Thread: Feds look for company to build border fence in S. Texas

June 2, 2008, 12:41PM
Feds look for company to build border fence in South Texas


© 2008 The Associated Press

McALLEN, Texas — The federal government is requesting bids for construction of some of the most hotly contested segments of its border fence.

The Army Corps of Engineers posted the sealed request late Friday for a preapproved contractor to build three segments. Based on draft border fence maps, the segments would total about seven miles of fencing west of Brownsville in Cameron County.

One of the segments would pass through El Calaboz, home to some of the fence's staunchest opponents. Among them is Eloisa Tamez, a landowner who fought the project in federal court for months.

The federal government has filed condemnation lawsuits against 52 Cameron County landowners in the past month to make way for the fence.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5814176.html

June 2, 2008, 5:13PM
Feds seek builders for border fence near Brownsville


By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press



Based on draft maps released late last year, the three segments bid out in Cameron County include:
—A 2.3-mile fence south of La Feria, beginning at the western edge of the county and passing through the state's La Paloma Wildlife Management Area and ending just north of part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge;

—A 1.9-mile segment that will run along the northern edge of a portion of another National Wildlife Refuge annex west of El Calaboz;

—And a three-mile piece east of El Calaboz that will run north of a third National Wildlife Refuge area.
McALLEN, Texas — A federal bid request to build three hotly contested pieces of the border fence in Cameron County has turned up the pressure on local officials and landowners still holding out.

Brownsville and its county have been the nerve center for some of the most outspoken opposition along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

The local university has railed against the fence, which would divide its campus, and landowners have fought it for months in federal court. U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado caused a kerfuffle at a congressional field hearing in late April when he suggested the fence be built north of Brownsville.

Yet the government has not blinked.

In the last three weeks, government lawyers have filed 52 condemnation lawsuits against Cameron County landowners to make way for the fence.

And late Friday, the Army Corps of Engineers requested proposals to build three fence segments totaling about seven miles on the western side of the county.

One of those would graze an acre of land owned by Eloisa Tamez, the project's most vociferous and litigious South Texas opponent.

"It's all scare tactics, it's all pressure," Tamez said Monday after hearing of the bid requests. Tamez fought the government when it sought temporary access to the land, which dates to a Spanish land grant to her ancestors, and countersued.

Government consultants finally surveyed the plant life on her property in April and said they would return for a land survey. But they have not been back, she said.

"They said they were skipping it because they were running out of time," Tamez said. She said she refused a government offer of $13,000 for a strip of her land running along the levee.

The Department of Homeland Security is trying to meet a demand from Congress to have 670 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing in place by the end of the year.

Maps of the final fence alignments have not been released since Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived more than 30 federal laws April 1 to ensure the fence moved ahead unimpeded.

So far, five preapproved government contractors have expressed interest in the bid request. They include the Army's biggest contractor, Houston-based Kellogg, Brown & Root Services Inc., as well as Houston's Weston Solutions Inc., Fort Worth-based Kiewit Texas Construction, Business World Company of San Antonio and Environmental Chemical Solutions of Burlingame, Calif.

A representative of Business World Company said the request, which was only available to preapproved contractors, did not include a value range on the contract.

Carlos Cascos, Cameron County's chief executive, said he still hopes a compromise will be reached with the government before construction begins.

Cascos wants to broker a deal similar to one in neighboring Hidalgo County, which convinced Homeland Security to combine its border wall with critical levy improvements rather than acquiring more land for fencing. Major differences are that Hidalgo had a plan months ago and millions in upfront money to contribute.

Cameron County awarded a contract last month to an engineering consultant to develop a plan it can take to Chertoff.

"If we don't get something into them fairly soon they're going to build this," Cascos said. "We've got to give them a viable alternative."



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