Preserving Texas In the News

It’s sort of like a child custody battle, but in this case the contested entity is a 9,200-acre mountain range that abuts Big Bend National Park in West Texas.

The Christmas Mountains were donated in 1991 to the Texas Permanent School Fund, but Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson wants to sell the land to private interests which, he says, would be better stewards of the land than government.

Not so, claims environmental groups; they insist the land was donated by philanthropists who intended that it forever stay in public inventories, and the Patterson is obligated to comply.

The commissioner was unavailable for comment last week.

But, in a recent op-ed piece, he insisted that private ownership should satisfy the desires of the donors. “I want,” he wrote, “to do what is right for these 9,000 acres so that 100 years in the future, this property will be in better condition than it is now, and habitat and the wildlife will be restored.”

But the environmental groups have also assailed Patterson’s resistance to sell the land to the National Park Service or Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Both have passed on previous sale offers, but NPS officials recently indicated a possible change of position.

Patterson has resisted, in part, to protect hunting rights and the conservation benefits hunting brings. Hunting isn’t allowed in the national parks where weapons are required to be unloaded and kept in luggage.

As a legislator, Patterson sponsored the concealed handgun law in Texas.

Luke Metzger, director of Austin-based Environment Texas, argued that the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Conservation Fund donated the property to Texas with the stipulation that it never be developed.

Metzger said he has heard that an official for the Mellon Foundation stated Texas should not look to his organization for future help if the sale goes through.

Metzger said his group has gathered an anti-sale petition with 4,000 signatures that he will present to Gov. Rick Perry on Nov. 5, one day before the School Land Board was scheduled to review bids for the property and possibly approve one.

Perry’s staff has said that he will rely on the three-member School Land Board, which includes Patterson, to make the right call.

But Patterson has shown no sign of changing his mind.

The commissioner has explained that the rugged tract, northwest of the national park, doesn’t generate any revenue for the $25 billion Permanent School Fund.

He added that his office doesn’t have the resources to make wildlife improvements, especially for desert mule deer.

Therefore, he asserted, the land should be sold to private interests that would have a financial stake in ensuring it’s kept in pristine condition.

“Private stewardship can be as good or better than public stewardship,” Patterson wrote in the op-ed piece. “If this is not true, then Texas in trouble since 95 percent of Texas is privately owned.’’

Patterson also said that the philanthropists’ requirement that the land be given to a public entity is not enforceable under the law.

Metzger said the commissioner might be right about that, but maybe not.

“The provision indeed might not be enforceable and if so, we won’t have grounds for an injunction,” he said. “But we’ll definitely look at all of the options.”