Castner Range monument effort down to the wire
With less than a week remaining for the Obama administration, it seems unlikely that Castner Range will be named a national monument, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rouke said.
However, O’Rourke said, senior officials have told him they are likely to set in motion a process “that would be very difficult to be undone.” The El Paso Democrat said that such a move would protect the 7,000-acre parcel from development.
O’Rourke used his time during Obama’s final meeting with the House Democratic Caucus last week to again ask to the president to declare Castner, a former weapons-training range, a national monument.
“He said, ‘We don’t have much time, but we’re going to look at it and do everything we can,’” O’Rourke said.
That was only part of an extensive local effort to preserve that parcel, which is adjacent to Franklin Mountains State Park.
