense survey copies so we could document those who don’t have access or have limited access to the internet and who need and want it.
Key to documenting the unserved were the Sunshine House in Alpine (and Marathon), the Marfa Nutrition Center, the Presidio Nutrition Center, and the Marfa and Jeff Davis County food pantries, all who distributed the printed survey to their clients.
Our media partners, The Big Bend Sentinel, Presidio International, Jeff Davis County Mountain Dispatch, Van Horn Advocate, Alpine Avalanche, and the Alpine and Marfa radio stations kept our initiative in the public eye and ear.
BBT, Big Bend Telephone/Telecom, is a valued alliance member and worked with us along the way, sharing with us its invaluable 55 years of telecommunications knowhow and experience in Far West Texas. BBT is committed to maintaining and expanding its broadband footprint with fiber-optic cable, the fastest and most reliable method of delivering “the ‘net.”
When we hit a snag, the folks at Connected Nation/Texas were there for creative ideas and words of encouragement.
With a state broadband office now created, Presidio, Jeff Davis and Brewster counties will soon have the latest data to share with the office as a statewide broadband plan is developed and project funding is made available.
While this is a great legislative success for our rural area, work for high-speed and affordable broadband internet must continue. The success of the survey initiative makes this task easier, and we thank you all for your participation.
Sincerely,
Peggy O’Brien
Robert Halpern
Rio Grande Council of Governments
Marfa
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Dear Editor,
Juneteenth
This letter was written to display my support for the celebration of Juneteenth by the current Democrat Party.
I find it gracious of them for dedicating a day to remembering when Republicans made Democrats free their slaves.
James R. Le Blanc
Fort Davis
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Dear Editor,
The photo below, which was posted on the governor’s press page last week, is disturbing.
Not only was his press conference full of untruths and “alternate facts” about the border, but the state senators, state representatives and others that attended the event do not represent any border counties or Far West Texas. Other than one or two attendees, all the faces are white, and also troubling, there are only two elected officials from counties west of I-35.
All the other attendees live, work and represent counties in East Texas, east of I-35.
This press conference had nothing to do with solving a border crisis, but instead was a photo op to promote Governor Abbott’s re-election. It was also intended to position him for a potential bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, if former President Trump does not run.
We will never address the crisis and unify our state if primarily white Republicans from East Texas are supporting the governor’s unrealistic and politically-directed proposals on border issues.
As we know in Far West Texas, we need everyone at the table with real solutions to solve real problems. Sound bites and photo ops don’t cut it.
David Marwitz
Marfa
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Dear Editor,
Last week I worked with The Big Bend Sentinel staff to publish the 50th Anniversary announcement of the Marfa High School class of 1971.
This is a project I do every year to honor MHS and its many generations of graduates. This year I made an unfortunate and egregious error. Due to a misunderstanding on my part, I erroneously listed Tony Alvarado under the “In Loving Memory” heading.
To correct this error I am re-running the announcement in this week’s paper. My deepest apologies to Tony and anyone else affected by this error, and I wish Tony a long and happy life!
Sincerely,
Cindy Nuñez
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Dear Editor,
I was overcome with sadness when I learned a Houston company is opening a sotol distillery in Marfa (Imbibe Magazine, February 2020). The Eagles band’s lyrics in “Last Resort” immediately came to mind, most especially the last line, “You call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.” Now as I look at the many majestic vistas in West Texas I grew up with and love, I can’t help but think this Houston company is looking at the same sights and seeing only what can be easily acquired and sold, like the European pioneers who came and saw only personal fortune in the vastness of the land in front of them. Endless rich plough-ready prairies with no owner. Infinite unclaimed bison hides. And now sotol is growing “everywhere” and ready to be dug out of the ground and turned into $100 bottles of liquor.
Too dramatic? Let’s do the numbers.
The sotol trade has been around for centuries. It last peaked during Prohibition, when the local saying about sotol was coined: Aunque me maten, no diré que fue Machuca que me vendió el sotol. Yet even 100 years later, the first step in the production process hasn’t changed. All the sotol heads used to make the spirit are still dug out from the wild. None of the biomass is commercially farmed, unlike tequila and Oaxacan mezcals which are 100% farmed.
Sustainability for both the environment and the sotol industry itself comes down to the basic math of how much biomass nature generates minus how much man extracts:
Balance = Existing Biomass + Regeneration – Extraction (market demand, #jimas/liter).
A positive balance means a sustainable impact and a positive business outlook. A negative balance means interrupted fauna migrations, fundamentally transformed landscapes and short-lived — or get-rich-quick — business schemes.
Yes, you see stands of sotol everywhere you look in much of West Texas. But like the bison herds and clean air, once seemingly unlimited, high market demand can make them disappear quickly.
There is not yet reliable data for the nascent sotol market in the U.S. to accurately project the market potential sotoleros can realistically dream of. One must use a well-studied surrogate, tequila, as a marker. The Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. reports that tequila sales have grown more than 6% per year in recent years, standing at 20.1 million 9-liter cases (180.9 million liters) in 2019. This aligns with the estimate of 23 million cases for 2020 reported by Statista, which also reports that this market consumed 8 million cases in 2004.
Tequila consumption has grown so rapidly recently that Forbes reported in December 2020 that the supply of agaves, which are all farmed in Mexico, is now running short. The non-tequila alternatives like sotol and Oaxacan mezcals are tracking the same growth pattern. Although the U.S. market for non-tequila spirits is much smaller (3.4 million cases), it’s driven by the same consumption patterns as tequila. This allows for a fair estimate of the potential demand for West Texas sotol heads in terms of the U.S. tequila market’s size and growth trend.
To make the math easy to follow and realistic, let’s say U.S. sotoleros someday soon — you say when — achieve market demand equal to 1% of where the U.S. tequila market stood in 2020. This would mean an output of 230,000 cases or 2.1 million liters per year. On average, four mature heads of sotol are needed to achieve one liter of the distillate. This means sotoleros in the U.S. would have to extract 8.2 million heads every year to keep up with this demand, plus 6% more every year to keep up with the growth in consumption.
Is this pace of extraction sustainable? It depends on how fast and big the sotol market grows.
While sotol appears abundant today, it covers only a tiny fraction of the land surface even on spreads where it appears to be the dominant plant species. To keep the math easy, let’s make the very optimistic assumption that 1% of the land surface in West Texas (30,463 mi2) is covered by stalks of sotol. This would mean there are 943.6 million square yards of land chock full of sotol. A stalk of sotol that’s ready to be harvested occupies más o menos 2 square yards of space. So at the point the sotol industry theoretically achieves 1% of the tequila market, our math starts with a balance of 471.9 million heads available for commercial sotol distillation in Marfa, assuming extraction equaled natural regeneration until then. In this scenario, it will take an initial renewal rate of 1.7% to neutralize the impact of 8.2 million extractions per year. Beyond that breakeven point begin the scenarios where that marquee plant disappears from West Texas.
You can vary the assumptions as you wish to arrive at different scenarios.
At 2% of the tequila market, sotol would disappear in less than 60 years. If the market grows 6% per year, extraction will double in 10 years and the biomass would disappear in less than 40 years. Of course, if it turns out that there are fewer sotol heads than what the 1% coverage assumption above provides for, the point of extinction will come even earlier. The same will occur if the actual rate of natural renewal is lower than 1.7%, and there are strong arguments to be made for a lower rate. One of the strongest is that the plant’s long maturation period and the concentrated nature of extraction would create a vicious cycle of jeopardy for the species. The Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua (UACH), which has researched sotol for more than 20 years, established that a sotol plant in the wild will take up to 30 years to produce a head worth harvesting. It also found that concentrated extraction degrades the ability of even dense islands of sotol to regenerate their populations. In a hot sotol market with extraction accelerating, the species will lose its ability to regenerate its lost populations.
What should be clearest from the formula above is that sotol will quickly cease being the marquee West Texas plant it is today if more than one of the variables turn negative at the same time.
The sotol market is hot already. I’ve found it in fancy liquor stores in NYC, DC, Chicago, and even in Boston. It’s been sold in all the big Texas markets for some time, and the Houston company’s strategy of pitching sotol as a Texas product no doubt will boost sales even further. Of course, the more successfully they drive up demand, the more quickly the biomass will disappear. What can change this rueful future is commercial farming of sotol. Without it, perhaps the only backstop could be the collapse of the market when consumers learn of its environmental impact.
I hear the Houston group will also distill whisky. Count me in as a loyal customer for their whisky. But on occasion of the Agave Festival in Marfa this month, don’t count on me to drink a drop of their sotol until they start farming it.
P.S. I was born and raised in Odessa and Ojinaga. My family has deep and extensive roots in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico, with lots of kin and tribal members in the Big Bend.
In 2001 I tried to establish a sotol farm in El Mulato. The plan was to provide the biomass for distillers so they wouldn’t wipe out sotol in the sierras, and also to create economic opportunity for my tribe. I contracted UACH to help establish best practices for cultivating sotol from seed to harvest-ready head. We learned a lot together. Then Hurricane Ike drowned the fields in 2008, and I didn’t replant after that. So I now only have the knowledge and the concern for the environment. I wish Marfa Spirits success but feel strongly that unless they launch a commercial farm they’re not going to succeed and, on the way to ultimate failure, they’re going to wreck the local environment.
Oscar Rodriguez, Native
Santa Fe, NM
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Dear Editor,
I am looking for a little help.
As most of your readers know, I wrote a book, More Than a Badge, Rough Country the Law and Me, about two years ago, and it received such great reception that I am working on a sequel entitled More than a Badge, the Rest of the Story.
A quick note, my editor on book one had me quit because the book was getting too big so I stopped short of many of the things I wanted to write about –– stories, places and people that had an influence in my life. Even with book two, a lot will be unsaid, unrecorded.
Part of book two will be devoted to badges, and to illustrate the uniqueness of each sheriff, I am trying to get a picture of each Brewster County Sheriff’s badge. It’s not easy, so therefore help is needed. I am hoping that kin to these sheriffs might know who or where the sheriffs’ badges are and help me get pictures of them for the new book, thus showing the diversification of styles, tastes and uniqueness.
I have located the badges for 10 of 17 sheriffs and would gratefully appreciate your help. If you can locate one of these, you can send me a picture (as sharply as possible) via email.
Needed are Sheriff James Buchanan Gillett, Sheriff Dock W. Gourley, Sheriff D.A.T. Walton, Sheriff James Allen Walton, Sheriff William N. “Newt” Gourley, Sheriff William Oscar Hale and Sheriff Clarence W. Hord. Your help would be gratefully received.
My email can be found in my book or on Facebook.
Carl C. Williams
Former Sheriff
Brewster County
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Dear Editor,
“When it counts”
Count on less than the fingers of right-handed Senate Republicans voting June 22 to just debate Democrat’s For the People Act, reforming election laws, government ethics, campaign finance law and strengthening voting rights. Romney, Collins, Murkowski, Sasse … the “reasonable” bi-partisan standing-up to McConnell or Trump – once or twice – display character or integrity?
Name one among 50 GOP senators not touting “strict constructionist” and “original intent of the Founding Fathers.” But what is “original intent”?
It is the foundation of our “Rule of Law-Due Process” Constitution. Recall the Preamble’s “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union … ” It is the essence of the relationship between all the People and our government!
Has any GOPer operated with integrity or character concerning that relationship, or fractured the cement of their office’s oath? There may even be a couple of outliers among Senate Dems resisting filibuster reforms. We’ll know soon.
Remember, the filibuster is a procedural rule not mandated by the Constitution. Several prophetic drafters vehemently opposed it for reasons occurring now, defeating the will of a representative majority.
The story goes that Benjamin Franklin was asked after the 1787 Constitutional Convention, “What have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” He responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Do we deserve to keep it? It won’t return easily. Not when resting upon Senate Republican shoulders failing our nation when character and integrity matter most.
Respectfully submitted,
Rev. Barry Abraham Zavah
Alpine