Christmas Mountains Sale. The National Park Service is interested in acquiring the piece of land at the center of a controversial sale by the state and adding it to Big Bend National Park. But the General Land Office, which controls the sale, appears unwilling to delay, largely because it wants to ensure that hunters have access to the land. "The National Park Service would like to re-evaluate the feasibility of adding the Christmas Mountains to the park and requests that you postpone the sale until we have time to finish our evaluation," William E. Wellman, the superintendent of Big Bend National Park, wrote in a letter Friday. The General Land Office had decided to sell the property because it said it could not properly manage it. The deed with which the land was donated to the state holds that the land office can sell the property only after offering it to the National Park Service or the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. But the General Land Office is unwilling to sell the property if no hunting is allowed on it, said Jim Suydam, a spokesman for the office. (The National Park Service prohibits hunting in its parks.) "Commissioner Patterson's message to Superintendent Wellman was simple: No hunting, no firearms, no deal," Suydam said. "We're not looking at changing park policy," said Wellman. The sale, which was postponed after a technical glitch (the top bid at the time was $652,000, or about $70 an acre), has been fraught. Outraged conservation groups said putting the land up for sale flouted the intention of the original donors, the Conservation Fund and the Richard King Mellon Foundation, to keep the land in public hands. Selling the Christmas Mountains land "sends the wrong signal to philanthropic people who are out there trying to support land conservation in Texas," said James H. King, the West Texas program director of the Nature Conservancy. In particular, the land office has invited the wrath of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon Foundation. The foundation has given 3.6 million acres in all 50 states, from Civil War battlefields to wildlife wetlands. Its reach runs all the way to Texas, where it has given the state the 40,000-acre Chinati mountain range in West Texas, as well as smaller gifts. But the sale of the Christmas Mountains tract appears to have jeopardized relations between the state and the foundation. If the land sale goes through "the state of Texas (should) not look to the R.K. Mellon Foundation for any future help," Mike Watson, an officer with the Richard King Mellon Foundation, wrote in a July e-mail to several people involved in conservation in Texas. Selling the land "would have a chilling effect on the willingness (of conservation groups) to work with public agencies in the future," said Larry Selzer, president of the Conservation Fund. He said acquisition of the property by the National Park Service would be a "wonderful outcome." "If this gets straightened out, there won't be any lasting effect," said Bruce Babbitt, a former interior secretary. "The only logical outcome now is to make sure the donors' intent is honored and this land is put in permanent protection without being paid for twice." statesman
