- United States
- Mich.
- Letter
Stop the Destruction of North America’s Oldest Books
I am a voting constituent writing to urgently demand an immediate halt to border wall construction across the Lower Pecos River region in west Texas. Proposed vehicle barriers and high-intensity blasting threaten sacred, 4,000-year-old Indigenous rock art murals at sites like Fate Bell Shelter and Seminole Canyon. Older than the Egyptian pyramids, these masterworks represent irreplaceable ancestral creation stories and North America’s earliest written history.
Heavy equipment vibrations and dynamite excavation cause destructive spalling, risking catastrophic, irreversible collapse of fragile limestone panels. Waiving preservation laws to bulldoze through terrain already naturally fortified by steep cliffs is an unconscionable betrayal of public stewardship and sacred Indigenous heritage.
Once fractured, these ancient books are lost forever. I urge you to immediately suspend construction, reinstate federal cultural protection reviews, and safeguard this sacred human legacy before irreversible damage is done.