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WASHINGTON (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a $1.7 billion federal contract listed for border wall construction in the Big Bend region, fueling public confusion over the project after a previous assurance from a top agency official that no barriers would be built at the region’s national park.

The contract, awarded Monday, is designated “for border wall in Big Bend Texas” in its description. The $1.7 billion allocated in the contract is the single-highest amount awarded for a contract in Texas related to the border wall, according to listings on usaspending.gov, the U.S. government’s official public spending database.

A second contract for $4.5 million was awarded on Thursday for “resource monitoring support” of border wall construction in a separate area of the Big Bend region.

The new awards come a week after CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told the Washington Examiner there would be no border wall built at Big Bend National Park because of pushback from local residents. Scott’s statements to the Examiner and a statement from CBP last week to The Texas Tribune indicated the agency would instead pave roads along the border in the national park and use digital surveillance equipment.

CBP did not respond to an immediate request for comment about the $1.7 billion award.

Opponents of wall construction in the region have seen their frustrations with the project mount as communication from the Trump administration about the project has been limited, and there have been few formal announcements about plans in the area.

“We obviously, at this point, don’t trust anything, but it’s like a roller coaster,” said Lico Miller, a business owner in Terlingua, a small, rural town a few miles west of Big Bend National Park.

An interactive “Smart Wall” map on the CBP website shows the agency planned to install roads and “virtual wall” technology that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border in the “Big Bend 4” region. The $1.7 billion award is intended for a Big Bend “segment identified as BBT-4,” according to its description. CBP officials took down the Smart Wall map in late April, but later added it once more with changes in mid-May. The map currently states that no is wall planned around the national or state park despite the awarded contract.

“They have made it a mission to obfuscate and make this as confusing of a process as possible,” said Laiken Jordahl, National Public Lands Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “From constantly changing the online smart wall map — I mean, they’ve made dozens and dozens of changes to that thing without announcing any of them — to taking it down entirely.”

Jordahl said that even paved roads along the border would likely be harmful to wildlife in the region and could make border crossings easier in areas where terrain would otherwise be difficult to traverse. He also said roads would inevitably make barrier installation easier in the future if CBP changed its mind later on.
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On Thursday, the Trump administration waived environmental protections in the Big Bend region in preparation for construction, according to a federal notice first reported by Marfa Public Radio. The notice described Border Patrol’s 517-mile Big Bend sector as “an area of high illegal entry.” The sector is the least busy of the nine sectors, with agency apprehensions in the region accounting for 1.3% of more than 237,000 across the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025.

Residents point to the infrequency of border crossings in the area as only adding to the confusion and frustration.

“We’re 1.3% of the problem. What is this billions of dollars stuff when we are not an issue?” another Terlingua business owner Cynta de Narvaez said.

Thursday’s waivers follow similar action in February, when Trump administration officials waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas that initially included Big Bend National Park.

Advocacy groups in the region filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in mid-April arguing it had illegally waived those environmental laws and need Congress to sign off.

FORNEY (KETK) – The Forney Police Department has confirmed that three people were injured when their plane crashed during an emergency landing on Saturday morning.

According to Forney PD, Forney police officers and Forney Fire Department firefighters responded to the area of Sage Hill Parkway and Helms Trail at just after midnight on Saturday after a single-engine aircraft crashed in a field while attempting to make an emergency landing.

Three people were on the plane and two of them had to be taken to a local hospital for treatment, while the third person was treated for their injuries at the crash scene. Forney PD said they’re working closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Texas Department of Public Safety to investigate the crash.

The FAA identified the crashed aircraft as a Bellanca Downer 14-19-3 single-engine plane. The Dallas Police Association Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 716 said the three passengers were all off-duty police officers traveling together in the plane while returning a personal trip.

The lodge said two of the officers received minor injuries while one officer has significant injuries that they are still being treated for.

TYLER – A new lithium mining project planned in Northeast Texas has received the green light from the Trump Administration.

“What’s exciting about East Texas in particular is the lithium grade there,” CEO of Standard Lithium, Jesse Edmondson, said.

According to our news partner KETK, parts of the East Texas region will be home to Standard Lithium’s second commercial project to extract the precious mineral from saltwater thousands of feet underground.

” We see most of the growth of our company over the next decade will be in East Texas,” Edmondson said.

The Canada-based company went through a federal permitting review process in the U.S., which determined a very minimal environmental impact to our water, air, and landscape.

“You’re talking about on the order of a dozen to two dozen well pads, each one of which can have multiple wells drilled off of them. Then the surface disturbance is really limited to those well pads themselves and then the central processing facility,” Edmondson said.

The company’s flagship projects in the U.S. are located in what’s called the ” Smackover Formation.” It focuses on the areas in Franklin County and parts of Hopkins and Titus counties.

The average grade for our Franklin project is just over 600 milligrams per liter, but we’ve actually drilled a hole in that project area that was as high as is 800 milligrams per liter, so these are truly globally significant world class numbers and it’s really exciting for the company, we think for East Texas and for our country that we’re currently reliant on China for lithium and for lithium chemicals, so which are critical for modern battery technology,” Edmondson said.

Edmondson said the project is different from Lithium-ion battery storage facilities and focuses on extraction.

Most recently, a storage project was halted by a district judge in Van Zandt County.

“We don’t have the capacity to fight those kinds of fires, so if they don’t comply with the fire code, they should be redesigned,” Van Zandt Co. Precinct 2 Commissioner Cliff Williams said.

Williams hopes the new mining project will comply with state and national codes and not kick people out of their homes.

“That [mining project] is done in such a way that it respects the property ownership of those owners that live out there next door to where these operations are going to be taking place,” Williams said.

The extraction project is still in the early stages, and construction wouldn’t begin until at least 2030. Standard Lithium said this massive project will bring hundreds of jobs to the area.

AUSTIN (AP) — The small plane that crashed while carrying four pickleball players to a tournament near Austin last month had problems with freezing instruments before it broke apart midair, according to a preliminary federal investigation report released Friday.

The Cessna 421C took off from Amarillo on April 30 at 9:10 p.m. and crashed at about 11 p.m. in Wimberley, a city about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Austin. Pilot Justin Appling and passengers Hayden Dillard, Brooke Skypala, Stacy Hedrick and Seren Wilson died.

The National Transportation Safety Board report said that during the flight, the pilot reported problems with the plane’s anti-icing system that protects onboard instruments.

He later reported an instrument that measures airspeed had “iced up” and that he was using backup gauges. He was cleared to descend to 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) and told air controllers he wanted to get to a lower altitude to try to “warm back up.”

Over the last 15 minutes before the crash, the plane flew at altitudes where temperatures hovered just below freezing, according to the report.

The pilot’s last radio transmission with air controllers was made at 10:59 p.m. The plane then made a series of descending left and right turns before crashing to the ground.

Investigators found pieces of the plane over a 1.25-mile (2-kilometer) debris field, distribution consistent with an “inflight breakup,” the report said.

It was mostly cloudy in the area shortly before the crash, and there was a thunderstorm two hours later, the National Weather Service said.

A second plane traveling with the group landed safely in New Braunfels.

EAST TEXAS (KETK) — Attorney General Ken Paxton has notified more than 130 Texas cities on Thursday that they are barred from raising property taxes above the no?new?revenue rate after his office determined they failed to meet state audit and transparency requirements under a new law.

According to the Attorney General’s Office, more than 1,000 Texas municipalities were asked to provide documents showing whether they complied with SB 1851, which requires every city to complete annual financial audits and meet state transparency standards. After reviewing those submissions, investigators identified more than 130 cities that allegedly failed to meet the required benchmarks for the upcoming fiscal year.
Thirteen East Texas cities appear on the AG’s list:

* Berryville
* Chireno
* Corrigan
* Elkhart
* Eustace
* Huntington
* Livingston
* Mount Enterprise
* Red Lick
* Redwater
* Rusk
* Tool
* Yantis

Letters sent by the state warn those municipalities that they may face enforcement actions and penalties under SB 1851 and cannot legally approve property tax increases beyond the no-new-revenue rate until compliance issues are resolved.

The Attorney General’s Office said the list of cities currently identified as non-compliant is preliminary and that additional municipalities could face similar restrictions as the investigation continues.

Paxton said the effort is intended to protect Texas taxpayers from unlawful tax increases and ensure local governments follow state law. State officials indicated that further enforcement actions may follow if additional cities are found to be out of compliance with the financial reporting requirements outlined in SB 1851.

“Cities cannot ignore state audit and transparency requirements without consequences,” Paxton said in a statement. “My office will continue enforcing the law to protect taxpayers across Texas.”

Statements from East Texas cities:

City of Tool

“We respect and understand the Attorney General’s determination regarding the City of Tool’s current audit status. To date, the City of Tool is completing its 2024 audit and have already corresponded with our third-party auditors in regards to our 2025 fiscal year audit, expected to be completed by the end of this fiscal year. We are committed to being fiscally responsible and strive to not only be in compliance with state law, but to continue to provide a level of transparency and commitment with taxpayers’ money.”

City of Huntington

We were notified by the Attorney General’s office yesterday afternoon that we were in violation of the provisions of SB 1851, which will effectively prevent the city from adopting a tax rate that exceeds the no-new-revenue rate for 2026.

As you are surely aware, the effective date on those provisions was September 1, 2025. The City’s 2026 fiscal year budget and 2025 tax rate had already been adopted by ordinance before that effective date, so the provisions did not apply for the setting of the 2025 tax rate.

Public hearings were published and held in accordance with the Public Meetings Act prior to those ordinances being adopted.

Our financial records have been in the hands of Mr. David Godwin and his capable staff since February 2026, but the audit was not completed by the required deadline of March 30, 2026. We are still awaiting the completed audit and expect that to be submitted for Council review in the near future. City officials are absolutely aware of the provisions that will restrict this year’s tax rate and plan to abide by the letter of the law.

As far as transparency is concerned, the City’s 2026 fiscal year budget and the audit for fiscal year 2024 are on the City’s website – http://www.cityofhuntington.org – under the Finance Department tab. As soon as the audit is completed and received by our office, it will be posted on the website posthaste.

City of Rusk

The City of Rusk has received notice from the Texas Office of the Attorney General regarding the City’s compliance with Local Government Code Chapter 103 and related requirements f fiscal year 2025.

The City understands that, based on the Office of the Attorney General’s determination, the City has been found not to have complied with the audit and financial statement requirements applicable under state law and is therefore subject to the enforcement provisions set out in Local Government Code 103.055(c).

The City has been diligently working to resolve the issue and recently completed its 2024 audit.
The City remains committed to transparency, fiscal responsibility and full compliance with Texas law.

Under the applicable statute, the City may not adopt an ad valorem tax rate that exceeds its no-new-revenue tax rate until compliance is achieved. The City intends to be in compliance as soon as possible.

The City will continue working diligently to address this matter.

KETK News has contacted additional East Texas cities for comment and is awaiting their responses.