{"id":10917,"date":"2019-10-25T18:47:10","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T18:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10917"},"modified":"2019-10-25T18:47:10","modified_gmt":"2019-10-25T18:47:10","slug":"project-to-open-bahia-grande-to-public-underway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10917","title":{"rendered":"Project to Open Bahia Grande to Public Underway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Remberto Arteaga, far left, talks to refuge staff about the Bahia Grande project. Photo: Tony Vindell\/LFN<\/p><\/div>\n

by Tony Vindell\/LFN<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Public access would be expanded to a new level not seen before at the Bahia Grande and at the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, according to a project that is already being implemented.<\/p>\n

Phase One of the four-stage plan is taking place with the construction of a new parking area at the Bahia Grande Unit on the southbound lane of State Highway 48.<\/p>\n

The other phases call for building bathroom facilities, a seven-mile hiking and biking trail and fishing and hunting access in different areas of the unit.<\/p>\n

The improvements would provide access to the unit which has been pretty much limited to the public since the U.S Fish & Wildflife Department acquired the Bahia Grande and began a restoration project 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

The Bahia Grande has sizeable populations of water and wade birds, nilgae antelope, feral hogs and its waters are nurseries for red and black drums and snook.<\/p>\n

About 10 concerned citizens attended the hearing and Boyd Blihovde, the refuge manager, said the public has until this Oct. 31 to make comments.<\/p>\n

Bayview resident Remberto Arteaga said he was concerned about the amount of trash left by anglers at the Gayman Bridge and if the project is in compliance with ADA.<\/p>\n

Blihovde said the refuge has no control over that bridge.<\/p>\n

The Texas Department of Transportation maintains the bridge and the land adjacent to it belongs to the Brownsville Navigation District.<\/p>\n

David Garza, commissioner with Cameron County Precinct 3, said he supports the project to make the Bahia Grande more accessible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard a similar project back in 2001 but nothing happened,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Bahia Grande can provide all kinds of opportunities to the public, particularly for the children of this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comments about the project can be emailed to Christopher_Quezada@fws.gov<\/a> or to Laguna Atascosa NWR, 22817 Ocelot Rd., Los Fresnos, TX 78566.<\/p>\n

For more information please call (956) 748-3607.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Tony Vindell\/LFN Public access would be expanded to a new level not seen before at the Bahia Grande and at the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, according to a project that is already being implemented. Phase One of the four-stage plan is taking place with the construction of a new parking area at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10918,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10917\/revisions\/10918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}