Editor's note: This updates with some details of what the contract calls for.
Just a week after the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner said the agency would not build a wall in Big Bend National Park, CBP has awarded a $1.7 billion contract for border wall construction in the Big Bend region. The contract went to Southwest Valley Constructors Co. and was awarded on May 11. It shows a “current end date” of May 11, 2027.
The contract specifies that the money is to go toward the “construction task order for border wall in Big Bend Texas.” A second $4.5 million contract was awarded two days later to Vernadero Group Inc. for “resource monitoring support of construction of border wall in Big Bend Texas.”
According to details obtained by the National Parks Traveler, the scope of work includes 17 miles of unspecified vehicle barriers inside and adjacent to the national park, as well as 205 miles of “system attributes (patrol roads and technology)” in unspecified locations.
The contract also apparently states that there will not be a 30-foot tall wall built in the national park or Big Bend Ranch State Park.
What remains to be seen is whether the Department of Homeland Security will be granted a waiver exempting it from following the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Park Service Organic Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Since plans for the border wall through Big Bend came to light in February following the CBP publishing a map showing the wall, public backlash has been fierce. CBP removed the wall from the map in March, and in early April, a lawsuit was filed to block the Department of Homeland Security from building the wall through the region. On April 21, new mapping from CBP indicated the agency returned to planning for a physical border wall in Big Bend. Less than two weeks later, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott announced there would be no border wall built through Big Bend.
The newly awarded contracts create yet another layer of confusion regarding the agency’s intentions but suggest that plans are moving forward once again.
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