Dozens of mapping markers appear on River Road west to Presidio
A survey marker recently pounded into park land by the Hoodoos Trail in Big Bend Ranch State Park is raising questions about what it’s for––in possible relation to a border wall, when it was installed, who put it there and whether any park officials were aware of it.
Compounding concerns about whether physical walls will be built in the park is the fact that the Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) “smart wall” map hasn’t been changed to reflect recent March 22 CBP statements that the park will now be “detection only” security measures without any steel bollard walls. The stretch west of the park––about 170 miles up the border to Ft. Quitman––is intended to be marked “primary” for possible physical walls. While that map has become a focus for the public on where physical walls could be built, ongoing changes to it indicate that it should never be the definitive information for the overall wall project, and the Department of Homeland Security has never publicly clarified the map’s reliability.
The survey stake is shown in an Instagram video posted Thursday from Redford resident Charlie Angell just above the Rio Grande on a hill overlooking the “Hoodoos rapids.” “Why would you put a survey marker in if you’re not going to do any work here?” Angell asks in his video, which shows three survey sticks tied together with pink ribbons over a metal marker in the ground. Angell sent Big Bend Sentinel the exact location of the marker, which is clearly on state park land. He has been a vocal opponent of any kind of wall along the border, both because of environmental and cultural concerns and because it could wall off his home and river expedition business from the Rio Grande.
Two days later, Angell posted the discovery of another marker about 250 yards off the highway in state park land. The location is a known archaeological site.
A CBP Big Bend Sector spokesperson, Landon Hutchens, commented that Big Bend Sentinel should check with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which installs markers across the country for mapping and elevation data. However, USGS inscribes its markers, and this marker has no inscriptions. A review of data also shows that while USGS has dozens of markers in the state park, none have ever been placed anywhere near FM 170 (River Road). USGS did not respond to a request for comment.
When Presidio County Commissioner Deirdre Hisler inquired about the marker with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, an official told her that the parks department had no knowledge of it (at least at the regional level). A spokesperson for TxDOT said it was not related to any highway department work.
Also appearing two days ago were dozens of fabric squares—filled with black and white squares—staked into the ground about every half mile between Redford and Presidio along FM 170. They are Aerial Survey Ground Control Points (GCPs), often used by drones to map areas for construction projects. CBP did not respond to an immediate request for comment on who laid down the GCPs and why.
For more background and a list of articles on the border wall project, see bigbendsentinel.com/borderwall.
