Nineteen camps in Texas have filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a new state requirement for them to install “end-to-end fiber optic facilities” in order to operate this summer.
The requirement that the camps install fiber optic internet does not make their properties safer, violates the state constitution and state law and could prevent them from opening, the lawsuit said.
The group of camps, which includes Camp Champions, Camp Longhorn and Tejas Ministries, said in the suit that companies advised them that the service either could not be supplied, could not be confirmed as “end-to-end” — a term the lawsuit said isn’t defined — or would cost an amount “that greatly exceeded their resources.”
The suit, filed in a Travis County state district court, offered examples: Camp Liberty, in one extreme, received a quote of $1 million in upfront costs plus a $3,500 monthly service fee over five years. Camp Longhorn received a quote of more than $1.2 million
State legislators passed the new requirement, in addition to mandating a second kind of broadband connection, after the July 4 flood last year in the Texas Hill Country. That flood killed 25 campers and two counselors at Camp Mystic — information that emergency responders struggled to confirm as one official that afternoon noted phone lines were down and there was no cell service at the camp.
Cell service is known to be spotty in the area even on normal days.
The requirement makes no exception for rural camps where fiber optic internet might not be available or “is so costly as to make it economically infeasible or unreasonably burdensome,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday against the Department of State Health Services and its commissioner, the state Health and Human Services Commission and its executive commissioner, and Attorney General Ken Paxton.
The Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission said they do not comment on pending litigation. Lawyers for the camps could not immediately be reached.
The camps serve more than 40,000 children each year, according to the lawsuit.
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