Janae Renaud-Field and Dr. Richard Teschner

[00:00] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: My name is Janae Renaud-Field Field. I am 48 years old. Today is January 9, 2023. We are here in El Paso, Texas, and I am joined with doctor Richard Teschner, a friend and colleague.

[00:14] RICHARD TESCHNER: Good morning, everybody. I am Richard Teschner. I am 80 years old. Today's date is January 9, 2023. Location, El Paso, Texas, and my interview partner has already introduced herself. She is Janae Renaud-Field Field, executive director of the Frontera Land alliance. The El Paso area is only 501 land conservation organization that is nationally accredited.

[00:42] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Wonderful. And so, Richard, I'll start off with a question for you. What brought you from Wisconsin to El Paso, and what made you stay?

[00:52] RICHARD TESCHNER: I've been here a long time. I came on Saturday, May 30, 1976, at 10:00 in the morning, and I moved down here without a job. But I knew that UTEP, the University of Texas at El Paso, was badly in need of people to teach. My field is Spanish in general, spanish linguistics in particular, expanded to include english linguistics as well. And so ever since May 30, 1976, I've been teaching at the University of Texas, El Paso, otherwise known as UTEP.

[01:35] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: What did you enjoy about seeing when you moved here? Was there anything in particular with the nature or the culture?

[01:43] RICHARD TESCHNER: I had never been to El Paso before. In fact, I'd never heard of El Paso before. But I came here in the summer of the previous year, 1975, to give a paper at a linguistics conference on the UTEP campus. And I got really good vibes, both from the campus and from the city itself, especially since my field, at least my original field, was and remains Spanish. And it's obvious that in a place like El Paso, the Spanish language is everywhere. You can't go anywhere without hearing it, without having to speak it. And that was good for me.

[02:21] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Wonderful. I know personally that you have a deep dedication to preservation through your involvement with the Frontera Land alliance, former board member, current advisory board member, your dedication and participation and funding to the Joachim Teschner Nature Preserve, to the Franklin Mountain State Park Visitor center, and now more currently, to Caster Range and its involvement to become a national monument. Where did this dedication and interest in the outdoors start for you?

[02:53] RICHARD TESCHNER: Selfishness. For almost 29 years, I lived a block away from a place that was known as Wrestler Canyon. And I and my neighbors, we lived in a condominium complex, had always assumed that Resler Canyon was city of El Paso property, that it was some sort of a city park. And so we were shocked in July of 2003 to discover that the land was privately owned and that the owner of the land wanted to build 192 single family houses at the bottom of the canyon. And so we all quickly joined the Coronado Neighborhood association, and we began fighting against that development. Admittedly, our logic was selfish, but it was also very logical. Logic is logical, and this logic was definitely logical, because an arroyo, that's the arroyo, the spanish name for a stream bed, is a place for water during the rainy season of El Paso, which is July, August and September, to course down from the mountains and to the Rio Grande. And if you build 192 single family homes at the bottom of an arroyo, those homes are going to get flooded. And also to build those homes would have meant destroying the walls of the canyon, and that would have affected our neighborhood and also the neighborhood to the south of us. And so for entirely selfish reasons, we got very involved in the fight to prevent this development. The fight dragged on and on. There were lawsuits. City council got involved. The good news is that city council sided with us unanimously. And so the negotiations with the landowner began, but they weren't bearing fruit. The landowner simply wanted to build at least 152 homes, if not 192. So bad news led to good news. My father died in 1997, and he left his estate to my mother. Mother died six years later and left half of the estate to me. So it occurred to me that I could buy the canyon. So the ultimate price of Resler Canyon was $1,871,500. And I was able to give that money to the wonderful recently formed Frontera Land alliance, which promptly went ahead and bought the canyon. And so Frontera now owns 91 acres of Resler Canyon, as it's known to Resler is spelled R E S l E R, named after Restler Drive, which is the main north south artery for that part of town, and has been doing a wonderful job of preserving it, conserving it, and above all, letting people know the benefits of land conservation.

[06:10] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: It's been a wonderful gift to the Frontera Land alliance. We have a lot of guided hikes, we have workdays out there. It is heavily used. It is a wonderful retreat I see in a community of urban ness. And so it's a wonderful gift you have given that will be there forever. It is just amazing to think about that in 100 years, it will still be there. We will still have a trail, there will still be dogs running through there. We are getting images now of Coyote pack that live in there, and it's amazing what it contributes. What do you think the preservation of Castner Range will provide to you or the community, or what are your thoughts on Castner Range becoming a national monument.

[06:59] RICHARD TESCHNER: The main thing that distinguishes El Paso from Midland, Odessa, Lubbock, and other west or far west Texas cities are the Franklin Mountains. The Franklin Mountains are a 17 miles long mountain range surrounded on three sides by the city of El Paso. And by the city, I mean the municipality itself, the municipal area legally forming part of what is known as El Paso City. So that is what distinguishes us from other parts of Texas. But what a distinction. The Franklin Mountains are flat out beautiful. They're attractive. Everyone knows them. Everyone is able to hike in them, because in 1979, the state of Texas, thanks to the efforts of then state representative Ron Coleman, declared most of the Franklin Mountains to be a state park. The state park was open to visitors, I think it was in 1985 or 1987, and has been open ever since as a state park. The only problem is that not all of the Franklin Mountains lie within the state park. 25% of the Franklin Mountains lie within what is known as Castner Range. And Castner Range from 1926 to 1966 was a live artillery shooting and live artillery training range for the soldiers stationed at the army base, the huge army base known as Fort Bliss, which is El Paso's largest payroll. And so that is where the soldiers went to learn how to shoot. So 25% of the Franklin Mountains lie within the boundaries of Castner Range. But because of all that shooting over a 40 year period, mechs and uxos lie beneath the surface of cast narrange. Now, what are mechs and what are uxos? A mech is munition and explosive. Of concern. A Uxo has unexploded ordnance and so on, parts of Castner range. Beneath the surface, there still lie mechs and uxos. Paradoxically, that is one of the reasons why Castner range has been conserved, because it would be very expensive for private and public entities to get rid of those mechs and uxos. They would have to do so in order to build on Castner range. And we're very thankful that they haven't done so, because they know what the cost would be.

[09:50] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Yeah, it would be a huge attribute to the community and to the region to have a national monument here, the impact it would have on the financial status of the area and how it would bring in tourism and increase the economy. It could impact the biology that is there that's connected to the state park and offer recreation at some point in the future, along with preservation of a historical and cultural components of it. And so with casta Range potentially being a national monument in the future, it provides something that this region just doesn't have. In Texas and far west Texas, we.

[10:36] RICHARD TESCHNER: Have a mountain range the other cities don't. That distinguishes us. That makes us very special. And so we've got to complete the process of conserving all of the mountain range, or at least as much of it as has not been developed already. And that is why the campaign to make Castner range a national monument does not quit. That campaign has been going now for 52 years. Initially, we had hoped that we could incorporate castner range into the state park. However, ten years ago, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department decided that that would not be possible. Initially, they'd said that it was possible. They were happy to receive it. They changed their minds. And so for the past ten years, since 2013, we have been campaigning to get Castner Range declared a national monument.

[11:36] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Yeah, it's been a long haul for sure, and it's gone through a lot of variations of methods. But the one constant has been seeing the focus of the community and elected officials to see the land preserved. And the national monument focus came up in about 2012 2013 when we locally started discussing it due to our neighbors that also just had achieved a national monument on the Oregon Mountains Desert peak.

[12:06] RICHARD TESCHNER: Correct.

[12:07] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: And so.

[12:12] RICHARD TESCHNER: No one in El Paso opposes making Castner range a national monument. Before then, no one opposed making it a part of the state park. However, people who are not from El Paso have reached the wrong conclusion, that there are no precedents for turning military land into national monument land. And with your permission, I would like to read parts of a letter that the Frontera Land alliance encouraged me to write and that I wrote very quickly just this past Friday, January 6, I had to have a late lunch because I had to get this letter to the mayor of El Paso, Oscar Lisa, because as everybody knows, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, was coming to El Paso yesterday, on Sunday, January 8. So this is part of a letter that is addressed to the president. The letter was given by City Representative Joe Moliner, representing district four, which abuts Castner Range, to the mayor. The mayor then hopefully gave this letter to the president, and the president was thus able to read the El Pasoans greatly appreciate your Sunday, January 8, visit to our city here to witness the US mexican border firsthand and discuss migration matters. And there may be another reason for the visit. Our decade long campaign requesting the president to use the 1906 Antiquities act to declare El Paso's 7081 acre Castner range a national monument. As you know, Castner Range remains the property of El Paso's Fort Bliss army base, which first acquired most of it in 1926 for artillery training use. That use ended in 1966, when city neighborhoods began surrounding the range on three sides. Since 1971, many attempts have been made to conserve Castner range. And here comes the important part. Yes, it is true that given Kastner's 40 year status as a live artillery range, a noticeable quantity of mechs, munitions and explosives of concern and UxO's unexploded ordinance lie on or beneath the surface of the range. And some non El Pasoans have argued that there is no precedent for making such a property a national monument. But there is a precedent. It's on the central California coast near Monterey. Its name is the Fort Ord National Monument, declared a national monument in 2012 by President Barack Obama. I have visited it, and I can report that the transfer of the property from the Department of the army to the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management was successful, that the cooperation between army and the Bureau of Land Management has borne much fruit, and that the corporations in charge with identifying and removing the mechs and uxos continue their work on that part of the monument, which remains off limits while the majority of the Fort Ord national monument is now fully open to visitors. So that's where we're going. There is a precedent. We keep citing the precedent. We keep making our point. Finally, people who are not from El Paso are getting the point that we're making. We're making progress, and we're going to get there sooner or later.

[16:11] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: We have never been this far in our 52 year effort with. We had Secretary Haaland come March of 2022, then the under secretary of the army come and visit. We have full support of our current congresswoman Escobar, along with past elected officials and so optimistically thinking this is going to happen at some, some point and where President Joe Biden will make Castner range a national monument. How do you foresee the future preservation in far West Texas? Is there another project that's on your list? You've gone through Ressler Canyon to the visitor center at the Franklin Mountain State Park, Castner Range, and there's been others along the way where you've been involved. Do you have anything else on the horizon?

[17:00] RICHARD TESCHNER: I only have Verizon on the horizon. Just kidding. We are so wrapped up in trying to get Castner range conserved for the past ten years as a national monument that we. I personally can't think of any other big projects. The Frontier Land alliance has done a wonderful job with smaller projects. Now, when I say smaller. I don't mean unimportant. For example, the famous Nap land, the nap land nature preserve. Knapp is spelled Knapp. That is the surname of the family that used to own that land. That land is all within the boundaries of the Franklin Mountains. It's land that really should have become part of the Franklin Mountains State park back when that park was first authorized in. In 1979, and that opened to the public eight years later. It wasn't. Better late than never. And so the Frontera Land alliance, aided by Frontera's excellent legal staff, has done a wonderful job of seeing to it that, first, the city of El Paso bought that land, and second, that that land was subjected to a conservation easement, which, as no one knows better than you, is permanent. It's an agreement that lasts forever. There are no timelines to it. It will never expire. And so the Nap land is now conserved, and that adds more land to the conservation of the Franklin Mountains. That's just one example. If we can find other bits and pieces of the Franklin Mountains still need conservation, we will find them and we will see to it that they're conserved.

[18:54] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Yeah. One of the great things about the nature preserves that the Frontera Land alliance are connected to through the conservation easements are that there's no fee to enter them, and so it's accessible for all to go and enjoy and visit the trails, to please stay on the trails. But they are there for the lost dog is for mountain biking and hiking, and nap land is for hiking, and you can see wildlife at all the areas. And so the community is growing in its conservation properties. Its mindset is slowly changing towards the value of such places. And so we really appreciate everything you've done in the community, how you led and talked to endless people and provided funding year after year in supporting these areas, because. Are you an avid hiker?

[19:51] RICHARD TESCHNER: I used to be an avid hiker, but then I came down with skin cancer. It's a shame that this is not a visual interview, because the people who could see the difference between the size of my left ear and the size of my right ear would realize that something really bad happened to my left ear. And what happened was that it became subjected to skin cancer. The irony is that the skin cancer was originally generated, was originally produced by brown rice. Brown rice. Brown rice is supposed to be healthy. I got news. Brown rice is cultivated with arsenic. The farmers have to spray arsenic on the crop to prevent the bugs from eating it. And so the arsenic goes into the rice crops, both because it goes into the soil and the rice crops roots pick it up that way, or because it goes onto the surface of the rice crops themselves enters or the rise in that fashion. And so I learned too late that arsenic weakens the skin, and my skin is very white, and that means that I'm easily subjected to the damage that the rays of the sun can do. And so I learned too late that I had basal cell carcinoma of the outer left ear. And I learned, definitely too late, that after four failed procedures here in El Paso, I would have to go out of town to be able to take advantage of a procedure that entailed 37 separate zaps over a seven and a half week period of something called tomotherapy radiation, which is the best way to treat the kind of skin cancers that I had, because the cancer had gone inside my head. It had gone in and totally colonized the left middle ear. And that left middle ear is right below the brain. And so had I waited even one more month, it's entirely possible that the cancer would have gone inside my brain. And that was four years ago. I would have not been here today.

[22:15] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Well, we're glad that you're still with us and that the treatments are working, and we thank you for everything you've done, and thank you for being here today, Doctor Teschner, to do this interview with StoryCorps and share more about it.

[22:30] RICHARD TESCHNER: Well, thank you, Janae. And one final comment. We are so very lucky here in El Paso to have you as the executive director of the Frontera Land alliance. Everyone is extremely satisfied with the job you're doing. You're doing a terrific job of running an organization. Frontera finally has the money that it needs to hire the people that it has to have to get lots of jobs done. And you've done a very good job of hiring those people. I've met them all. They're doing an excellent job of working on conserving. Frontera has become the leading land conservation organization, not just in El Paso, not just in far west Texas, but some would go so far as to say in all of Texas itself. And so congratulations to you, and congratulations to all of Frontera's supporters for the wonderful work today that we have been doing.

[23:30] JANAE RENAUD-FIELD FIELD: Thank you.