Another Guy Crying Wolf

After reading my post this morning, another guy lucky enough to live in the ExxonMobil - EP AMI came by the house. I think he's going to write Kevin Beiter a letter. Now that the locals realize that my movie is a black comedy about lawyers and bureaucrats, they are all clamoring to put in their two cents. My movie is completely respectful of the local culture. I even respect the criminal enterprises. The fact that there is drug and human smuggling on the Texas-Mexican border is not news to anyone. My project doesn't involve specifics or new info on the topic of contraband. Sure, there is a lot of violence in the rural areas of South Texas, but very little of that is directed towards locals. Locals carry guns and are prepared. The victims are usually the illegal immigrants because they aren't armed. Sometimes a rancher is kidnapped, but 99% of the time, its not a local person getting nabbed. 99% of the criminals aren't from here. They are just passing thru or sent here by gangs to enforce orders. Sometimes locals get caught in the crossfire. I don't think living here is any more dangerous than any where else. Plus, as many point out, if you have to defend yourself, no one is going to come looking for the body.
The only people that will be unhappy with my movie are the lawyers and bureaucrats.

It's An Everyday Thing

Because I was working on a documentary, I was sure to keep Pilar and the lawyers at Hornberger, Sheehan, Fuller and Beiter on notice. I would send them emails all the time. Almost weekly. I wanted to have something to flash back to in the movie. Pilar et al. knew exactly what was happening out there. I filed affidavits from law enforcement in the Polyline lawsuit. The Feds called Pilar for instructions to access the property. She referred them to Kevin Beiter. Beiter told the Border Patrol that "there is nothing out there" and I was making it all up.
From: Elizabeth Burns
Date: February, 2010 9:37:20 AM CST
To: pilar gravitt
Cc: pat sheehan, kevin beiter
Pilar -
One of the biggest sources of tension when El Paso Corp arrived on the McGill Bros was the increase in drug and human trafficking and other organized criminal activity like oil and gas theft. With the addition of the McGill Bros to the EL Paso portfolio - El Paso now controls an almost contiguous row of leases from McCook to the Border Patrol Checkpoint. You can get from the Rio Grande River to McCook without even going on a pubic road. This is no secret and your whole area of operation is a federally designated High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and also the subject of OCDETF investigation. (Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force) Numerous individuals on your leases have been indicted, imprisoned, etc. It isn't just the increase - it is the blatant activity. There is a whole lot going on here. You can imagine my reaction when I saw your lawsuit complaining that I carry a gun and how it's a source of ignition and so dangerous. You have gangs walking around your lease in plain sight with machine pistols strapped to their forearms. Armed groups lurk along the pipeline easements waiting to hijack the contraband. The McGill Bros. lease is one of the most notorious smuggling routes in the Southern District of Texas. Law enforcement frequently picks up trucks loaded with marijuana as they exit the El Paso lease.
ETB
and Kevin Beiters response to this:
Ms. Burns 
It would be helpful to all concerned if you would not create unnecessary apprehension in the minds of law enforcement. Also, crying “wolf” too often may actually result in inhibiting responses by the appropriate emergency personnel – which is not a result anyone should want.
Kevin Beiter

Another One of My Cast Members

He sees the poor slaves getting marched at gunpoint with the dope, too. Everyone knows.

Production For Sale, Home Invaders and Pseudo Cops included!

All of El Paso Exploration and Production's leases are for sale. No need for everyone to fight over the McGill Bros lease. There is plenty to go around. EP has a lot of great stuff over in the McCook area. I don't know if they have buried marijuana, but they have some other excitement. Janet Napolitano visited McAllen today. She toured the Rio Grande Valley for a few hours and determined that we are all safe. Phew, I haven't felt such relief since ExxonMobil sent the HEB produce stocker to oversee the Kelsey Field.

Production For Sale, Marijuana and Ammo Included!

These photos were taken by Rio Grande Valley Sector Border Patrol agents in the AMI...low and behold... marijuana and magazines loaded with ammo were buried on a ranch in the ExxonMobil - El Paso Corp joint venture. Hey, El Paso Exploration and Production is selling this property. Anyone want it? Drugs and arms are buried all over the AMI. (and dead bodies) No one knows who works in the oilfield. ExxonMobil and El Paso Corp have so many  farm-outs, assignments, contractors, and sub contractors. The identity of these individuals is confidential and the agreements aren't filed. Only ExxonMobil knows who has the right to come on the ranches because only ExxonMobil knows what the assignments are. The landowner has no information. There is no way to solve this because Texas law gives the mineral lessee right to egress and ingress across any lands and the landowner has no right to interfere with their access.  This marijuana was probably going to be loaded into a tanker or box truck at a later date. (by kidnapped and enslaved illegal immigrants) Speaking of slave labor, I bet that some slaves dug the burial sites. And of course, if this were your marijuana and those were your slaves, you would be sure to kill them promptly. Don't need a lot of people running around knowing where you have stashed all this marijuana. This is why I put the blame for pits of dead bodies on the McGill Bros. lease squarely on the head of Pilar Gravitt and the law firm of Hornberger, Sheehan, Fuller and Beiter. They went to court, got injunctions that prevented the landowner from stopping oilfield traffic into the ranch and then a protective order stating that the identity of the oilfield workers was a trade secret.

Not A Peep

I have heard nothing from my Mexican travel correspondents. That worries me.
 UPDATE - MARCH 8, got this email: Hi Toddy, Jeannine and I are down in Puerto Angel. We arrived here via San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Veracruz (for Carnival) lake Catemako, and Oaxaca. Everything is great, no problems whatsoever. Mexico is a country of good Scouts. We decided today that our biggest risk is being hit by a falling coconut, and our second biggest risk is a falling mango. Sorry if this makes for an uninteresting blog

Improvising

Well, Pilar Gravitt ignored my plea to be interviewed, as did the fine folks at the esteemed law firm of Hornberger, Sheehan, Fuller, and Beiter. I would really have liked to interview them, but their written statements and court testimony will do in a pinch. Plus, the film is a black comedy, puppets lying their asses off while people are dying is kind of funny. Not really.

Funny, Not Really

I used to live in a remote area. So, when I saw someone hanging around in my turf, I hoofed it over to see what exactly they were up to. You know, see who that was trip-trapping across my bridge. Never did anyone react like it was unusual for me to pop up with a spatula and dig around in their vehicle. They just went along with whatever I wanted to do. When you are in the middle of no where, there is really nothing to gauge what is acceptable. It seemed pretty reasonable to me at the time. Plus, I constantly needed new people to interview for the blog. Now, I look at this old footage and I just laugh.

Immigrants Translated

I know a lot of readers don't speak Spanish. I finally got around to translating some of the immigrant interviews. It's really sad what these people go thru. I'm not for amnesty. These people cause ranchers great grief by wrecking fences and starting fires. People forget that these people are individuals and go through horrible things to get here. I feel sorry for them. There are hundreds of people a day roaming around lost and dying in the ExxonMobil lease It's dangerous having all of these people roaming around lost. And then, there are the people roaming around to kidnap them. And then the people that are roaming around to kill them. I think the exchange where El Paso's attorney, Kevin Beiter, leaves a lost woman to die is really the best example of Hornberger, Sheehan, Fuller and Beiter's attitude towards immigrants. No one looked for her, no one found her, and I'm 100% sure she died. That episode is in my documentary. It's really shocking. When people look at the rough cut, the Kevin Beiter emails horrify them. It will be a real problem for him. I think immigrant advocates will demand an explanation from the law firm.
Speaking of problems, I ran into Gunsmoke this weekend. He griped about how El Paso E and P doesn't seem to care at all about the rampant theft that thrives on their leases. He said on the Coates property in McCook, everything and anything is getting stolen from El Paso. EP put a camera on the gate and keeps changes the entry code, but it does no good. No one cares. It's the El Paso corporate culture - take what you can while the taking is good. There is no such thing as "energy security" - nothing is secure because law enforcement doesn't have training to work in oil and gas operations. It's dangerous because people steal the parts and equipment from El Paso's compressor stations. The fire extinguishers, the back hoes. The remote monitoring gear. (of course the oil and gas, too) Then, stolen El Paso parts are repainted to look like new and resold to El Paso for other leases. It's very unsafe. Who cares because El Paso is selling all their production. It will be the next owners problem.

New Correspondent

Meet Robbie Lebovic and Jeaninne! New blog correspondents. They will (God willing) be sending periodic reports from Mexico during a two month road trip. What the hell is actually going on down there? I met Robbie about 25 years ago in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca. He has a salmon fishing boat in Alaska. He spends 3 months in Alaska working his ass off and then he travels the world for the rest of the year. The last time I ran into him was in Denver. Since then, we have exchanged an email or letter every few years. He's a cool guy. An authentic adventurer. And his girlfriend is nice, too. When I learned that he would be passing thru the Rio Grande Valley on his way to Oaxaca, I made a point to track him down. Previously on this blog, I have toured mobil homes, Border Patrol trucks, Constable leo's patrol truck, dope hauling trucks, immigrant smuggling rigs, and lots of other wheeled contraptions. Never on this blog (or in my life) have I had the opportunity to go inside one of these hippy style converted school buses... until Robbie and Jeannine rolled into town yesterday.

Exciting Development

I am so excited. I got a letter from the state commission on judicial conduct in response to my complaint about Judge Richard C. Terrell. They have determined that my complaint has merit and will move forward with a full investigation. The crux of my complaint was that:
1. He permanently enjoined me and my minor children from areas of the ranch without appointing an ad litem attorney for the kids.
2. I asked repeatedly for him to order mediation and he refused.
3. He locked me out of an ex-parte meeting, made me wait in the hall.
4. I was never served in the lawsuit and did not have notice of the hearings when the injunctions were ordered.
*Those are clearly the events and the public record supports the allegations. I attached all the exhibits.
I am now at Rule 4 in the process. The person who inspired me to pursue this complaint was Jose Angel Moreno, US Attorney for the Southern District. His big focus is public corruption. He said that if I believe a judge is corrupt, it was my responsibility to make a complaint. There is a system to address those concerns. The legal system is the basic rule of law for our society. It's important that people have confidence in it, or else you end up with anarchy. (Too late for me)  I asked him if he thought it would do any good. He replied, "You never know until you try." And then he agreed to do a cameo for my movie.
RULE 4. FULL INVESTIGATION (a) If the preliminary investigation discloses that the allegations or appearances are neither unfounded nor frivolous, or if sufficient cause exists to warrant full inquiry into the facts and circumstances indicating that a judge may be guilty of willful or persistent conduct which is clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of his duties or casts public discredit upon the judiciary or the administration of justice, or that he has a disability seriously interfering with the performance of his duties, which is, or is likely to become, permanent in nature, the Commission shall conduct a full investigation into the matter. (b) The Commission shall inform the judge in writing that an investigation has commenced and of the nature of the matters being investigated. (c) The Commission may request the judge's response in writing to the matters being investigated.

Update on the Documentary

People keep asking me when my film will be done. The schedule is hinging on my orthodontist. I have braces now and we need to film final clips of narration where I talk into the camera in hindsight. And, I refuse to do it with my mouth full of metal.
Up until now, Nicola has been editing video that I shot over the years we lived at ranch. I wasn't in the footage - always behind the camera. Last week, the she asked me, "Do you have any footage of you and your family doing normal ranch things? I want to break up this insanity occasionally and remind people that you are a regular person raising a family."
I look at these old video clips and it brings back good memories. It was an adventure. Its very important to me that the movie show all the beautiful sides of South Texas. People live here because it is a nice place to live. Yea, we've got some crime and contamination. Who doesn't? The bad thing that sets us apart - the extreme poverty. We are one of poorest areas in the USA.
Now we live in town and the kids are teenagers. They just want to be like everyone else. So, I haven't bothered them with the news that they are to be featured in a movie showcasing their screwy childhood.

ICE Raid in ExxonMobil Kelsey Field

ICE raided the Kelsey Unit looking for some stolen equiment that had some kind of GPS tracker installed. On Mr. Marshall's ranch, one of the agents noticed a bright colored scrap of a seat belt in the dirt next to an Exxon work site. He went to look closer. Low and behold...  it was 1400 pounds of buried marijuana bales that had seat belts on each one for use as a back pack. (by slave child immigrant labor no doubt) Exxon needs to mow that La Copita pipeline and mark it because I doubt that these people who bury dead bodies and marijuana on Exxon's leases bother to do the "DIGTESS."
ExxonMobil has been notified by me and Border Patrol numerous times about people storing large quantities of drugs in the Kelsey Field. ICE asked us to put a gate at the entrance of the ranch. The road into the Marshall cuts thru the McGill and is not a public road and has never been a public road. This is the response we got from ExxonMobil's lawyers when we tried to install a gate to the ranch. This is the ranch entrance that is used to transport human and drug cargo.
CLICK TO VIEW
This "war on drugs" is really really stupid. Nothing is accomplished besides making  ExxonMobil's leases more dangerous. I wish the feds would quit spending all this tax payer money on border agents and go do something useful. The oilfields are not the place to address the problem. Only ExxonMobil can control traffic on their properties because only ExxonMobil knows who the contractors are. ExxonMobil does not and will never have security on their properties. ExxonMobil doesn't even know who the contractors are because they are subbed out. ExxonMobil has the majority of the land in along the South Texas border held in old leases from the 1930s.
Attorney Pilar Gravitt went to district court in July of 2008 and got an injunction that prevents landowners from stopping any oilfield contractors or sub contractors from entering the Kelsey. At Pilar Gravitt's request, the court ruled that the identity of the contractors and subcontractors was a confidential trade secret belonging to Exxon and the JV partners. So, its up to ExxonMobil to deal with the problem. And, that is just never going to happen.
Meanwhile, on the King Ranch, Exxon's new JV partners set up surveillance and busted a major natural gas condensate theft ring using salt water trucks.