Environmental groups are calling for the cancellation of the 4th Annual River Run set for mid-October. Currently over 900 people are signed up to participate in the off-roading event which takes place within the Rio Grande River.
Kevin Bixby, with the Southwest Environmental Center, was one of the authors of a letter addressed to the International Boundary and Water Commission calling for the cancellation.
“We're not opposed to an event like this or off-road vehicles, it's just that we don't think the river is the appropriate place to hold these kinds of events,” Bixby said. “The river is a really important living system. It supports a lot of species of plants and animals. And we're just really concerned about the negative impacts.”
Event organizer Randall Limon shared some of the precautions they are taking to keep vehicles from driving outside the river.
“A lot of the areas that the IBWC was talking about, like habitat, places like that, where people are driving out of there and cutting up the fences, I have people that are going to be going out there to put in stakes and caution tape, so nobody drives outside of the river. So we stay inside the river the whole time,” Limon said.
The International Boundary and Water Commission wrote in an emailed statement that if a permit is obtained, then the event can move forward. They said, however, a permit application usually takes several weeks to process.
Limon confirmed the permit process has started and said he was unaware he needed a permit for his annual event until this year.
Bixby, with the Southwest Environmental Center, wanted to empathize he is not opposed to off-road vehicle use under the right circumstances.
“It looks like, you know, a lot of fun, but we just don't think the river is the appropriate place to hold events like this,” Bixby said.
