An engineer's simulation of the possible effects from a border wall proposed for Big Bend National Park by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency shows widespread impacts, from light pollution and wildlife barriers to diminished viewsheds for visitors.
Not only would the possible impacts be clustered along the park's southern border with the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, but a border wall, depending on how it's constructed and where, would be visible from the middle of the the national park where CPB is planning a "technology and patrol road."
Matt Stahl, a water resources engineer who lives in the Dallas-Forth Worth area and frequently visits Big Bend, reached those conclusions by identifying a dozen watersheds in Big Bend and then establishing "a segment of the proposed wall within the boundaries of each watershed's outlet to the Rio Grande."
With that information in hand, Stahl then identified key points in the park, such as campsites, viewpoints, "and other places that visitors typically would want to see when they go to the park."
"Based on nearly 75 percent of those points having visibility of the wall, this helps to highlight how extensive of an impact the wall would have," he told the National Parks Traveler. "And that's just on visibility. When we take into account erosion and animal migration factors, along with potential flooding, the magnitude of the impact grows."
The light pollution Stahl identified would stretch for 3 miles "from standard 5K-15K lumen commercial bulbs."
The interactive map he created lets users click on one of the 83 points of interest (POI) he lists and see a variety of data, depending on whether the POI involves water, a campsite, or wildlife corridor.
"My brother runs a Jeep tour business (in Terlingua). He is friends with the other tour/small business folks out there," said Stahl. "Everyone is super concerned about the impact that a border wall would have, at all of these different levels."
Bob Krumenaker, a former Big Bend superintendent and now chairman of Keep Big Bend Wild, a group advocating for official wilderness designation for the park and which opposes the wall, said that what appears most valuable to him in the map is "how much of the park is by this analysis within the viewshed of the wall."
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