Well when it comes to the return to business for Food Shark, the truck by the tracks that serves up desert-inspired delights, it seems many a Marfa mouth is watering.

Take, for example, the Facebook post of Tim Johnson, over at Marfa Book Co. Today, the end of the third full week ...]]> But who’s counting?

Well when it comes to the return to business for Food Shark, the truck by the tracks that serves up desert-inspired delights, it seems many a Marfa mouth is watering.

Take, for example, the Facebook post of Tim Johnson, over at Marfa Book Co. Today, the end of the third full week since culinary impresarios Krista Steinhauer and Adam Bork took off to honeymoon on Easter Island, Johnson wrote:

“A Flute, A Float, A Falafel. Oh, Food Shark! Where are you …”

Of course, during these digital days one need not wonder too much.

The couple posted this video from Easter Island.

Food Shark opens for business again, in Marfa, on Tuesday. See you there.

A ceremonial blast this week will kick off a new life for the Shafter mine seven decades after it closed. Listen and look at Shafter on the brink of change in the slideshow above. Rosa Muñoz, 78, a lifelong Shafter resident, opens by talking about her childhood memories of a booming Shafter. Sandy McVey, project ...]]>

A ceremonial blast this week will kick off a new life for the Shafter mine seven decades after it closed. Listen and look at Shafter on the brink of change in the slideshow above. Rosa Muñoz, 78, a lifelong Shafter resident, opens by talking about her childhood memories of a booming Shafter. Sandy McVey, project manager for the Rio Grande Mining Company, then details plans to mine silver again. (Click ‘captions’ above to learn more about each photo.)

And read a full report here about what Rio Grande Mining Company’s plans mean for the area.

But that’s not to say the big game hasn’t also stirred passions along the border.

Check out this tale of some dedicated ...]]> There may be a northern feel to tomorrow’s Super Bowl, with the Pittsburgh Steelers facing the Green Bay Packers in a Dallas that is only beginning to thaw from a week’s winter beating.

But that’s not to say the big game hasn’t also stirred passions along the border.

Check out this tale of some dedicated Steelers fans from Monterrey, Mexico who have journeyed from one nation to another to cheer on their team. Are there also Cheese Heads from Coahuila who will be making the trek?

No need to go all that way to Dallas, of course. If you’re in the Big Bend and looking for a place to gather for the fun, you’d do well to drop by Railroad Blues, in Alpine, or Padre’s, in Marfa, and in Terlingua there’s talk of some sort of something at the Legion.

As a Pittsburgh native born and raised now making my home in the high desert, I sign off with this: Go Steelers!

MARFA – In a quick and relatively quiet board meeting last week, the Big Bend Regional Hospital District formalized a one-time $300,000 payment to the area’s only hospital.

The board had voted 4-1 at its previous meeting to make the payment to make up for a smaller-than-expected contribution to the hospital through the so-called ...]]> By TOM HAINES

MARFA – In a quick and relatively quiet board meeting last week, the Big Bend Regional Hospital District formalized a one-time $300,000 payment to the area’s only hospital.

The board had voted 4-1 at its previous meeting to make the payment to make up for a smaller-than-expected contribution to the hospital through the so-called Upper Payment Limit system in December.

Board member Al Tobola said at last Thursday’s meeting that the board had not realized at its previous meeting that it could not just give money away. So a service agreement letter was drafted, detailing that the hospital would use the money for indigent care and clinic expansion. That letter, Tobola said, was signed by Mike Ellis, chief operating officer of the hospital, Big Bend Regional Medical Center, and Elena Olivas, chair of the hospital district board.

The board voted 4-1 to ratify the service agreement. Only member Don Culbertson voted against, as he has consistently since December.

It was a house-keeping act: the $300,000 check had already been cut and cashed before the meeting.

The action more or less completed a two-month-long pendulum swing in which the hospital district and Big Bend Regional Medical Center went from being close partners to not, briefly, and back again.

The hospital district is a public, bi-county agency tasked with using taxpayer funds to provide indigent care and other health programs in Brewster and Presidio counties.

The hospital, a for-profit entity owned by Community Health Systems, of Tennessee, had operated the hospital district’s indigent care program for more than a decade. In December, concerned about the timeliness and efficiency of the management of the program, the hospital district board voted unanimously to take control of the program’s operations.

The following week, four of the hospital district board members – Tobola, Lee Roberts, Johnnie Chambers, and Elena Olivas – reversed their position, returning the program to BBRMC.

At last Thursday’s meeting, Ellis presented the board with information it had asked for for months: a report on how much BBRMC spends to administer the indigent program.

Ellis provided a column of data that showed that the program cost BBRMC $725,000, more than the roughly $560,000 the hospital district provides to cover the indigent program costs.

“Those numbers are actual,” he told the board.

Ellis had long contended BBRMC loses money operating the indigent program. His data did not detail how that $725,000 cost broke down.

In other business, Culbertson told the board that Marfa Meds, a pilot program to deliver prescriptions from Alpine pharmacies for distribution in Marfa, had received a $25,000 grant from the Brown Foundation.

Marfa Meds had operated for some months last year, but closed prematurely due to lack of funding. Culbertson said that the Brown Foundation grant would cover roughly six months of operations. He said another grant is pending that could bring as much as $48,000 to cover another year’s worth of cost. He asked the board to consider funding operations of Marfa Meds should that second grant not come through.

The board voted unanimously to accept the Brown Foundation grant, but did not act on the guarantee request.

Culbertson said that Marfa Meds learned a lot from its first term of operation; any new arrangement, he said, should clearly communicate consistent service to the public.

Details of when and how to reopen Marfa are in the works.

The hospital district board will hold its next meeting at 6:30pm on February 9 in Alpine.

MARATHON – Rick Tate had just finished shipping steers with his brother and three ranch hands Monday afternoon when he glanced into the wide West Texas sky.

“Speaking of B-52s,” he said, “look at that.”

Sure enough, as if on cue, one of the long-winged, multi-engined bombers swept just about overhead, an incongruous display of ...]]> By TOM HAINES

MARATHON – Rick Tate had just finished shipping steers with his brother and three ranch hands Monday afternoon when he glanced into the wide West Texas sky.

“Speaking of B-52s,” he said, “look at that.”

Sure enough, as if on cue, one of the long-winged, multi-engined bombers swept just about overhead, an incongruous display of strength above the open range.

A B-52 on a training run passes over the Lightning Ranch in Brewster County Monday. (Bigbendnow.com photo by TOM HAINES)

The B-52 – 500 feet above ground? 1,000? – flew less than a quarter mile west of a group of heifers in the Lightning Ranch loading pens and continued due north, presumably back to Dyess Air Force base, near Abilene.

“He’s off the route,” Tate said. “He’s cutting a corner, or doing something.”

It’s hard to be sure exactly where Air Force training routes charted with thick red lines on a satellite image map correspond to the actual earth. But not an hour earlier a B-1 bomber, leaner and louder than the B-52, had flown south to north a few miles east of the loading pens, more or less alongside Housetop Mountain. That, Tate said, is the proper route of IR-178, a west-to-east run that traces a serpentine course from Sierra Blanca through the Big Bend and on to Big Spring.

Tate, who spends his days raising and trading cattle on large swaths of land in Brewster and Presidio counties, was talking about the B-1s and B-52s again this week following news that the Air Force hopes to alter the routes they fly over Far West Texas.

Air Force planes have trained above this country for decades. But the impact they have, whether on the health of livestock or the peace of mind of landowners, has long been a point of contention.

The Air Force maintains that this round of proposed route changes are essentially tweaks to the existing system. It wants to add more aircraft entry and exit points to the route. It also intends to have aircraft flying east to west along the route, in addition to west to east. The new combined route would be called IR-187.

“This action would improve training opportunities for aircrew members by providing a new perspective on the best mountainous terrain in West Texas while taking advantage of existing low-level training routes,” David E. Laurence, Chief of Environmental for the 7^th Civil Engineer Squadron, at Dyess, wrote in a public letter dated December 17, 2010.

A B-1 bomber flies over Far West Texas last Monday

Yet Tate, president of the Davis Mountains Trans-Pecos Heritage Association, a property rights advocacy group, contends that the creation of IR-187 would lower the flight ceiling along parts of the route and effectively create a new route altogether.

The Heritage Association, along with Kaare E. Remme, a businessman and stakeholder in McCoy Remme Ranches Ltd., of Jeff Davis County, last week filed an official, 20-page objection with the Air Force.

The objection states that the Air Force should conduct an Environmental Impact Statement, far more thorough and open to public debate than the Environmental Assessment currently in the works.

“Obviously, the proposal is not using an existing low-level training route, because all MTRs (Military Training Routes) are only one-way routes,” they wrote in the official comment, drafted by Murray Feldman, an attorney with Holland & Hart, in Boise, Idaho. “The proposed MTR does not exist, hence the need for a required environmental analysis, as well as FAA coordination and approval, if obtainable, for this proposal.”

Tate, Remme and the Heritage Association have been here before. They contested earlier details of the training routes in the mid-1990s, and battled the Air Force in court for more than a decade.

They say they are not against the Air Force, or its need to train pilots. But they question doing that over private land and worry that land could be compromised in the future.

Driving home from shipping cattle Monday, Tate talked of his concern that the Air Force could one day try to dictate the use of land underneath its routes.

The objection Tate and others filed also details the need to assess the impact of route changes on wildlife and livestock, as well as the potential for damage from wind currents, or the so-called “wake vortex” that can trail from aircraft wings. Tate says he also thinks flying in the opposite direction could negatively impact people living in the flight path.

Tate and others maintain there is plenty of public land in other parts of the western U.S. – particularly in North and South Dakota – that could be used for such routes.

“Again, we wonder why they have to do it over private land,” Tate said. “They do not fly over Big Bend Ranch State Park, or Big Bend National Park. They avoid all the public land.”

Tate also is concerned that the Air Force has tried to rush the process, first announcing it in a limited mailing just before the Christmas holiday. He said his group learned of the proposal only by happenstance and had to hurry to file a comment before a January 18 deadline.

“From our somewhat paranoid viewpoint,” Tate said, “they’re using some of the same tricks we experienced in our association with the Air Force during this (previous) court fight.”

For its part, the Air Force says it is open to conducting an EIS, if needed.

“The (ongoing) Environmental Assessment will provide sufficient analysis to result in either Finding of No Significant Impact or a determination to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement before any decision is made with respect to creating IR-187,” Air Force Lt. AnnMarie Annicelli wrote in response to questions from the Sentinel.

She said that early word of the proposed changes was sent to a select mailing list and the next opportunity for wider public input would occur with the release of a draft Environmental Assessment, likely this June.

Tate and his opposition group thought it better to get their word in now, before that process gets too far along.

So far, their legal fees have been covered through individual donations.

Chip Love, a Marfa banker who ranches on land in Presidio County, supports the efforts to hold the Air Force accountable for flying B-1s and B-52s private rangeland.

“I’ve made a donation (to contest the route changes) and I know several others have,” Love said. “If we can make them play by the rules, at least it will have less of an impact.”

Well it’s a few weeks into the new year, and it turns out that one shopper decided ...]]> There was much fanfare on the streets of Dallas last year, when Neiman Marcus announced it had included a dream trip to little ol’ Marfa in the 2010 version of The Christmas Book. Price: $9,500 and up.

Well it’s a few weeks into the new year, and it turns out that one shopper decided to jump at the deal. Ginger Reeder, vice president of communications for the retailer, did not say who purchased the package. But the buyer hoped to present to a loved one as a gift.

The Crowley Theatre with a Neiman Marcus flair.

SHAFTER – With plans for a re-opening of the Shafter mine appearing to be farther along than at any time in the last 40 years, the City of Presidio last week took a precautionary step.

At Thursday’s City Council meeting, Cary Skelton, director of the Presidio Emergency Service District, suggested passing an ordinance that ...]]> By TOM HAINES

SHAFTER – With plans for a re-opening of the Shafter mine appearing to be farther along than at any time in the last 40 years, the City of Presidio last week took a precautionary step.

At Thursday’s City Council meeting, Cary Skelton, director of the Presidio Emergency Service District, suggested passing an ordinance that requires the Rio Grande Mining Company to provide its own rescue and emergency personnel.

“I wanted to make sure that the mine took care of its high risk solely on its own bank account,” Skelton said afterward. “Since we have paramedics here, we want to make sure they have paramedics, so we have an even playing field in south Presidio County.”

Skelton said that Sandy McVey, project manager for Rio Grande Mining Company, has been cooperative. McVey had not returned calls for comment as of press time.

Last month, McVey told a meeting of Shafter residents that the mine should be operational by 2012. It has been hiring local staff, and last week Aurcana Corp., Rio Grande Mining’s parent, named Dr. Peter Megaw to its technical advisory committee.

Aurcana touted Megaw’s three decades of geological exploration experience, particularly in epithermal vein and carbonate replacement deposits, such as those at Shafter. The technical committee is expected to oversee exploration of the Shafter Mine in the coming months.

Such developments have brought reaction in world silver markets. Peter Zihlman, a Zurich-based analyst, recently recommended Aucana stock, which is trading at roughly 30 cents per share.

Shafter-area residents will need to follow developments closer to home. Rio Grande Mining is pursuing a water quality permit amendment from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Part of that permit would allow the discharge of treated wastewater “at a volume not to exceed a daily average flow of 360,000 gallons per day.” That discharge would flow from the Gold Fields Mine Shaft via pipe into a tributary of Arroyo del Muerto, then to Wilson Arroyo, then to the Rio Grande Basin.

The permit application is on file and available for viewing at the Presidio County Courthouse.

Public comments and requests about the amendment permit can be made to the Office of the Chief Clerk, MC 105, TCEQ, PO Box 13087, Austin, TX 78711-3087, or online at www.tceq.state.tx.us/about/comments.html, or by phone at 800-687-4040.

This past summer, the latest incarnation of the Big Bend Cowboys and their league ran out of steam.

Now local baseball fans are trying to come together to keep the game alive.

Mike Perry, over at the Alpine Daily Planet, has a ...]]> Nothing like professional baseball on a summer evening at Kokernot Field in Alpine.

This past summer, the latest incarnation of the Big Bend Cowboys and their league ran out of steam.

Now local baseball fans are trying to come together to keep the game alive.

Mike Perry, over at the Alpine Daily Planet, has a full report of a community meeting held last night, which you can find here.