Plastic bottles and beer cans lay scattered beneath the overlook at Smuggler’s Pass in the Franklin Mountains. Below the numerous picnic areas along Transmountain Road and the state park, discarded tires and even a sofa can be spotted in the distance, lodged in the ravines and faded with time.
El Paso nature lovers tout Franklin Mountains State Park, the country’s largest state park located entirely within urban city limits, as a one-of-a-kind gem in the Chihuahuan Desert. But park Superintendent Cesar Mendez said the excessive amount of illegal dumping and litter exceeds staff capacity.
Franklin Mountains State Park spans 43 square miles and has 11 permanent, full-time employees, including five maintenance workers, Mendez said. The park also has additional assistance from one Wyler Aerial Tramway worker while the tramway remains under construction.
Their duties involve more than picking up trash, but daily cleanup has become a time-consuming and labor-intensive task.
“It’s never ending,” Mendez said. “But then we have other areas that require attention.”
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department recently acquired more than 1,000 additional acres for Franklin Mountains State Park, growing the park’s land in Northeast El Paso. The expansion joins a recent renaissance in parks development in a state that’s starved for public lands.
Despite the growth and expectation of more recreational usage, Texas officials confirmed the agency does not plan to hire more personnel to maintain Franklin Mountains State Park.
“Any land that we can spare from development is a win for the community because it increases the open space we maintain, we can use, and we can secure access for the public to enjoy the outdoors,” Mendez said. “And, obviously, the outdoors, they play a big role in the quality of life for the community.”
But the illegal dumping is beyond what park staff can handle.
In addition to chipping away at the overwhelming amount of garbage that’s accumulated in and around the park, the staff oversees more than 120 miles of trail that require maintenance, repairs and erosion control, he said. The staff is also responsible for replacing nonexistent, damaged or stolen signage.
“For a park of this dimension, it’s a lot,” Mendez said. “We cannot keep up with everything.”
El Paso clamors for limited state resources
Texas Parks and Wildlife purchased 1,055 acres from the El Paso Water Utility’s Public Service Board for $420,000 to expand Franklin Mountains State Park, according to county deed records. The acquisition encompasses the Roundhouse Trailhead in the northeast portion of the park and extends the park’s boundaries east to Martin Luther King Boulevard.
The agency used funds from the state’s sporting goods sales tax to make the purchase.
The land had been deemed “inexpedient to the system” by the PSB in 2023, when the board determined the land should be sold. The El Paso City Council in January agreed to sell the land to the state parks department.
Discussions about preserving the property date back several years at the recommendation of the city’s Open Space Advisory Board, Ian Voglewede, the city’s strategic and legislative affairs director, said in an email.
“The City values its ongoing partnership with Franklin Mountains State Park and Texas Parks and Wildlife on conservation, outdoor recreation, and quality-of-life initiatives that benefit the region and help preserve the unique character of the Franklin Mountains for future generations,” Voglewede said.
Visitors can continue to access the land for existing hiking and mountain bike trails while Texas Parks and Wildlife develops a plan for the property. The agency will notify the public of opportunities for input during the planning process, department spokesperson Madelon Allen said in an email.
The land addition is part of an ongoing process to modernize the state park, but Franklin Mountains State Park is one of many parks in line for resources, Mendez said. Currently park staff are working on bringing clean, reliable drinking water from a well to the visitor center at Tom Mays Unit.
Mendez said the park suffers an undercount of official visitors, which makes it difficult to ask the state for upgrades and additional staffing. Many people enter the park through various access points and do not register or pay, Mendez said.
By the official count, there are about 80,000 annual visitors to Franklin Mountains State Park, he said. But there are an estimated 65,000 or more additional visitors who are unaccounted for, based on counting devices staff set up at a few entry points.
Franklin Mountains State Park needs accurate data to justify any request for more personnel or resources, he said.
“If state parks are not being used, then what is the purpose of them existing?” Mendez said. “If we don’t have the numbers, we can’t compare to a park with 150,000 to 300,000 visitors. But the real picture is not being shown of actual visitors to this park.”
The park has three ways people can register their entry – online, at the visitor center or through the self-pay stations. The entry fee is $5 for adults and free for children 12 and younger. A yearlong Texas State Parks Pass costs $95 and grants unlimited entry for the pass holder and their vehicle guests.
More visitors means not only more wear and tear, but also more garbage, Mendez said. The steep slopes and rugged terrain make it challenging for workers to haul away the massive amount of tossed items. Bigger objects, such as furniture, would require helicopter assistance.
Garbage is a constant presence at Smuggler’s Pass, where the Ron Coleman Trailhead is located, Mendez said. The picnic areas along Transmountain Road fall under the Texas Department of Transportation, but it’s the whole community’s responsibility to keep the areas in and around the park clean, Mendez said.
When trash builds up, it can harm fauna, degrade wildlife habitat and cause rainwater to back up. It also consumes time that staff could be using on other park activities.
“Those ravines are just full of trash, hundreds of tires,” Mendez said. “All the overlooks have trash below. With the amount of trash, you can go every single day and not put a dent in the amount of trash.”
Littering in Texas is a misdemeanor with fines ranging from $500 to $2,000 plus jail time depending on the amount. But aside from one state park police officer, the staff at Franklin Mountains State Park are not law enforcement and do not have the authority to issue citations, Mendez said.
Janaé Reneaud Field, executive director of the Frontera Land Alliance, suggested park staff work with local organizations to coordinate regularly scheduled cleanups. She also suggested Texas Parks and Wildlife organize a media campaign to educate the public, similar to the “Don’t mess with Texas” anti-litter campaign launched in the 1980s.
Connecting litter to water and wildlife resonates with people, she said. A multi-year campaign would require funding, however, she noted.
“People just aren’t thinking outside of themselves and it makes limited staff focus on something that shouldn’t even be on top of their mind,” Field said.
State park joins public lands boom
Aside from recreational use, the extension of Franklin Mountains State Park also has an ecological benefit by creating a buffer zone from encroaching development, Mendez said.
“Obviously it means no pavement, no houses, no buildings, no concrete is going to be put in that piece of land,” Mendez said. “Therefore, it can continue to be habitat for desert plants and wildlife, and infiltration for water runoff.”
The state park is home to a diverse ecosystem featuring mountain lions, collared lizards and burrowing owls. In 2024 the state translocated desert bighorn sheep to the park as part of a project restoring the sheep to their native West Texas range.
Undeveloped land allows water to hit the ground and refill underground aquifers, instead of hitting cement and nonpermeable surfaces, Field said. This is critical throughout Texas in places experiencing drought coupled with industrial growth, she said.
The Frontera Land Alliance is a land trust that promotes conservation and negotiates with private landowners on agreements to leave land undeveloped.
More than 95% of land in Texas is privately owned and Texas ranks among the bottom half of the nation for state park acreage per capita. But recent policies are ushering in what public land advocates hope is a golden age for state parks.
In 2019, Texas voters approved Proposition 5, a constitutional amendment which dedicates sales tax revenue from sporting goods to state parks and historic sites. Then, in 2023, voters approved the $1 billion Centennial Parks Conservation Fund for new state parks.
Franklin Mountains State Park joined a slew of public land additions, including the expansion of Enchanted Rock State Natural Area in Austin and the new Palo Pinto Mountains State Park in North Texas – the first state park to open in nearly 25 years.
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