Thread: SOUTH TEXAS SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS HATE FENCE

"One endangered animal is the ocelot, a small wildcat whose remaining population of less than 100 is confined to ranches and wildlife refugees in deep South Texas."

OF COURSE THEY CAN NOT BE WORRIED ABOUT THE ENDANGERMENT OF UNITED STATES CITIZENS ONLY OF OCELOTS AND ILLEGALS!!!


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5667062.html

South Texas leaders blast plan to speed up border fence


By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

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THE WAIVERS

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Tuesday that he's planning to waive about three dozen federal laws and regulations to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest border by the end of 2008. Here are some of the laws:

• Endangered Species Act

• Clean Water Act

• National Wildlife Refuge

• System Administration Act

• Eagle Protection Act

• Religious Freedom

• Restoration Act

• Otay Mountain Wilderness

• Act of 1999

• Antiquities Act

• Noise Control Act

• Migratory Bird Treaty Act

• Farmland Protection

• Policy Act
Texas border land owners, mayors and wildlife groups blasted the Bush administration's sweeping plan to waive nearly three dozen federal laws to speed construction of a border fence by year's end.

Using authority granted by Congress, the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday it plans to issue two waivers to complete 670 miles of fencing in four border states. DHS says it has finished 309 miles of fencing, leaving 361 miles to be constructed by a December deadline.

''Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement. ''These waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward."

Border leaders, however, continue to stress the fence is a heavy-handed and ineffective approach to security that will harm endangered species, force landowners to sell ancestral river property and destroy habitat that supports ecotourism on the Texas border.

One DHS waiver will be used to complete a 22-mile combined river levee-fence project in Hidalgo County. The second waiver covers an additional 470 miles of fencing — through 2008 and future years — in Texas and three other border states. The waivers are the largest employed by DHS since its fence project began.

Two environmental groups, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife, in March asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that earlier DHS waivers of federal law are unconstitutional.

''The Bush administration's latest waiver of environmental and other federal laws threatens the livelihoods of the ecology of the entire U.S.-Mexico border region," said Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope.

The laws the governments seeks waivers for represent legislation such as the Clean Water Act and more obscure regulations such as the River and Harbors Act of 1899.

Federal wildlife officials said they are concerned the waiver of the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws will threaten the survival of a number of animals by allowing the fence to be built through a 90,000-acre wildlife corridor they spent $100 million assembling in South Texas.

One endangered animal is the ocelot, a small wildcat whose remaining population of less than 100 is confined to ranches and wildlife refugees in deep South Texas.

''It's an animal under incredible pressure," said Nancy Brown, a spokeswoman for the Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge. ''When you throw in one more barrier, it's one more layer of disruption for an animal that already is on the brink of extinction in the United States."

DHS officials in Washington, D.C., confirmed they are negotiating the establishment of a mitigation fund of up to $50 million proposed by the U.S. Department of the Interior. The fund would pay for the purchase of additional habitat for endangered species affected by the fence.

Meanwhile, Texas landowners, including Roma City Council member Noel Benavides, say a proposed 18-foot fence will do little to deter illegal entry in the brushy South Texas terrain. In the Rio Grande Valley, 70 miles of fencing are planned

''The Rio Grande, between Roma and Brownsville, is almost 300 miles of river and you're setting up 70 miles of fence — is that going to do away with the crime (Chertoff) is talking about?" said Benavides, whose family has owned river frontage since the 1700s.

''Or are they just symbolically putting up something so they can say they did something?"

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, who chairs a coalition of border leaders, expressed outrage at DHS for not having meaningful consultations with local officials. In January, a federal judge approved a DHS lawsuit to survey city land before Foster and the city had received a copy of the suit.

''I'm just a yahoo from Eagle Pass, Texas, but this is just the absolute height of folly," he said.

Foster said his city's top crime problem is an occasional Mexican shoplifter caught at the local mall. ''If shoplifting is a matter of national security, we have a problem," he said.

DHS officials said they've contacted 600 landowners and held 100 meetings with local officials and town hall meetings along the Southwest border.

james.pinkerton@chron.com

Thanks Mr. Chertoff, please, just keep building.

More environmental degradation and destruction has been done by humans not at all involved with the fence construction. ... Not to mention, the masses of humanity scaling or our border areas have some noticeable impact on the local environment too, you know...

Keep building Mr Chertoff, please keep building.

You would think the tons of trash left behind by the IA’s would be of concern to the environmental groups. Oh, that’s right the environment isn’t important unless it can be used as an excuse to stop an unwanted project. Typical politics at work I guess.

April 2, 2008, 10:51PM
Final border fence impact report bypassed with waiver


By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press Writer
© 2008 The Associated Press

McALLEN, Texas — The federal government does not have to explain how the border fence will affect the environment along the U.S.-Mexico border after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived a law requiring a final report on the fence's impact.

Members of the Texas Border Coalition were told in a conference call with federal officials Wednesday that they will not get the long-awaited final environmental impact statement on the fence. Homeland Security said it would work from a draft study.

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the coalition, said they were told that some findings and mitigation studies would be made available to them, but not the comprehensive report required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

"What is it we don't want to show the world," Foster said. "That makes one suspicious."

Last fall, the Department of Homeland Security released a massive draft environmental impact statement, with maps of possible fence routes and areas of environmental, historical and archaeological significance that would be studied in more detail for the final document. A public comment period followed when individuals, organizations and other government agencies submitted their concerns and suggestions for alternatives.

The National Environmental Policy Act was one of more than 30 laws Chertoff announced he was bypassing Tuesday.

Amy Kudwa, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the agency had the draft environmental impact statement. "We will continue to work from that and will continue to move forward with environmental assessments." Kudwa did not know what information would be made public or when.

In a statement released Tuesday, Chertoff said his agency "is neither compromising its commitment to responsible environmental stewardship nor its commitment to solicit and respond to the needs of state, local and tribal governments, other agencies of the federal government and local residents."

But the move away from an established process concerned border area officials and defenders of the environment.

"If you use this waiver and go around NEPA, and then claim you're still going to do environmental studies, we would be wary of that because NEPA guarantees a process," said Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club in Texas. "They've kind of pulled the carpet out from under the community participation."

McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez, who participated in the call, said, "They say one thing and then they back off it."

Cortez was left with the impression that "they (Homeland Security) felt that they had done sufficient work, that there were no significant concerns out there and they could move forward."

Congress has mandated that the Department of Homeland Security have 670 miles of fencing in place along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of year to protect against terrorism and stem the tide of illegal immigration. Under the Real ID Act, Congress gave Chertoff the authority to waive laws that impeded building the fence.

As of March 17, there were 309 miles of fencing in place. The waivers announced Tuesday cover about 470 miles of the border in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Resistance to the border fence has been strongest in South Texas, where towns sit above the Rio Grande and families have strong ties on both sides of the border.

More than 50 Texas property owners have been sued by the government to allow surveying for the fence to move ahead.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5670466.html