The first name given by Spanish explorers to the Rio Grande was the Rio de las Palmas, after the extensive forests of sabal palm trees there. Those forests are mostly gone now, replaced by grapefruit orchards, etc. Only small patches of it remain, in sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, such as Sabal Palms run by the Audubon Society east of Brownsville, Texas. The bird life at this southernmost point of the lower 48 has a Central American feel.
Plain Chachalaca, 22" long
It's a mecca for birders, who flock to the area from around the world. And, according to
The Monitor, a lower Rio Grande Valley online outlet, National Wildlife Refuges along the Rio have been "fast-tracked" for construction of the Border Fence.
Bulldozing is expected to begin by next year at the latest.
Cross-posted at Texas Kos
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has targeted federal wildlife refuges for the initial construction of border fences, the regional head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed Tuesday. ... Last week, an e-mail written by a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department staffer and circulated among local conservationists discussed DHS plans to expedite construction in the refuges. The substance of that e-mail was confirmed by Merritt, who met with officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last week.
Riverfront refuge land in the Rio Grande Valley totals some 70,000 acres, representing about 30 percent of the shoreline, Merritt said. Conservationists have fought for years to protect those refuges, winning lawsuits against U.S. Border Patrol and the International Boundary and Water Commission that prevented brush being cleared.
"But that was before Homeland Security, and now they seem able to obliterate everything that came before," said Mary Lou Campbell of the Sierra Club. "We wanted to protect the brushland, because without it several species of animal cannot survive and breed."
Left: Green Jay
Right: Hook-billed Kite
An e-mail found it's way to me yesterday, with a request to circulate it freely:
On the river in Mission, Texas alone, we have The World Birding Center at Bentsen S.P., The International Butterfly Park, Anzalduas County Park, a couple of Restaurants, at least two mobile home parks, several wildlife refuges, and many farms. The fence would deny all of these venues access to the river.
While driving in the Butterfly Park today I watched a Coyote emerge from the brush a quarter of a mile away and go toward the river, probably to drink. The fence would be disastrous to many species that live and travel along the Wildlife Corridor so laboriously restored for them along the Rio Grande by so many dedicated individuals.
The Wall will be a double barrier with the first located 100' back from the Rio. Though in some cases, local conditions will require a setback as far as 1000'. There will be an "alley", 150 ft. wide, between the two fences. All vegetation will be removed from the riverbank all the way back to a buffer zone inside the second fence, to enable better surveillance - 500+ feet minimum in all locations. The author of the e-mail, from Mission, TX (a border town) closes with the following:
Regardless of what your politics are, this ridiculous plan should be opposed. In my opinion, trafficking in humans and drugs MUST be stopped but a fence is worse than any other last resort I can think of. There ARE other solutions to stop this criminal activity. It is time for all of us who love nature and all its plants and creatures, AND our United States of America, to come together and defeat this insane venture.
The author also questions the feasibility of the fence, touching upon some of the same points I brought up in a dairy called Fence the Border? Foolishness!! (Photo Essay) last year:
The BP agent I spoke to said the only way to make the fence
"work" would be to completely remove all vegetation from the river shore, the space between the fences, and a buffer zone on the U.S. side of the innermost fence. The current heavy vegetation found along the shore is the only way to prevent the river from eroding its banks. There is a spot at the Butterfly Park where the heaviest vegetation has failed and in the last two years I have seen almost 10 feet of river bank slide into the water. The fence, by its very location along the Rio Grande, would be situated on a flood plain and be subject to washing out in those areas, especially near the Gulf of Mexico, which are prone to hurricanes.
All in all, this sounds like an action item: especially for those whose representatives serve on the appropriate committees. (Homeland Security, Natural Resources)
Great Kiskadee
MEXICO TAKES A DIFFERENT APPROACH
Lest we abandon all hope, the Mexican government is taking a different approach along another stretch of the river/border (map, right). While Congress has been planning to build a Border Wall to protect us from Mexicans, our neighbors to the south have a different idea: A roadless buffer zone along 600 miles of the Rio Grande, including across from Big Bend National Park.
While the proposed Rio Bravo del Norte Natural Monument is only about 30 feet wide, it will connect two large protected areas south of the river. When a third nature reserve, known as Ocampo, is created this year, the protected areas in Mexico will form a "wall" of millions of acres of wilderness, matching Texas’ Big Bend parks foot-by-foot along the border.
"This stretch of border is the safest one we have. It’s safe because it has wilderness on both sides," said Carlos Manterrola, who heads the environmental group Unidos Para la Conservacion.
...
The strip protects a much longer stretch of riverbank, from just downstream of the Texas border town of Presidio to the outskirts of Laredo, Texas, raising the possibility of still larger reserves that will serve as biological corridors, encouraging four-footed traffic but making it exceedingly difficult for humans to pass.
...
"The whole idea that people are coming up through wilderness and roadless areas, and that’s simply not the case," said David Hodges, policy director of the Sky Island Alliance. "People have a tendency to stay near roads, because they don’t get lost and that’s where they get picked up. ... It would be disastrous to put roads through these areas."
Lucifer Hummingbird & Colima Warbler (below)
There’s another Mexican preserve proposed for the area south of the New Mexico bootheel. Amongst other things, the area is home to our continent’s largest remaining prairie dog colonies, and is thus an important wintering area for raptors. (I’ve been there, so I know of what I speak.)
THE WALL IS UNWELCOME ALONG THE RIO GRANDE
Meanwhile, officials from along the lower Rio Grande in Texas are up in arms about The Wall, in reaction to the map above, which was leaked earlier this month from Homeland Security. From the Houston Chronicle 5/1/07:
"I am totally disappointed," said Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas, who heard Sunday night that 19 miles of fencing in his city would begin downtown. "I remain steadfast in opposition to the building of a fence."
"It is absolute idiocy," said McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez, who contends that illegal immigration can only be stemmed with a guest worker program. "A fence by itself is only going to delay people from crossing."
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Their first concrete details emerged in the last two weeks, they say, when landowners in Hidalgo and Starr counties reported that U.S. Border Patrol agents showed them maps outlining parcels of private property on the Rio Grande the government plans to fence.
County-by-county analysis of Ciro Rodriguez’s victory over Republican Henry Bonilla in last December’s special election in TX-23 showed especially strong support for Rodriguez in the border counties of the sprawling district. Opposition to The Wall was/is strong along the border, and was arguably the pivotal issue in Bonilla’s defeat, since he’d voted for it.
This wall is a bad idea, for so many reasons. Hell, it's even pushing enviromentalists and Richard Pombo-style "property rights" types (the kind who resist the exercise of eminent domain) together. That's no trivial accomplishment! From the Fort Worth Star-Tribune, 5/1/07
Officials say two words are striking fear in the hearts of Texas landowners who have been contacted in recent days about handing over their riverfront property for a massive border wall: eminent domain.
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"Right now, landowners are very, very reluctant to have this happen," said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Cuellar met with landowners last week in tiny Roma, in the Rio Grande Valley, where officials are eyeing numerous private tracts for the wall. He said officials with the Department of Homeland Security mentioned its condemnation authority "within the first 15 words" spoken to landowners in recent meetings in the district he represents.
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In Texas, where most of the riverfront is in private hands, landowners have expressed fears that a wall will disrupt cattle and ranching operations, block access to the Rio Grande and -- unless they agree to the government's financial terms -- spur nasty court battles over the condemnation of private property.
USA TODAY did a long story on this last November:
Cunningham (another rancher) also isn't happy about the possibility of having to give up a strip of his land along the river to the U.S. government for fence construction. "We'll fight it tooth and nail," he says, including filing lawsuits to stop the fence, if necessary. "This might work west of El Paso, where there is nothing but sand and hills. Not here."
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Matt Brockman, executive vice president of the 14,000-member Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, says economic and environmental questions — notably landowners' concerns about access to the Rio Grande — should be enough to stop the project. "I don't think it's as easy as slapping up a fence," Brockman says. "It's alarming to us. We could be talking about hundreds of thousands of acres that could be condemned" for construction.
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"Trust me, it's not gonna happen," [Val Verde County Sherriff Tomas] Jernigan says. "There's not gonna be a fence. I have landowners here who put it this way: 'Over my dead body.'"
Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and the Minutemen are not of the same mind as folks around Eagle Pass, Texas, where border crossers frequently make their way across the Eagle Pass Golf Course. From the same November USA Today article:
"You see ladies with kids running right across the fairway," says David Chisum, who manages the nine-hole course. He acknowledges that most people might assume he would want a fence here, if for no other reason than to protect the course's 115 members or speed the pace of golfers' play. However, Chisum reflects many residents' pragmatism when it comes to the thorny issue of illegal immigration.
"We really haven't had any major damage here," he says, except perhaps for the thefts of a few flags that can be seen whipping in the wind from some porches in Piedras Negras. Chisum says most of those who play the course understand the peculiar hazards here. "I don't think a fence would help us," he says. "I like seeing the river. People here understand that sometimes you just have to wait and allow people to cross before you hit."
This wall is a bad idea, and one can hope cooler minds will prevail. It's bad enough that even Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) & Jon Cornyn (R-TX) have made statements of "concern" about how it's proceeding in Texas. We all can encourage the Congress. The issue is an interesting opportunity for new coalitions and alliances, as surely as Pombo's 2005 Public Lands giveaway brought hunters, fishermen and environmentalists together to speak in unison. At least the potential exists.
And a reminder to all from the Department of Redundancy Department: Rio Grande means "Great River". Rio Grande River means "Great River River".