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    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    Meeting this week for new Starr, Hidalgo border fence (updated)

    August 25, 2012 5:56 PM
    Gail Burkhardt
    The Monitor


    Noel Benavides walks on a portion of his land Thursday near the Rio Grande where a proposed border wall would cut through his property in Roma. The wall would cut off 35 acres of Benavides' land that resides just southeast of downtown Roma. photo by Nathan Lambrecht

    ROMA — “I’ve got all kinds of questions, but I’ve never gotten any answers.”

    Noel Benavides summed up the sentiment of many residents when asked about new stretches of border fencing proposed in Starr and western Hidalgo counties.

    Representatives for the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) hope to clear up some of those concerns and questions at a public forum Wednesday in Rio Grande City. The meeting will address an IBWC study that examined a proposed border fence made of vertical posts spaced 4 inches apart near Rio Grande City, Roma and Los Ebanos. IBWC is a bi-national agency with components in Mexico and the United States that oversee water and boundary treaties on the Rio Grande.

    The study found the fence would not cause flooding on the U.S. or Mexican sides of the river. About 7 of the 14 miles of proposed fence included in the study would sit on the flood plain.

    However, no timeline has been set for when the new stretches of fence would be built.

    “There is a requirement for an additional approximately 14 miles of fence, segments O-1, O-2 and O-3 in Roma, Rio Grande City and Los Ebanos,” an email from a Customs and Border Protection spokesman sent to The Monitor states. “However, there are currently no plans to construct that fence as funding is not currently available.”

    STUDY RESULTS

    The IBWC study results have prompted complaints from residents, lawmakers and activists who point to the commission’s previous reservations about building a permanent fence on the flood plain.

    But those views changed after the most recent study was completed.

    The study employed advanced two-dimensional computer modeling to show that even with record high flood levels like those of the infamous Hurricane Beulah of 1967, the fence would not cause flooding in either country, according to IBWC reports.

    But Mexican IBWC officials object to the fence, noting that it could cause flooding in Mexico if debris caught in the fence make it impermeable, thus pushing floodwater south. Correspondence between the two entities obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request made by environmentalist group Sierra Club shows Mexico’s dissent.

    Jesús Luévano, the secretary of the Mexican section of IBWC confirmed that position in an email to The Monitor, but Sally Spener, the foreign affairs officer for the U.S. IBWC, said the study included specifications for debris and still showed that it would not cause flooding.

    But Scott Nicol, the Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club conservation chair, cited cases in the deserts of Arizona where heavy rainfall has deposited dirt, plants and other debris to a height of 6 feet along the border fence with a construction similar to the fencing planned in Starr County and Los Ebanos. He also questioned the methodology of the study and said he plans to raise those concerns again Wednesday.

    Benavides, a Starr County Industrial Foundation board member and former Roma city commissioner, wants to know how a Texas Department of Transportation drainage project will be affected by the proposed fence. TxDOT plans to widen Arroyo Roma to aid proper drainage and prevent flooding, which commonly occurs in Roma with heavy rainfall.

    While good for the city, Benavides worries that the extra water from the creek that flows into the Rio Grande could get stopped up in the border fence.

    But Spener said the modeling was tested for much more water and the arroyo plans will not cause flooding. She also noted that gates in the fence are an option for arroyos.

    “When we modeled the impact of flood flows we took into account what is considered a major flood, which is the Hurricane Beulah flood,” she said. “We took into account that very volume of flow into the river. It’s a huge volume. It’s far in excess of what any single arroyo would contribute.”

    RESIDENT REACTIONS

    Starr County and western Hidalgo County residents remember the big floods well.

    Police evacuated Los Ebanos, a small unincorporated community south of Sullivan City, in July 2010 during Hurricane Alex. Flood waters swelled hundreds of yards past the river, which surrounds Los Ebanos on three sides.

    Rio Grande City resident Jose Roberto Molina, who lives on Water Street about a quarter of a mile from the river, said he remembers floodwaters from Beulah reaching his yard.

    The 56-year-old said he would worry the fence might obstruct water that drains naturally downhill toward the river and near his house. But he also is concerned about what he perceives as an increased number of illegal immigrants running through his neighborhood.

    “Before, you could sleep with the … door open. Now there’s people coming by every day,” he said, adding that he locks the gate to his driveway each evening.

    Rio Grande City school district Police Chief Hernan Garza said immigrants occasionally run through the district’s Fort Ringgold campus, which abuts the river. School police also recently stopped a large drug load passing through the campus. A deflated raft even sat near the river’s edge near school property Thursday.

    “I think (a fence) would be a good deterrent,” he said.

    Border Patrol agents frequent Benavides’ land, where at least three deflated rafts, presumably used for illegal crossings, were visible along a stretch of the riverbank Thursday.

    Still, Benavides is vehemently against the fence. He has been voicing his concerns and requesting information on the topic from federal authorities for years.

    “I personally don’t see any use for it,” he said, explaining that he believes the current fences in Hidalgo and Cameron counties aren’t effective at deterring illegal traffic.

    He said the fence would cut off about 35 acres of his ranchland, which sits near the adjoining cemeteries on Grant Street southeast of downtown. Benavides, who has allowed the land to revert to its natural state after being farmed, worries about the environmental impacts of a fence.

    The Department of Homeland Security waived the normal requirement to conduct environmental studies when building the fence along the river.

    Benavides said there is evidence of ocelots and other native threatened species on his 150 acres of land.

    “They did not do an environmental study. … Why are they exempt from doing that?” he said, voicing one of his many unanswered questions aloud. “Will it affect the environment? I think it will.”

    A Customs and Border Protection representative is scheduled to be at Wednesday’s meeting to answer additional questions, but the bulk of the gathering will include presentations on IBWC’s study.

    The International Boundary and Water Commission is not in charge of building the fence and conducted the study to comply with a 1970 treaty between the U.S. and Mexico that prevents anything from being built along the river that would obstruct or deflect normal or flood flows, Spener said.

    Merino, the U.S. IBWC principal engineer; Jose Nuñez, the supervisory civil engineer; and Padinare Unnikrishna, the lead hydraulic engineer, will present on the study and answer questions at the forum.

    Meeting this week for new Starr, Hidalgo border fence | new, roma, border - MAP - TheMonitor.com
    Last edited by Jean; 08-29-2012 at 11:52 PM.
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    Boundary agency faces worried border residents

    CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN, Associated Press
    Published 9:01 p.m., Wednesday, August 29, 2012


    RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas (AP) — Officials from a U.S. agency that monitors the U.S.-Mexico border faced residents Wednesday who are worried about a decision to allow the construction of fence segments in the nearby Rio Grande flood plain.

    Engineers from the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission told a citizens forum that hydraulic modeling led the agency to drop its opposition to the project.

    But the highly technical explanation did little to allay residents' fears of flooding and concerns that the agency had caved in to pressure from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

    "How can you really tell us it's going to work 100 percent?" said Aleida Garcia, of Los Ebanos, a small community surrounded on three sides by the winding river and completely in the flood plain. "Because we're talking about people, communities, families."

    Jose Nunez, supervisory civil engineer with U.S. IBWC, said "whether the fence is there or not, you're still in the flood plain." The agency's engineers said the modeling indicates that the fence will not be a significant obstruction, a position opposed by their Mexican counterparts.

    The decision affects about seven miles of fencing planned in the flood plain out 14 miles planned for the three combined sections near Roma, Rio Grande City and Los Ebanos.

    The U.S. has built about 650 miles of border barriers along the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary. In Texas, the fence segments have been built more than a mile from the river in some rural areas, but the three segments recently reviewed by the commission would be built closer because all three communities abut the river.

    On Wednesday a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman corrected a statement last month in which the agency said no additional fencing in Hidalgo County — where Los Ebanos is located — was necessary, but reiterated there are no current plans to build the three segments because there is not funding. The final fence segment design drawings would still have to go back to IBWC for approval before construction.

    Rio Grande City Mayor Ruben Villarreal said he had been worried coming into the meeting, but after 30 minutes of technical presentation, said "now I'm frightened to death." Most attendees, including the mayor, expressed concern about border security, but called for more personnel, not a fence.

    The proposal continues to draw opposition from Mexico and its side of the bi-national IBWC as well.

    A 1970 treaty between the United States and Mexico called on both countries to prohibit the building of anything that "may cause deflection or obstruction of the normal flow of the river or of its flood flows."

    In July, Jesus Luevano, secretary of the commission's Mexican section, said in an email to The Associated Press that Mexico's position is that the "wall constitutes an obstruction of the normal current ... in terms of the 1970 Boundary Treaty, therefore we continue fighting its placement with respect to the Rio Grande flood zone."

    One of the agency's own engineers said as much to a similar forum in 2008.

    Al Riera, then the principal operations engineer for the U.S. IBWC, said, "If they (Department of Homeland Security) don't show us they have something in place to guarantee removal of the (fence) panels ... the commission would never agree to something like that."

    That movable fence was planned to involve a base of concrete barriers topped with about 15 feet of tightly woven steel fencing that could be removed in advance of floodwaters.

    The fence that the IBWC approved in February is not movable. It is an 18-foot-tall fence made of 6-by-6-inch steel bollards with four inches between.

    Scott Nicol, founder of No Border Wall, a group opposing the project, said the agency's modeling was built on flawed or wishful assumptions. He showed a large photograph of debris stacked nearly six feet high along a fence segment in Arizona.

    "It seems like the change (in the IBWC position) has more to do with pressure from above than facts on the ground," Nicol said.

    A July 2010 presentation made by CBP to the State Department noted that these three segments were the agency's highest tactical infrastructure priority. It also stated that "hydraulic modeling is not an exact science."

    The fence alignment recommended by the IBWC at that time would have required extensive property acquisition, making it "not politically or economical(ly) feasible," according to the presentation. It closed with, "We need IBWC and State Department support to build these segments as soon as possible."

    Boundary agency faces worried border residents - Houston Chronicle
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