Locked up: Sabal Palm Audubon Center remains closed

Brownsville Herald
May 1, 2010
by Laura Tillman

When you drive down the pot-hole flecked road leading to the Sabal Palm Audubon Center & Sanctuary, a field of silky green stalks of maturing corn sits to your left, the brown expanse of the U.S.-Mexico border fence stretches out in front.

At the end of the road there’s an opening in the rust-colored fence, which allows vehicles to motor over the levy to a vista of the lush wildlife sanctuary beyond. But when you arrive at the gate for the Sabal Palm Audubon Center itself, there is no moving ahead into the brush.

Instead a stop sign hangs here — and a lock.

Sabal Palm closed in May 2009 for the season with hopes of re-opening that October. But October came and went, and one year after the center initially closed it remains locked up. The center has been unable to secure the funding it needs to pay employees, thanks in part to a decline in donations after the recession began.

Owned by the Audubon Society, Sabal Palm is one of the last two remaining protected groves of sabal palm trees in the country. The other is next door at The Nature Conservancy, a private nature preserve generally closed to the public, which may also end its tenure in the Rio Grande Valley. In the case of The Nature Conservancy, the issue isn’t funding — its liability issues posed by the path of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, which places upwards of 90 percent of its property on the south side of the fence.

At the Sabal Palm Audubon Center, the fence has also raised concerns. Bob Bentson, the vice president of Audubon Texas, said that he didn’t know if the gap at the entrance of the preserve, for example, would be filled with a gate or just more fencing.

A spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers told The Brownsville Herald that a gate would fill the spot.

"New hours of operation," reads a sign on the closed gate of Sabal Palms, hopefully. But then the next line, "the Sanctuary is currently closed," destroys that hope.

Bentson says the Audubon Society is optimistic that it will soon be able to secure funding to re-open the center, though he declined to specify where such money might come from.

"Unfortunately the economy hit us hard," Bentson said.

You can still drive to the entrance of Sabal Palm and, gazing over at the sanctuary, see kiskadees, mockingbirds, lizards, and the famous sabal palms themselves. The shaggy trees have not lost their rough tropical luster. But Bentson says that if and when the center re-opens, it will need some sprucing up.

"She doesn’t have on her Sunday best right now," he said.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/audubon-111662-center-sabal.html

Border fence construction continues, takes out citrus trees

Brownsville Herald
October 23, 2009
by Laura B. Martinez

In a few days, retired farmer and citrus grower Leonard Loop will say goodbye to about 75 of his citrus trees.

In the coming days, contractors hired by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will bulldoze the trees in the orchard and clear the area to continue construction of the border fence along South Oklahoma Road.

The government condemned about 1.73 acres of the land paying Loop more than $24,000 for it, Loop said on Friday, as he looked over a small map counting the number of trees that he will lose. The condemnation gives the government access to the land to continue construction on the fence — work which began earlier this year on the outskirts of Brownsville.

Kimberli Deagen Loessin, Loop’s attorney, confirmed in an e-mail that U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen granted the federal government possession of the land for the fence’s construction.

While 75 trees are what Loop will lose right now, he’s more concerned about additional acreage of land that will be located behind the fence once its construction is completed.

Although the land could be considered useless because it would be in an area known as "no man’s land," the government doesn’t believe so, Loop said.

"Just because they are giving me right (of access) to it they think everything is hunky- dory," Loop said.

Loop is among several private landowners who sued the federal government over the fence’s construction. The lawsuits remain unresolved. Loop’s lawsuit is set for a jury trial in May 2010. It’s a court battle that has been ongoing for 18 months.

Hanen in May suspended some of the border fence’s construction in Cameron County after learning that the landowners were concerned that access to their lands could be cut off and their concerns about the types of gates to be used.

Also in question is what land the government would pay for, including land in front and in back of the fence that some landowners believe could become worthless and hard to sell.
Much of the land is farmland.

In July, the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed to amend its land condemnation motions against several private property owners — to address questions posed by them.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has agreed to make clear what property the government plans to take and where access to the land will be located.

The fence’s construction is part of the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which is part of the government’s comprehensive immigration reform to help secure the nation’s border. The Department of Homeland Security is overseeing the fence’s construction.

Earlier this week, officials announced that the Sabal Palms Audubon Center will be closed for the rest of the year, partly due to the fence’s construction.

The 557-acre sanctuary is located behind the fence and officials are still trying to determine how this would affect visitor access to the center.

In Cameron County, 34.8 miles of fencing is planned. As of June 5, 11.7 miles of fencing had been completed, said Claude R. Knighten, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C. Roughly 9.3 miles of fence are slated to be built along South Oklahoma and Southmost roads, with 3.4 miles to be constructed on South Oklahoma and 5.9 miles on Southmost.

Current completion figures were not immediately available.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/takes-104110-border-trees.html

Budget, border fence keep S. Texas preserve closed

Associated Press / Houston Chronicle
October 23, 2009

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A south Texas nature preserve won't reopen as scheduled this fall after it was left in limbo for more than a year by plans to build a border fence.

The Sabal Palm Audubon Center has been a popular destination with bird watchers and home to a rare native stand of Sabal palms along the Rio Grande. The Brownsville Herald reports Friday that the center will remain closed at least through the end of the year.

The border fence, which isolates the preserve between the river and the fence, continues to create uncertainty. However, Audubon Texas Executive Director Bob Benson says the more immediate problem is a lack of funding.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6682764.html

Rodriguez files bill to address ecological impacts of border wall

Rio Grande Guardian
September 22, 2009
by Steve Taylor

WESLACO, Sept. 22 - U.S. Congressman Ciro Rodriguez has filed legislation to identify and address the ecological impacts of fencing along the border.

The Healthy Borderlands Act of 2009 requires the Department of Homeland Security Secretary to develop a mitigation plan to begin to address ecological impacts of border fencing.

The move has been welcomed by No Border Wall, but the environmental pressure group said more needs to be done.

“Our borderlands are rich in natural and cultural resources, but they also can be places for illegal activity,” said Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, in a news release issued Tuesday. “This bill is the next logical step in protecting the ecological integrity of our borders while also pursuing the measures necessary to secure our borders and defend our communities.”

Rodriguez represents a larger portion of the U.S.-Mexico border region than any other member of Congress. His district runs from El Paso to Eagle Pass.

Rodriguez pointed out that as things currently stand DHS has no program to continuously monitor and mitigate environmental impacts. He said that as a member of the House Appropriations Committee he worked to provide $50 million in fiscal year 2009 to mitigate environmental impacts.

While DHS has agreed to work with the Department of Interior on environmental impacts, it has not initiated a plan to utilize these funds, Rodriguez said. An additional $40 million was approved in the House for fiscal year 2010. In order to ensure these funds go toward fixing and preventing environmental damage caused by border security efforts, a long-term program must be in place, he said.

Rodriguez said the mitigation plan will be science-based, incorporate extensive monitoring protocol and be developed in conjunction with state and tribal wildlife agencies and authorities.
Robert L. Bendick, director of U.S. Government Relations for The Nature Conservancy, applauded the filing of the bill.

“This Act will establish a comprehensive, science-based and collaborative approach to ensuring that the ecological impacts of border security measures along our international borders will be comprehensively monitored and that action will be taken to mitigate any such ecological impacts,” Bendick said. “We believe the Act should be supported on a broad, bipartisan basis and look forward to its speedy enactment.”

Rodriguez said the bill specifically authorizes DHS funding to be spent on private, state, tribal or federal lands for the purpose of mitigation and allows for those funds to be transferred to other federal agencies as needed.

Scott Nicol, a co-founder of the No Border Wall Coalition, said it was “great to see” that Rodriguez in continuing to support border communities, both human and ecological.

“As a result of former DHS Secretary Chertoff's Real ID Act waiver, which brushed aside federal laws including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, tremendous environmental damage that would normally be illegal has been done to our borderlands,” Nicol said. “Representative Rodriguez' bill, if passed, will mark a first step towards mitigating some small portion of that damage.” Nicol said it is important to recognize the fact that the extinction of species is permanent. It is impossible to mitigate the loss of the ocelot or Sonoran pronghorn, for example.

“The boulders blasted from the slopes of mountains in the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area that now clog the Tijuana River can not be put back in place,” Nicol said. “We should do what we can to lessen the border wall's impacts, but we must be aware that no amount of money will restore the borderlands to their pre-wall state.” Nicol said No Border Wall supports the Healthy Borderlands Act of 2009. However, he said stopping Congress from including a key amendment by U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, in the DHS appropriations bill is even more important. The amendment calls for hundreds of miles of new border walls. “So long as section 102 of the Real ID Act allows for the waiving of all laws - not just those that relate to the environment - border wall construction will be able to proceed no matter how devastating the cost,” Nicol said.

“Some in Congress still seem to be wedded to the border wall's symbolism, despite the Government Accounting Office report released this week that found no evidence that the wall has any impact at all.”

As an example, Nicol cited an amendment to the Department of the Interior's appropriations bill introduced just this week by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma. The provision would amend H.R. 2996 to prohibit the use of funds to “impede, prohibit, or restrict activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security to achieve operational control over the international land and maritime borders of the United States.”

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=25

If a Tree Falls in the Valley: The Sabal Palm and the Border Fence

The Nature Conservancy
June 22, 2009
by Clay Carrington

If a rare tree is leveled to make room for the border fence, will anyone care?

The moment the Secure Fence Act (H.R. 6061) was approved in 2006, the most important question associated with the construction of the United States-Mexico border fence ceased to be “why?” and became “where?” The fence — actually a series of intermittent freestanding barriers — is nearly complete, with most of the California, Arizona and New Mexico stages finished.

In West Texas, construction is well underway from the state line east to Fort Hancock, while on the opposite end of the state, building has begun on sections in the Rio Grande Valley. There, amid the resacas and thornscrub of South Texas, the finished fence will eventually trace the slow curves of the Rio Grande River.

More or less.

The border fence doesn’t strictly adhere to the national border — the Rio Grande. In reality, its path veers erratically inland — a straight line that disregards the natural curves and oxbows of an ageless river — creating huge swaths of the United States trapped in a “no man’s land” south of the fence and north of the border. The Nature Conservancy’s Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve stands to be bisected by the fence, leaving nearly three-quarters of the preserve in this no man’s land.

The merits of Southmost Preserve are innumerable:

• Spanning 1,034 acres at the very tip of Texas, the preserve is home to a wealth of threatened and endangered species, including rare birds, frogs and tortoises.
• The land lies under the Central Flyway, one of four principal migratory bird routes in North America, and the preserve’s thick Tamaulipan thornscrub represents a prime wildlife corridor for free-roaming ocelots and jaguarundi.

For years Southmost Preserve has been a haven for scientists and birders enticed by land where, in a single day, dozens of rare animal species can be spotted.

But the real prize at Southmost — the bedrock of its unique habitat and the species that helped earn the preserve the moniker “Jewel of the Rio Grande” — is the rare sabal palm. Once found across much of the lower Gulf Coast, sabal palm forests have all but vanished under the plow. While some scattered trees can be found on private lands in the region, the significant remaining stands of these towering trees are located at Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve, the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and the Lower Rio Grand Valley National Wildlife Refuge. All three of those conservation areas lie in the path of the border fence.

In order to save sabal palms that would otherwise be leveled by construction of the fence, the Conservancy is partnering with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and Audubon Texas in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to transplant palms to safe ground, one tree at a time.

The trees, which grow as tall as 65 feet and are up to 100 years old, are being uprooted and hauled to a number of spots, most within a mile of their original location, where they are then carefully replanted.

It’s a massive undertaking and a race against the clock. Each of the approximately 300 trees must be thoroughly trimmed and the root balls need to be unearthed intact to ensure survival. The project, which is already underway, is expected to last through the summer.

The security of our borders is of paramount importance. Since the creation of Southmost Preserve, the Conservancy has worked closely with the U.S. Border Patrol to allow ample access to the property.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to seize the preserve — or at least the narrow strip of land on which the fence would sit — the Department of Homeland Security has opted for litigation over collaboration. Southmost Preserve is now the subject of a condemnation lawsuit that, if successful, would allow construction of the fence and would require the government to pay for only the land on which the barrier sits, regardless of how much property winds up inaccessible, uninhabitable and outside the reach of conservation management.

Despite this harsh reality, the Conservancy, Texas Audubon and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service remain resolute, working throughout the intense heat of the South Texas summer to give hundreds of iconic, historic trees the best chance to survive for future generations of Texans.

And hopefully, if the project is a success, this scramble to protect the last remnants of a once-majestic forests will someday be viewed as the best possible conservation outcome salvaged from a very bad idea.

http://blog.nature.org/2009/06/border-fence-southmost-preserve-sabal-palm-nature-conservancy/

Conservationists say, ‘We'll take the trees, but no thanks to the border fence.'

Brownsville Herald
June 11, 2009
by Laura Tillman

On the outskirts of Brownsville, where subdivisions and strip malls give way to rust-tinted fields of sorghum, two environmental conservation non-profit organizations are welcoming what they call a "small positive in a sea of negative."

About 300 native sabal palm trees are being scooped out of the path of the border fence and transferred to the Nature Conservancy and Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving the trees, the only palm species native to South Texas, off of what is now government-owned property at no cost to the nature centers.

Bob Benson, executive director of Audubon Texas, says his organization is concerned about the environmental impact of the border fence, but that the preservation of these trees is a "bright spot."

"Obviously it's making good out of a bad situation," Benson said.

But while Benson is glad to add trees to the Audubon Center, he has bigger worries.

Recently, several ongoing lawsuits between landowners and the federal government raised the question of whether the government could close planned access gates along the fence in the future. If the answer is yes, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen has said that property owners could argue to a jury that the government would be taking not some but all of their property.

Since the Sabal Palm Audubon Center is slated to be entirely behind the border fence once it is built, the center must have a reliable access gate to remain open to the public.

"We've been acting on good faith that we would have these access gates," Benson said. "We're happy to get the trees, but our main concern is those gates. We have to have access to our property."

Because the sabal palm sanctuary is entirely behind the planned path of the border fence, the organization never had to sell land to the Department of Homeland Security to make way for the path of the border fence.

The ongoing border fence debate has depleted tourism to the sanctuary by about 25 percent, Benson said, and he's concerned once the structure goes up the public might not realize they can still visit. So far, the Sabal Palm Audubon Center has cut back its hours and has closed for the summer months.

The Nature Conservancy, which is close to the sabal palm sanctuary, is waiting for its day in court. State Director Laura Huffman says she is still hoping that the conservancy property could be used as testing ground for invisible fence technology.

"The good news is that these three organizations - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Nature Conservancy, and the Audubon - are working together to save these trees," Huffman said. "The bad news is that if our property is compromised by a fence, then all the good we've accomplished will be lost."

More than 90 percent of the conservancy's property would be behind the fence if it's built.

On Thursday, mechanized tree spades dug snug six-foot inverted pyramids around the base of sabal palm trees and then removed them.

Then the machine dug out matching holes for the trees and slid them into their new homes. Finally, the corresponding holes were filled with the earth extracted from their new locations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completes about eight of these transfers daily.

Once the switch is made, the palms stand a high chance of survival, according to Maxwell Pons, the preserve manager at the Nature Conservancy.

Transplanting, he said, often doesn't work because there is too much wiggle room between the plant and surrounding soil. When the plant moves, fragile roots break, and the plant can't connect firmly to the soil. But with the accurate tree-spade method, the trees will integrate well into their new locations.

About 175 of the palms were destined for the 1,000-acre Nature Conservancy preserve. This preserve already has acres of shady sabal palm groves hugging the riverbank.

Pons, the steward of the refuge, has lived on the property for more than 20 years.

"I see more bobcats than immigrants," said Pons, who said he watched a bobcat run along the riverbank earlier that day.

Pons has seen jaguarundi, snakes, rare birds, and even the occasional ocelot on the rambling land that will soon be behind the border fence. The property is replete with history - both environmental and man made. The groves contain 45-foot sabal palms, some more than 100 years old. In one grove, a small shaded cemetery is home to graves more than 200 years old.

"You can't separate the natural history from the cultural history of the area," Huffman said. "When you stand at that cemetery you really get a historical sense of what that landscape really did look like. These ancient majestic trees are part of the beauty of South Texas."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/trees-98955-border-conservationists.html

Rare palms moved for border fence

San Antonio Express-News
June 10, 2009
by Lynn Brezosky

BROWNSVILLE — Some 300 rare sabal palm trees are being extracted and relocated to save them from being killed for the government's border fence, the Nature Conservancy of Texas said Wednesday.

The trees, some a century old, are among the last remaining from a palm forest that once flourished along the Rio Grande but was felled for farmland and development.

Most of the remaining trees are now under the stewardship of the Nature Conservancy and Audubon Texas. The latter group maintains a 557-acre sanctuary along the fence path.

With funding and manpower supplied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies, the trees are being replanted to other properties owned by the Nature Conservancy and Audubon, including properties that will end up south of the fence.

“For the time being this will at least provide them with a fighting chance,” Nature Conservancy spokesman Paco Felici said. “The alternative is to cut them down.”

The federal government is funding the undertaking, which Nature Conservancy state director Laura Huffman said was a way to “create as much good out of the situation as possible.”

Litigation is pending concerning the fence's path through Conservancy and Audubon properties, Huffman said.

In the Conservancy's case, 700 of 1,200 acres will be cut off by the fence. Questions regarding access and security on the south side haven't been answered.

Huffman said she feared the on-site caretaker could no longer live in an area severed by the fence, and lack of oversight could open the preserve to tree poachers.

“If we cannot continue to protect the sabal palms and the habitat, then the conservation goals have in effect been compromised,” she said. “Owning the tracts and not being able to protect the species is a problem.”

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/47575847.html

Environmentalists: $50M unable to mitigate border fence

Brownsville Herald
January 21, 2009

The federal government allocated $50 million last week to minimize the adverse environmental impact of the border fence - a measure that came just two weeks after the government sued one of Brownsville's largest nature preserves in order to begin work on the barrier.

Environmentalists in South Texas and beyond call the government's attempt at mitigation inadequate, pointing out that it might not aid fragile habitats outside of federal jurisdiction.

"Because we're not owned by the federal government, this money isn't for us," said Sonia Najera, South Texas Program Coordinator for The Nature Conservancy, which owns Brownsville's Lennox Southmost Preserve.

At the Southmost Preserve and the Sabal Palm Audubon Center - two preserves that will be bisected by the fence - officials see a simple solution: keep the barrier off environmentally sensitive land.

"The damage already done to the borderland's natural and cultural resources is dramatic," said Michael Degnan, the Sierra Club's associate Washington representative. "Border walls have caused devastating floods in communities and have bisected critical wildlife corridors."
But unlike wildlife corridors in Arizona, most of the Lower Rio Grande Valley is still unscathed by fencing.

Environmentalists hoped that once President Barack Obama took office, plans to build fencing along the Rio Grande Valley's wildlife corridor would be derailed.

But a spokesperson for Obama told TIME Magazine that the president supports the fence "as long as it is one part of a larger strategy on border security that includes more boots on the ground and increased use of technology."

If Obama chooses not to halt construction in the Rio Grande Valley, both Brownsville preserves will be situated in a no-man's land south of the fence. The Sabal Palm Audubon Center has announced that its doors will close after more than 37 years if the fence is constructed. For Southmost Preserve, it's a "wait- and-see" situation, officials said.

"I was surprised by (the Obama administration's statement)," said Najera. "Why are we spending so much money to construct the fence without trying other measures that would have less of an environmental impact?"

A portion of the newly allocated $50 million will likely be spent in the Valley to restore or recreate the habitats of native species, according to Rick Schultz, the U.S. Department of the Interior's national borderland coordinator.

But the mitigation efforts are aimed at compensating for the impacts to resources "managed, protected or under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior," according to federal documents. That stipulation leaves Brownsville's privately owned preserves with little consolation, Najera said.

"I wasn't happy about that," she said. "But the fence hasn't been constructed here yet. There's still hope in Cameron County."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/fence_93928___article.html/valley_obama.html

A Natural Treasure That May End Up Without a Country

New York Times
April 7, 2008

At the very bottom of this country, where the Rio Grande loops up and down as if determined to thwart territorial imperatives, there sits a natural wonderland called the Sabal Palm Audubon Center. Rare birds of impossible colors dart about the rustling jungle, while snakes slink, tortoises dawdle and the occasional ocelot grants a rare sighting.

After decades of reclamation and preservation, and after millions of public and private dollars spent, this has become a vital place in one of the nation’s very poorest cities. Beyond the busloads of gawking schoolchildren, the center also attracts birders from around the world to spend money the color of their beloved olive sparrow in local restaurants and hotels.

But if you yearn to hear the clattering call of the chachalaca at Sabal Palm, your travel plans perhaps should factor in the Fence. Yes, the Fence: that ever-encroaching cross between the Berlin Wall and Christo’s Gates (Artist: Michael Chertoff, secretary of homeland security, with funding provided by the United States of America).

The guardians of Sabal Palm fear, and with good reason, that in trying to keep out illegal immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security will soon be erecting the border fence just north of the bird sanctuary, effectively trimming this natural treasure from the rest of the country and probably forcing its closure. In other words, they say, a very thoughtful gift of about 550 acres to Mexico.

And this may be a gift that keeps on giving. Conservationists and landowners worry that the Fence will also cut across a river-hugging wildlife corridor that stretches over several Texas counties, painstakingly restored and maintained by, among others, the federal government.

Nailing down Homeland Security’s plans is like trying to spot the elusive ocelot. When asked whether the agency intends to build the Fence north of the sanctuary, its chief spokesman, Russ Knocke, said: “I can’t rule that out, but I cannot also definitely tell you that that will be the case.”

He said the agency had adjusted its plans in the past to address environmental issues whenever possible (although it announced last week that it would bypass environmental reviews to expedite construction of the Fence). For example, he said, a stretch of the Fence in the Arizona desert includes crevices for an endangered lizard — crevices “too small for a human being to get through and large enough for the lizard.”

Mr. Knocke said the agency would continue to listen to advice and complaints from the public, but he emphasized its desire “to move quickly,” given its Congressional mandate to install fencing and other security measures along the southern border by the end of the year.

So when will the National Audubon Society learn whether its Sabal Palm sanctuary winds up south of the new border? “I couldn’t tell you a specific date,” Mr. Knocke said. “But there should be no uncertainty about how quickly we want to move.”

Put yourself, then, in the dusty shoes of Jimmy Paz, 66, the weathered manager of Sabal Palm. At the moment he is sitting at a picnic bench outside the modest visitors center, trying to speak above some chattering chachalacas feeding on grapefruit rinds. Now and then he interrupts himself to point out the iridescent brilliance of a green jay, or to ask passing birders where they are from.

Montana, a few say. California, say others.

Mr. Paz, a native of not just Brownsville but “beautiful Brownsville,” knows the area and its rhythms. He says the Fence would create a twilight zone out of a swath of distinctive American soil, disrupt and damage wildlife and have the opposite of the intended effect: it will be the birders and other tourists — not the illegal immigrants — who stop coming. It may also put him out of a job.

“It would be like putting a fence around Central Park,” he said.

Mr. Paz remembers cycling as a boy to the “palm jungle” along the Rio to re-enact scenes from the Tarzan movies he had just seen at the Queen Theatre in downtown beautiful Brownsville. After a decade in the Army, he returned to hold a series of jobs, including police officer and windshield repairman, while the Audubon Society acquired parcels of that jungle to create a sanctuary to be called Sabal Palm, after the stocky palm trees of the Rio Grande valley.

Ten years ago he became manager of the very property where he once imitated Johnny Weissmuller — property that sits roughly between a bio-diverse preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy of Texas and a swath of land restored by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Combined, Eden.

Mr. Paz has come to know those who frequent this sanctuary: the buff-bellied hummingbirds, the long-billed thrashers, the ever-prowling Border Patrol agents, the river-wet visitors from Mexico, passing through. Driving the grounds in his pickup truck, he points to a telltale inflatable tube, discarded at river’s edge.

A decade ago, he says, federal agents intercepted hundreds of illegal immigrants a month on Sabal Palm grounds. But as border security increased, and as patterns changed, the number of interceptions dropped dramatically. Now, he says, not even 20 a month are caught, with very few carrying contraband like marijuana.

Yes, until recently life was peaceful at Sabal Palm. The schoolchildren and birders would come in. Mr. Paz and his assistant, Cecilia Farrell, would collect the small fee, sell handbooks, maintain the grounds. Come 5 o’clock, they would leave the sanctuary in the care of a wiry night watchman who has lived on the property for nearly a half-century. His name is Ernie Ortiz, he is 82, and he packs a .38.

What’s more, the relationship between the Border Patrol and Sabal Palm was quite friendly. Border Patrol sensors are in the sanctuary’s soil, in its mesquite trees, everywhere. And when Sabal Palm staged a hawk watch, the Border Patrol provided a portable tower for spotting nothing more than birds.

But now Sabal Palm lives from rumor to rumor, gleaned mostly from Mr. Paz’s chats with border agents and a proposed map contained in a draft report by the federal government. There will be a fence along the levee. A fence along the levee with a gate. A fence along the levee with a gate, and Sabal Palm will have a key.

None of these eases the concerns that Anne Brown, the executive director of Audubon Texas, has about insurance, city services — the sanctuary’s very existence. “Do we check passports?” she asks. “Since the fence becomes the new border, what are we? Are we in Mexico?”

Homeland Security says it will reveal its plans for Brownsville very soon. Until then, the likes of Mr. Paz carry on, unsure of the very ground they stand on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/us/07land.html?ex=1208232000&en=68d5f3566e8baca7&ei=5070&emc=eta1