By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
As the concern regarding the immigrants’ camp just outside of Del Rio comes to an end for now, the focus for many area elected officials and residents shifts to the reopening of the Del Rio International Bridge.
Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. said he’s having an ongoing discussion with federal and local officials, and the best answer he’s getting is a soft opening Sunday and the port of entry fully functional by Monday morning.
City of Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano said there is a lot that is going into re-opening the bridge and the concerns are security and ensuring that the area is environmentally safe to reopen.
“They’re also going to be making sure that the environment around the bridge is clean. I can tell you from just even 24 hours ago, it was not really clean but today, it’s much cleaner. When I say ‘clean,’ they’ve got an exorbitant amount of trash, of diapers, of who knows what else was down there. But they didn’t realize that the environment due to the human relief that was being conducted out there as well as hidden in the bushes so that’s going to be something that they have to assess for the environment,” Lozano said.
Since the mayor’s order to close the Del Rio toll plaza, and by extension the bridge itself, Sept. 17, persons seeking to travel to Del Rio’s sister city of Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico, have had to travel east to Eagle Pass and then cross into its sister city of Piedras Negras before then traveling west back to Acuña. The trip can take several hours.
“This is deeply impacting people’s lives,” said Blanca Larson, Del Rio Chamber of Commerce executive director. “Fifty to 80 percent of (Del Rio’s) employees go back and forth and it’s taking them two to five hours to get to and from work every day,” she said. “This bridge is the lifeline between our economies.”
Her counterpart, Acuña Chamber of Commerce President Luis Angel told freelance journalist Ali Bradley Friday morning that he sent a request to the United States government to open the bridge tonight or early Saturday. He told her having the bridge closed two weekends in a row would have a major economic impact. He estimated that with people unable to more easily travel into Acuña, his city is losing $500,000 a day.
Owens agreed that there had been deep costs to the closure. “Some factories have been threatened with having contracts pulled and normally, it costs trucks $300 to come across from Acuña, but having to go to Eagle Pass and back, the cost is $1,800,” he said.
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Contact the author at joelalangton@gmail.com.
