“These two neighbors have had a very tumultuous relationship for a very long time. You could say that the 1800’s were spent in conflict, territorial and otherwise and then the early century was also difficult on account of US interventions in Mexico,” said Dr. Tony Payan, assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso and the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies.

Suspicion is the common denominator in the border. (Nicholas Zebrowski/Nineteen Underground)

According to Payan, both countries now share another thing in common: mutual suspicion. “Mexico is always suspicious of U.S. actions and intervention as well as always worried about its sovereignty. The U.S. is always suspicious of the Mexican government and its commitment to democracy and human rights,” Payan said. “In addition, it is also always weary about issues such as immigration and drugs.”

Ever since the election of President Felipe Calderon in 2006, the issue of drugs has taken on more significance. Lauded initially for its hard-line stance on narcotics and organized crime, the Calderon administration has recently been criticized for its strategy in the war on drugs.

“The political situation in Mexico is under stress. There were elections a few weeks ago and President Calderon’s party, the conservative National Action Party (PAN), is widely viewed as having lost seats in their Congress,” Dr. Kathleen Staudt, professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso said. “President Calderon is spending a lot of political and economic capital in trying to fight drug trafficking and organized crime.”

In few places are the strategies to fight drugs more evident than in Juarez, where more than 6,500 soldiers have been deployed during the Calderon administration.

“They [the soldiers] are almost like the police now, but I see them more often,” Ricardo Perez, a Juarez resident said. “They are just part of my life now. I see them when I go to a party, on my way to school, or even when I go out with my girlfriend.”

Despite the massive offensive against drug trafficking, the problem has not gone away.  “The war on drugs is terrible because what drives everything is consumption in the United States,” Dr. Irasema Coronado, associate professor of political science at the UTEP said. “It’s been 40 years, and the drug war has become a big welfare system for a bunch of people on government payroll. How many DEA agents, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms people, ICE agents, customs agents, FBI agents are on the payroll of the government fighting the war on drugs? It’s keeping a lot of people employed.”

According to Coronado, the city of El Paso has been benefiting economically from the war on the drugs  “El Paso has been a recipient of very high deposits through the FDIC, there is a lot of cash in this community, a lot of money laundering that takes place here,” Coronado said. “It benefits in many ways. Lots of people lots of money.”

To many people, the drug war only separates and divides the community. “There is a division, especially at the local level because people just want to blame the other side for the violence,” said Angela Kocherga, Mexico Bureau Chief for Dallas-based KHOU TV.

Although the human cost of the drug war has been high, with Mexico’s daily El Universal, reporting that 8,463 drug executions have occurred during the first two years of President Calderon ’s administration and over 1600 drug-related murders in Juarez this year alone, the war has also had another toll.

“The war on drugs, over the last 30 to 40 years, has only negatively affected our ability to build bi-national institutions,” Payan said. “In order to create these institutions which are so vital for true collaboration, there needs to be a certain level of trust. The failure of the drug war has only weakened trust.”

Bi-national institutions, which are few and far between, according to Payan, are when two nations share the same vision and supplement that with joint goals that are permanently defined.

“Bi-national institutions are the true definition of collaboration,” Payan said. “Unfortunately, collaboration has not truly been achieved on a large scale yet.”
In the same way, a permanently defined strategy to fight the drug war in Mexico has not been reached between political parties.

“The PRI is a party that is more willing to exercise a strategy of picking and choosing what cartels to fight rather than fighting them all at the same time like the PAN,” Payan said.

Coronado contends that fighting the “narcos,” in general, is a no win situation, and a new approach needs to be enacted.   “There needs to be an agreement between the government and the narcos. You can’t fight them, you won’t win, its way too much money and too political,” Coronado said.  “The approach that should be taken with the cartels is one similar to what previous Mexican presidents have done: You do your thing; we do our thing. We move forward with our operation, and you move forward with yours.”

Until that time comes, if ever, the entire border community will continue to feel the ripple effects of the drug war. “These two communities are being split asunder,” Payan said. “Whereas other places like Europe are erasing their borders, ours is actually becoming more marked. It is certainly splitting up our community.”

Despite having a long history of amicable relations, the relationship between the neighboring countries is a complex one.

“I have seen contradictory things happen over the last 30 years,” Staudt said. “On the one hand I have seen good collaboration between people on both sides of the border around work and business, organizing interests groups and so on, but I also see tensions over the security situation, over the violence, over the drug gateway that we are living in.”

The El Paso area, considered to be a hybrid region of culture and economics, has witnessed firsthand the development of the relationship between the United States and Mexico.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, an independent think tank, Mexico is the United States’ second largest trading partner after Canada, and the United States is Mexico’s largest partner.

“I go to Mexico to buy things I wouldn’t normally be able to find here,” Mauricio Cisneros, a resident of El Paso said. “That can include food, movies, or even medicine which can be found for a significantly lower price.”

With over 250 accords ranging from prisoner exchanges to stolen car agreements, the United States and Mexico have tied the knot in numerous ways. “Geographically, economically, socially, and historically there is a bond. This used to be a part of Mexico, so there is a unity, there is a link that you cannot rupture,” Coronado said.

Despite coming under intense stress, it doesn’t seem as if this bond is in danger of being completely broken. “There are several descriptions [of the relationship between the United States and Mexico], one of my favorite ones is by Sydney Winthrop, a professor at UT Austin. He wrote a book called ‘A Marriage of Convenience where divorce is not possible,’” Coronado said. “The other one is a very famous quote by Porfirio Diaz, ‘Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States.’”

Only 30 percent of paper, plastic, and cardboard that arrives at the Friedman recycling plant in east El Paso is actually recyclable, according to Ismael Barrera, manager of the Friedman Recycling Plant. This means that only about a third of all trash slated for recycling is actually being reused.

70 percent of what is recycled at El Paso homes ends up in landfills. (Audrey Russell/Nineteen Underground)

“The rest is sent to landfills,” Barrera said this week, speaking over the noise of diesel trucks and brushing away flies from his face at the company site on Wren Avenue. Barrera blames improper recycling habits and contamination from unrecyclable goods for the low percentage.

Barrerra pointed out that pizza boxes and plastic bottles with the wrong numbers in the recycling symbols account for some of the contamination that takes away from the amount of recyclables the city actually produces.

The only item being shipped out from the Friedman plant, El Paso’s primary facility, for recycling and generating a profit for the city are newspapers, Barrera said.  He added that the rest of the trash, primarily plastic items, is sent back to area landfills and takes up space there.

David Almonte, Director of the City of El Paso Office of Management and Budget, calculates that the city spends between $4 million to $6 million each year on its recycling program. “Drop it in the Blue,” generated an estimated total of $8 million to $12 million in expenditures since the program began, he said.

The city has also tried to promote the recycling program by paying for numerous commercials and various media advertisements to educate the community on what can and cannot be recycled. Residents still place improper materials in recycling bins despite the city “Drop it in the Blue” program’s efforts.
Even El Paso citizens who are aware of the recycling campaigns still do not know what is actually done once they drop their magazines, cereal boxes, and plastic bottles into their bins and roll them to the curb.

In an informal survey of students and faculty and the UTEP campus this week, a majority admitted to not knowing what happens after they drop items in the bins. Some simply ended the question with, “It is reused.”

“They take them (recyclables) to be broken down and reused,” UTEP student Israel Hall said, after asked about what happens after an item is recycled. When pressed if he knew more information about the process he replied, “I don’t know where they take them, but I have an idea that they use a filtering process with plastic bottles and paper and such. I’m sure every item takes different levels of work to recycle. But the processes behind the scenes are still a mystery to me.”

El Paso’s local recycling companies receive thousands of pounds of material to be recycled every day. But it is now up to our community to realize our program is spending millions on a program that is not productive and has many faults. Be smart and think twice before you “Drop it in the Blue.”

It was a weekend of festivities across the border in Ciudad Juárez as her family celebrated a cousin’s baptism and another cousin’s birthday. This was meant only to be a weekend trip to El Paso’s neighboring Mexican city.

On that Saturday evening as she sat in the living room during the party it happened – gunshots were fired and Tania Lozoya became another victim of the escalating drug-war violence in Ciudad Juárez.

This is just one of hundreds of stories published in the El Paso Times, describing the gore and the massacre seen on a daily basis.

Beto O’Rourke, city council representative for District 8, said the solution could be found in the legalization of narcotics such as marijuana.

(Andrew Posadas/Nineteen Undergroun

“There are thousands of lives lost in terroristic manners…the drug policy is seriously a failure,” O’Rourke said. “It is an ineffective policy not accomplishing any goals and costing trillions of dollars.”

O’Rourke attempted to amend the resolution, originally proposed by the Border Relations Committee, adding a possible open debate for the legalization of marijuana to ease the violence in our border. The rest of city council agreed with him, but Mayor John Cook vetoed the resolution.

District Attorney Jaime Esparza, like the mayor, opposed the resolution. “Legalizing drugs in general is a bad idea, ”Esparza said.  “It is bad public policy. Legalizing drugs with the incentive to relieve violence in Mexico is not realistic. The battle in Mexico is a territorial battle of who has control.”
Hilary Clinton begs to differ.

She told CNN in March 2009 that the “insatiable demand for illegal drugs” in the U.S is fueling the Mexican drug war. According to Clinton, without that demand, there would be few illegal drug traffickers in Mexico.

The criminal gangs in Mexico go back decades, according to a point/counterpoint editorial in the Wall Street Journal by John P. Walters and Steven B. Duke, titled “Drugs: To Legalize or Not.”

“Legalizing drugs is the worst thing we could do for President Felipe Calderon and our Mexican allies,” Walters said in the editorial. He also explains legalizing drugs would weaken the moral authority of Calderon’s fight and the Mexicans would immediately realize that “we have no intention of reducing consumption.”

But Duke believes otherwise.

“These are turf wars, fought between rival gangs trying to increase their share of the market for illegal drug,” Duke said. “The only long-term solution to the cartel-related murders in Mexico is to legalize the other illegal drugs we overlooked when we repealed Prohibition in 1933.”

In December 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors.” It was repealed on December 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

According to the Web site recessionhistory.info, one of the many reasons for the repeal of the amendment was the country’s economic state. During the Great Depression, the reopened industry created a lot of financial possibilities for the United States.

“Much like during the prohibition of alcohol, we need economic help in this deep recession we are in,” O’Rourke said.

Retired federal anti-drug agent Terry Nelson, who is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, testified at a late April 2009 city council meeting in support of the resolution.

“Certainly the people that make their living off the drug war and the misery it causes will have to adjust just as the ‘Al Capone’s’ did after the failure of the first prohibition,” Nelson said in his testimony.
Whatever measures are taken, the violence in Juarez continues unabated. There have been more than 1,000 drug-related murders this year.

According to an article in the El Paso Times, at Lozoya’s funeral service, Rev. Pablo Matta said: “There are no words when innocent blood is shed. There is no reason. These are human beings at their worse moments.”

“I think people aren’t clear about what depression is,” said Rita Ruelas, a lecturer in the department of social work at the University of Texas at El Paso, “They don’t see it as an illness because they can’t see it. It’s not like a physical disability. People have a real hard time with it.”

For every instance of depression placed on the backburner, another  troubled individual’s life is placed at risk.

(Crystal McDaniel/Nineteen Underground)

“It is a lot more common than most people realize,” said Dr. Sherri Terrell director of the UTEP Counseling Center. “It tends to be a transient thing. It tends not to be a life-long situation.” She explained that most people usually find something that fulfills their lives. They find something to hold on to and get through the hard times.

Some are not as fortunate and believe they are alone. However, it is not uncommon for anyone to feel loneliness.  Terrell said that people victimized by suicidal thoughts usually are reluctant to reach out for help because they feel ashamed.  “The person wants to protect you from their depression or they don’t want to be embarrassed and ashamed so they don’t want to share too much,” she said.  They tear themselves apart assuming that they are weak for not being able to cope on their own.

(Crystal McDaniel/Nineteen Underground

Terrell also said people that consider suicide don’t realize no one handles everything on their own, that everyone has someone to run to and something to keep them going.

According to the World Report on Violence and Health, people with suicidal thoughts usually isolate themselves because they feel they just don’t belong. In their minds they are completely alone even when others that are willing to help them. “You don’t realize just how painful it is for the people you leave behind and you are not thinking like that. You are thinking about how hopeless things are now. You really don’t know how to make things better,” said Terrell.

One of the most serious causes of suicide is a person’s sense of hopelessness. Other triggers of suicidal action are loss of hope, economic struggles, lack of social support, or no access to health and psychiatric services. The community can help by speaking openly about suicide. The department manager of El Paso Mental Health and Mental Retardation, Jesus Quiroga said that suicides take place when there is “no social support, family support or access to health and psychiatric services.”

According to the statistics from the Center for Disease Control, 32,000 people committed suicide in the United States in 2005, averaging 89 cases per day. Every year these numbers keep increasing, but Quiroga thinks it is about time things turn around. “Essentially just dropping the curtain on the resistance of awareness can help.”

The company has initiated the termination of  the longstanding annuity pension plan for 50 percent of the refinery’s almost 500 employees, Titus said. A steward of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 351, Titus said that as stock values fell over that last year, the amount of money in the annuity fund also dropped. “So, for Western to fully fund [the annuity], it was going to cost them quite a bit of money.”

After multiple requests, Western Refining declined to comment.  This company and its employees, however, are not the only ones dealing with this problem.

Western Refining suffering from recession and passing it on its employees. (Hayden Pendergrass/Nineteen Undergrpund)

“Western Refining is not unique in doing this. There is a large number of corporations domestically and over-seas that have discovered that old-style pension programs don’t work [during a recession],”  said Dr. Thomas Fullerton, professor of economics at UTEP. “And it’s no surprise that they did so because otherwise they would have slowly eroded their competitive edge.”

According to a survey by CareerBuilder.com, a website devoted to career development, nearly 38 percent of 3,000 human resource professionals and hiring managers plan to cut back on various benefits including retirement benefits.

Moreover, this trend seems to coincide with a decrease in employee confidence in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, in February 2009, roughly 20 percent of workers of all income levels fear that their retirement benefits may be cut or terminated like the refinery workers’ annuity.

“By law, they could terminate the plan and pay us off, and in doing that it would be fully funded, but they would pay us off with a lump sum,” Titus said.   The company plans to pay a lump sump to each employee who will be removed from the annuity program, which will ameliorated the pain for some workers, especially the younger ones. However, Titus said that even earning “five to 10 percent per year” on private investments would not result in the same benefit that the annuity yields.

“In the long run, [401(k) investments] could be beneficial to the guy who’s at 40 versus a guy like my age at 60. Once, I get [the lump sum] and try and put that it in the market, it’s not going to do as well,” Titus said. “I don’t have that much time to let that investment build, even if I could get five percent.”

The union could have fought the change because  maintaining the program was not entirely impossible, Titus said. but it would have been more costly to the union membership.  “If the [union] sits there and says, ‘Okay, you guys, we all have to vote to open a contract and possibly go out on strike,’ it can pit the two sides against each other,” Titus said.

According to Fullerton, it is especially hard for unions to effectively renegotiate contracts of this magnitude in the current recession.  “In general, as the economy sours, it’s more difficult for labor groups to renegotiate contracts,” Fullerton said. “They have to be more flexible.”

Although no new contracts were proposed, Western mechanic and union member Rolando Escobar said the contentious nature of the situation caused some union members to lose faith and he hopes they keep things in perspective.

“For the most part, about seven percent of those people affected, unfortunately, put blame on the union,” Escobar said. “I’d like to see hopefully time heal this wound and [let] those that left the union realize where the real problem lay and come back to the union.” Even though Escobar has been with the company for five years and gained money due to a minor increase of company contribution to 401(k)s, he said he sympathizes with those who will lose large amounts because of  the annuity’s demise.

“By [realizing] what they were anticipating when they would retire and what they were going to be getting, I myself would have been very upset by seeing only fractions on the dollar,” Escobar said. “Human nature is to become emotionally affected by that. Some people planned a future retirement and now all of a sudden that’s not going to happen.”

Even so, in Titus’s eyes, the loss of the annuity plan was defensible because he and many other employees did not lose their jobs.

“When you have something that could destroy the company by having it shell out millions of dollars for annuity and you look at how you can negotiate, [you ask] can we try and force the company to pay that? Sure we can, but if the company goes under, now what have we got? We’ve lost our jobs,” Titus said.

VIVA! El Paso is a theater performance hidden away in the Franklin Mountains. It takes place on an outdoor stage under the night sky, in the Mckelligon Canyon Amphitheater, which opened in 1976. “I definitely think Mckelligon Canyon is a huge part of the show. The whole amphitheatre setting brings the story to life,” said Laura Herrera, a performer who is going on her 7th season.

The El Paso Association of Performing Arts (EPAPA), a non-profit organization established in 1966, manages VIVA! It’s main purpose was to fund VIVA! when budgets were tight. But with the help of other corporations, EPAPA was able to open VIVA! on a year-round business.

VIVA! El Paso celebrates its 31st season (Chance Bunnell)

Artistic director Hector Serrano created VIVA! in the 1970’s. VIVA!’s theme comes solely from the history of El Paso and is based on four main cultures that have influences El Paso. In the 1960’s the outline for the show was put together focusing on the four hundred years of history and the influence of the four cultures: Native American, the Spanish Conquistadors, our neighbor country Mexico and the cowboys and Western Americans.

These cultures are represented in the elaborate costumes dancers wear while performing. The songs and drama displayed on stage all play a part in creating a history filled performance. The stage has a mixture of settings from replicas of San Elizario, Socorro, Ysleta and Guadalupe missions to old Fort Bliss. While on stage the performers dance a mixture of styles, Jazz, flamenco, folklorico, ballet and modern dance.

El Paso native Randy Trejo, who has attended VIVA! numerous times, said, “ The theme is great and represents El Paso well.” Freddie Jurado also from El Paso agrees with the theme of the show, “ It’s great to watch your cities history on stage.”

The show is two hours long and is packed full of history and brilliant choreography thanks to the team of Marco Alferez, Carla Brions, Jaime Carrasco, Nina Gomez and Jonathan Perez. “I think it is a great learning opportunity for fellow El Pasoan’s as well as other people that come to see the show,” said Herrera. Also represented in the show are the six flags of Texas: Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, Confederate of America and the United States.  These flags have been flown over Texas dating back to the European exploration back in the 1500’s. But other then just a history lesson the show has a great romantic twist to add to the drama.

Over the years, “it gets better and better,” says Emmanuel Alfaro, who has been a dancer, singer and actor for VIVA! since 2001. Some of the features VIVA! has brought on are a pre-show barbecue, along with new costumes and dances. However some of the original performances which fans seem to love, are kept in the line-up.

The amphitheatre has gone through many renovations, mainly due to rain damage. After the flooding rainstorms in 2006, Mckelligon Canyon was close for nearly two years. Despite that VIVA! still continues to perform every summer and gives an outstanding show. Even through all the year of change and troubles VIVA! El Paso is still a great family performance with splendid lighting features and overall marvelous experience. “It’s a show that gears simply to the city, it represents El Paso’s history in a way that is enjoyable to watch,” said VIVA!’s principal choreographer Alferez.

Recently, five gay men were kicked out of a local restaurant, Chico’s Tacos on Montwood, when two of the men kissed in public. This week El Paso Police announced that officers will receive additional sensitivity and anti-discrimination training due to the Chico’s incident.

“I don’t get why the Chico’s incident was such a big deal,” Canutillo High School senior Jose Castro said. “I guess people just aren’t used to PDA (public displays of affection). If it were a heterosexual relationship they would be, but they just aren’t used to the idea.”

Carlos Diaz de Leon, one of the five men kicked out of the taco restaurant, said the incident has taught him, “that there are some people out there who will discriminate against you because of their own insecurities.”

Carlos Diaz de Leon expects Pasoans get educated on equal rights from what happened at Chico's Tacos. (Clarissa Castillo/Nineteen Underground)

With so many “average” people coming out of the closet in recent years, homosexuality has become a more approachable topic for public discussion.

“[I told] my mom, yes [I am gay] but she didn’t take me seriously,” Castro said. “I guess she’s not used to the idea. I hadn’t talked to her about it so she was not as open to the idea. Mexicans aren’t that open.”

University of Texas at El Paso sociology and anthropology Lecturer Harriet Perry agrees that “more people are willing to admit” their homosexuality if the topic is more openly discussed.

According to the website slate.com, in 1996, 27 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage and 68 percent opposed it. Ten years later the ratios remained consistent.
However, the border region seems more open to the concept now because of the Chico’s incident than it had been.

“I find the new generation more open to gay marriage even though there is a string of very conservative young people,” Father Pablo Matta of Santuario San Judas Tadeo in El Paso said.

Matta believes that the Chico’s Tacos five were treated unfairly. “I do not know the whole story other than what is in print,” he said. “But if it was only two males kissing and that was it then I definitely do not agree of how they were treated by the law officers… It is a free country… People kiss horses, dogs, animals and here we have a problem with someone kissing a human being of the same gender. Crazy.”

As a conservative community when it comes to “gender” issues, El Pasoans traditionally have not engaged in public discussion of homosexuality.

“I think that we still have the view… in society is that a relationship should be heterosexual and that this is somehow deviant,” Perry said. As more gay people come out publicly it will become easier for their friends and relatives to accept their sexual orientation, she said. “I think that has the effect of expanding our gender definition.”

(Clarissa Castillo/Nineteen Underground)

UTEP has taken steps to create a campus climate receptive to gay people, Queer Student Alliance President and intern Jesus Smith said. In the last few years the University launched the Rainbow Miner Initiative, a program that includes “Speak Out,” a speakers bureau, that has professionals address classes on gay rights issues, distribution of informational pamphlets, and hosts meetings and events for the campus queer community and allies.

“We wanted a program like this on campus to let gay students know that is was alright, that it is safe to express their experiences, to be open,” Smith said.

“It is perfect for students to connect with people like themselves. The program puts a face to the queer community to talk and share their experiences,”

The Queer Student Alliance includes “straight allies” in an effort to unite the campus with more than 500 members.

“It is an inclusive program,” Smith said. “We changed the name to be inclusive (from LGBTQI to QSA). The program is getting more known through word of mouth and Speak Out.

One of QSA and Speak Out’s missions is to educate. “Our program is not marriage specific, it is more to educate people,” he said. “We inform people to vote to partake in the fight against misconceptions about the queer community.”

As the QSA continues to work hard to dispel misconceptions about gay rights and what is acceptable public behavior, the Chico’s Tacos incident shows the need for a larger community awareness program.

Diaz de Leon’s response to that is simple. “I believe in people’s rights. If I’ve gained something from this, it’s awareness through out the community.”

Same sex marriage poll: Slate.com
Review statistics here: http://gaymarriage.lifetips.com/cat/64319/gay-marriage-facts-statistics/

There is still no future decided for ASARCO site. (Alejandro Alba/Nineteen Underground)

EL PASO — Six months after El Paso said Adios ASARCO, the city government has yet to present a plan to clean up the mess accumulated by a century of copper smelting.

Eliot Shapleigh, Texas Senator for District 29, said he hopes that the city will step forward and enact a clean-up plan. “I personally like the idea of incorporating elements of smoke stacks and Asarco buildings into a historic museum,” Shapleigh said.

ASARCO’s extreme makeover is still under development. The city has yet to specify a budget, appoint a trustee to manage it or define the site’s future use. However, some possible uses that were brought up at the UTEP event “Adios- Asarco” in February included a solar plant, a UTEP research facility, a UTEP housing area on a lake or annexing the area to the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

Shapleigh said he is excited to see that the students are creative when it comes to looking into the future. Whether ASARCO becomes a museum or part of UTEP’s campus, the site still has to go through extensive decontamination. The main goals are to level the site, clean out the pollution in the water, and keep pollution out of the Rio Grande, Shapleigh said.

Bankruptcy court awarded the city $52 million for the clean-up. Shapleigh said the money is going to be given to a trustee, and then the trustee will hire a contractor who will take care of cleaning the whole site.

Mariana Chew, Border Representative for the Sierra Club said she is mainly concerned about the illegal burning of hazardous waste activity.

Senator Shapleigh, Chew, and UTEP students said that the site should become a historical museum similar to Parque Fundidora in Mexico, Monterrey.

UTEP junior Anabel Gonzalez, said it is beneficial to the city to preserve the ASARCO premises.  “Whether the site will be conserved or completely renewed its still a step forward in El Paso’s benefit,” Gonzalez said.

Ultimately, Shapleigh said, that a common vision put forth by the city and UTEP will determine what happens at the ASARCO site.  The future of the site will also depend on how forcefully students insist on their vision, he said.

According to the Economic Development Office of the City of El Paso, the deployment of thousands of additional soldiers here will have a $3.7 billion economic impact by 2013, but also will pose challenges to the city.

“School districts had already made plans to provide more schools,” Victor Venegas, Economic Development Coordinator of the city of El Paso, said. “As far as the numbers, we are looking forward to an additional 21,000 soldiers and 30,000 family members coming in” by 2013, he added.

Two thousand new jobs in engineering, technical and industrial industries will be created over the next four years as soon as the new soldiers begin to arrive at the military base.  This means that an additional $248 million will be generated in property tax revenues, Venegas said.

Soldiers from Fort Bliss expected to boost El Paso's economy. (Marserenith González/Nineteen Underground)

Nathan Hedgecock, a former El Paso resident and United States Military Academy cadet, said most of the soldiers arriving this fall will stay on base, but others will seek housing in the surrounding area. By 2013, Fort Bliss is projected to have 34,000 active-duty soldiers.

Fort Bliss began as an army post at El Paso del Norte in 1848. However, it wasn’t until 1854 that “The Post Opposite El Paso” became Fort Bliss. Ever since, Fort Bliss has been experiencing a surge of population.

Northeast businesses such as restaurants and the airport area will see an increase in revenue from business activity and taxes. Venegas said the annual revenue from new sales taxes is expected to reach $55 million by 2013.

Real estate agent Juanita Reveles said El Paso will benefit from the arrival of the additional soldiers because of an increase in jobs and the already-evident growing number of applications for housing.

Last week two members of GHOST’s paranormal investigative team say they spotted the ghostly apparition making beds in the hospital’s abandoned fourth floor and then saw her later walking around the halls.

Paranormal activity within the hospital was first documented in 1936.

Although the hospital’s second and fourth floors are abandoned, the third floor is still used to house patients with critical injuries or illnesses that need round-the-clock attention.

Members of GHOST recording paranormal activity at Southwestern General Hospital (Alyn Macleod)

With reports of ghostlike activities at the hospital since 1936, the group asked hospital managers for permission to investigate. The first visit occurred in November 2008 when the team spent a night on site equipped with high-end video cameras, digital still cameras, audio recording devices, and k2 meters that calculate temperature changes.

Espie Valadez, assistant property manager at Southwestern General Hospital, gave permission for the most recent investigation by the GHOST team.  “We’ve known of all the stories that were being told so we thought it would be a good idea to let them come down and check it out,” she said.

Leon Metz Jr., CEO of El Paso Long Term Acute Care (LTAC), provided the group with background and sources about the hospital’s haunted history.

The GHOST group, established in July of last year has 61 official members and apprentices and is led by Alyn Macleod and Chris Medina.  The group was created as a non-profit organization and does not accept money for its paranormal investigations.  Individual members instead rely on their own funds and donations from friends to carry on their work.

“If they are going to pay me to do it then it takes the reality away from” the investigation, said Medina, a manager for Southwest Auto Glass and a GHOST member.  “I’ve got nothing to gain.”

Medina said he detected an Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP), of a woman’s voice, when he replayed a recording.  “I told her we don’t know your name, but is it OK if we call you Jesusita and she said ‘yes that’s fine Chris,’” Medina said.

During the same investigation, the GHOST team was able to contact the spirits of children, Medina said. Investigators witnessed toy cars placed on a floor moving of their own volition, he said.

In 2005, doctors and investors launched plans to renovate the 100-room Southwestern General Hospital in Central El Paso. Three years later, workers began the renovation to give the hospital a new life.

Although the renovation was expected to expand medical services at the 80-year-old building, officials hoped to preserve the institution’s colorful history as a hospital for tubercular patients and a place with a ghostly past.

David C. Baldwin, a transplant from New Orleans who suffered from tuberculosis, established the hospital in 1903 as a “sanatorium” for tuberculosis patients. Since that time its name and purpose has been an evolving proposition, following several changes of ownership.

Souwestern General Hospital at night (Alyn Macleod)

El Paso resident Shirley Anaya, who was visiting her stepmother at Southwestern General Hospital recently, said she does not believe in ghosts or spirits, but will not deny she detects an unusual presence inside the building. “Do I feel anything in there? Well, I do because it’s old,” Anaya said.

Diana Calamia, a well-known psychic also known as Lady D., conducted one of the first investigations of the hospital in 1936. She detected the ghost of a woman, possibly decapitated, and a man who died of unknown causes inside an elevator, according to published reports.

But even among GHOST team members there are skeptics.

“It’s a checks and balances for us. We don’t want everybody to come in and say everything is a ghost because everything is not a ghost,” said Medina.

At the same time, GHOST has concluded that the hospital is a hot spot for paranormal activity, Medina said. The group’s conclusion was generated by their first investigation when they spent several nights over the period of one month at the hospital.