Hidalgo County judge launches investigation into conflict of interest

The Monitor
January 10, 2015
by Jacob Fischler

EDINBURG — After a year of battling with the county’s drainage director on various fronts, Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia launched an investigation this week into drainage district subcontracts that went to a company owned by the wife of district Manager Godfrey Garza.

After learning late last year that drainage district contractors in 2007 hired Valley Data Collection Specialists, Inc., a company owned by Garza’s wife, Garcia sent a letter Monday to Garza’s company, Integ Corp., requesting an accounting of all contracts and subcontracts that went to the company since then.

“You, as the Drainage District Manager, are responsible to negotiate with the contractors we hire,” Garcia wrote. “On December 16, 2014, we learned that your wife is the owner of a company (Valley Data Collection Specialists, Inc.) that does subcontracting work for contractors you negotiate with… Therefore I believe there exists a serious conflict of interest in your part.”

In an interview, Garza said he would provide the judge with a response that answered his questions, but added that his wife did not own the company at the time it was subcontracted for county projects.

“We're going to respond back to him on the letter that he submitted to Integ,” Garza said. “And in response to the letter, we should be able to answer the questions that he has. Specifically, the question on Valley Data going back to 2007 — my wife was not the owner then.”

Garza declined to say when his wife did become the owner, saying he preferred to withhold that information until he wrote it in the letter.

But he added: “I never contracted with myself or my interests.”

The issue became public in a commissioners court meeting Dec. 16 when Garcia questioned Garza’s stewardship of public money — as has become routine at the drainage district portions of commissioners court.

“See, my concern is here you are representing us, entering into contracts with the contractors and then the contractors entering into contracts with your company — well, your family’s company,” Garcia said to Garza. “Don’t you really seriously believe that constitutes a conflict of interest?”

Garza said he needed to research the issue and could not answer at the time.

The two have butted heads continually since at least last January, when Garcia learned that an earlier contract with the county had paid Integ — Garcia believed erroneously — a 1.5 percent commission for work on the hybrid border wall-levee system.

Garcia and other commissioners soon thereafter sought to begin a transition to a new drainage district manager who could be ready to take over by the time Garza’s contract expires in February 2015. But commissioners have yet to settle on a job description for the new manager or an assistant manager who could one day replace Garza.

http://m.themonitor.com/news/local/hidalgo-county-judge-launches-investigation-into-conflict-of-interest/article_af2aa6f0-9932-11e4-a7b5-cba304796e84.html?mode=jqm

Hidalgo County approves qualifications of attorney to examine drainage contract

The Monitor
April 16, 2014
by Jacob Fisher

EDINBURG — The Hidalgo County drainage board on Tuesday sidestepped an obstacle to investigating an 8-year-old contract with the county drainage director’s corporation, circumventing the District Attorney’s Office and outlining the board’s preferred qualifications for a private attorney to work on the case.

Board members spent almost 15 minutes of a 30-minute meeting debating whether the move was necessary or prudent. In the end, after a closed-door session, they elected to approve an outline of qualifications. The move stopped short of committing the board to actually hire an attorney.

 

“We just want to make sure that everything was done with respect to what was agreed upon,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Joseph Palacios said in a Wednesday interview.

 

Last month, the board assigned civil attorneys in the DA’s Office looked into the matter, but reported late last week to County Judge Ramon Garcia that they saw a potential conflict of interest if they continued to investigate and asked to be taken off the case.

 

“Initially, we wanted to use in-house counsel,” Palacios said. But both the DA’s office and the Atlas and Hall law firm — the firm that advises the county and signed off on the 2006 contract — had potential conflicts of interest.

 

“So the only option based on the water code that we have is to go through a bidding process,” Palacios added.

 

Garcia shone a spotlight on the contract early this year after the contract between the drainage board and Integ Corp. came up for renewal. Garcia objected to Integ receiving a 1.5 percent commission from a hybrid border wall and Rio Grande levee system project that was not originally part of the county’s master drainage plan and was largely paid for with federal dollars.

 

“At that time, when they gave them that contract, nobody was even thinking about border wall, nobody was even thinking about levees,” Garcia said.

 

Drainage District Manager Godfrey Garza is the president of Integ.

 

“Integ did not just sit there and just go out there and get a check for no reason,” he said. “This project cost 200 and some-odd million dollars. There was zero overruns on this project, and that has a lot to do with the team effort of everybody working on the project getting it done.”

 

Integ earned $3.73 million in commission from the project.

 

Some members of the board raised concerns that litigating the 8-year-old and already-paid contract would be more trouble than it’s worth.

 

“How much is it going to cost us?” Precinct 3 Commissioner Joe Flores asked at one point during Tuesday’s meeting, referring to the hiring of an attorney.

 

“I’m not sure how much, but we’ve already spent $3,700,000 that I don’t think we should have spent,” Garcia replied. “But that’s something for somebody else to determine.”

 

The board is asking an attorney:

 

>> Be licensed in the State of Texas.

>> Have 20 or more years of experience with extensive knowledge in contract law/litigation.

>> Provide an estimate of time they’d need to work on the case.

>> Provide a more detailed report to board of directors within 30 days after engagement.

 

http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/hidalgo-county-approves-qualifications-of-attorney-to-examine-drainage-contract/article_64a434aa-c5bd-11e3-8a5a-001a4bcf6878.html#.U09T_0s4WM4.facebook

Hidalgo County tries again for levee cash

The Monitor
October 12, 2011
by Jared Janes

EDINBURG — Hidalgo County will try once again for federal reimbursement of more than $60 million in levee repairs that commissioners funded using receipts from a 2006 bond issuance.

County officials are planning to travel to Washington, D.C., later this year to ask federal representatives to re-introduce legislation to reimburse the county for its expenses or identify in-kind contributions and other ways to recapture the funds. The county’s congressional representatives have tried twice before to pass legislation to reimburse the county, but the bills have died in committee each time.

County Judge Ramon Garcia said he is hopeful the third time is the charm, despite the apparent intent of federal budget writers to cut costs.

“We’ve got a better shot … if we do something about it,” Garcia said. “If we’re going to wait for the federal government to send us a check, it’s not going to happen.”

Beginning in 2007, Hidalgo County invested slightly more than $60 million into repairing the county’s aging levee system, including about $45 million that was directed toward adding a concrete flood barrier into the Department of Homeland Security’s border fence. The county’s expenditures came after the International Boundary and Water Commission — the binational agency that manages the flood control system along the Rio Grande — told the Federal Emergency Management Agency that it would not certify the levees, putting thousands of Hidalgo County homeowners at risk of having to buy expensive flood insurance premiums.

Garcia said the county’s funds were “well-spent” because they served as a catalyst for a cash infusion through the economic stimulus package that was used to rebuild more than 90 miles of Hidalgo County levees, a project that proved timely last summer when the Rio Grande crested at its highest point in four decades after Hurricane Alex receded.

But the lack of a formal reimbursement agreement between federal representatives and former County Judge J.D. Salinas’ administration has left the county struggling to be paid back after putting the majority of its voter-approved $100 million bond issuance into the federal responsibility of maintaining the levees. The investment shored up flood systems near the affluent Sharyland Plantation neighborhood and the industrial area around the Foreign Trade Zone, but it left other drainage projects included in the bond issuance for flood-prone parts of the county without a direct funding source.

Hidalgo County commissioners asked two lobbying groups — Hollis Rutledge and Associates and Dos Legislative Services — to lead another effort for federal reimbursement. In 2007 and 2009, U.S. Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, filed legislation to authorize the IBWC to reimburse state and local governments for expenses on levee improvements.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains flood control systems in the interior of the United States, can reimburse local governments for what they spend. But the IBWC, a little-known federal agency that falls in the oversight of the U.S. Department of State, does not have similar authorization.

Rutledge told commissioners in a presentation Tuesday that he will ask for the legislation to be reintroduced and will also meet with members of the committees where the bills died. He will also explore whether assistance from the North American Development Bank, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other sources could be directed toward county drainage projects that weren’t completed because their share of the bond proceeds went toward the levee system.

“We’re talking about some serious money that we need to recapture from the bond election,” Rutledge said, later adding that it will be a “difficult process” to receive federal reimbursement.

Godfrey Garza, the general manager for the Hidalgo County drainage district, said passing legislation for local drainage projects isn’t unprecedented. A county lobbying effort managed to get its share of the costs for the proposed Raymondville Drain — a massive channel connecting northern Hidalgo County to the Laguna Madre — reduced from 35 percent to 10 percent, saving the county about $70 million over the life of the project.

The county formed a committee in August to identify the county’s pressing drainage and formulate a plan to fund them. Garza said securing federal funding for the committee’s plans would fulfill the same role as federal reimbursement.

“It’s important that we get those dollars back and use them toward the drainage system that we need,” he said. “If we can get state or federal dollars to do those projects, it’s the same thing (as reimbursement).”

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/levee-55596-tries-cash.html

Bond issue could help fix county's drainage system

Rio Grande Guardian
September 8, 2011
by Steve Taylor

McALLEN, Sept. 8 - Concerns have been raised as to whether Hidalgo County Commissioners can be trusted to spend money in the right areas if it is raised on the bond market for drainage projects.

Those showing concern, such as Alton Mayor Salvador Vela, point to the fact that $60 million raised in 2006 was spent not on fixing drainage problems in the Delta region, which is where voters were told the money would go, but was siphoned off to build a border wall near the McAllen Foreign Trade Zone.

“County commissioners changed their minds because of politics, to favor one group, a certain part of McAllen. They did not care about the poverty stricken people in the Delta. That really gets me,” Vela told the Guardian.

Asked if the people of Alton would vote for a bond issue if the money was used to fix the drainage system, Vela said no. “They would not. I would tell them. I would tell them not to vote for it. If I tell them, don’t vote for it they won’t. They know me,” he said.

Vela made his comments at the end of a meeting of the Hidalgo County Advisory Committee, which met at the McAllen Chamber of Commerce offices on Wednesday. The 25-member committee was set up by Hidalgo County Commissioners Court to advise on drainage matters and to disseminate information to the general public.

Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1 Director Godfrey Garza defended the actions of county commissioners in a lively exchange with Ann Cass, executive director of Proyecto Azteca. “The money went to build the border wall, not the levees that were most vulnerable,” Cass said.

Not so, said Garza. He said that by leveraging the $60 million from the bond issue, county commissioners were able to “merge” their funds with $200 million from the Department of Homeland Security in order to reconstruct levees in the interior floodway.

Garza said if the levees had not been repaired, FEMA would have decertified them, leaving Hidalgo County residents and businesses unable to buy flood insurance. “We saw the need or the (Commissioner’s) Court saw the need. They said, ‘hey, this (decertification) could kill the economy of the county as a whole’,” Garza said.

Discussion on whether Hidalgo County Commissioners should go to the bond markets again to pay for the renovation of the county’s drainage system was initiated at Wednesday’s meeting by Sharyland businessman Joe Phillips.

Phillips said a one cent tax effort across Hidalgo County could generate approximately $2.6 million a year. That money could be used as collateral for a bond issue, he said.

“If we were to do a 30 year or 40 year bond issue going out, one penny, just a penny, could basically resolve our issues in the western part of the county, resolve our issues in Edcouch-Elsa, resolve our issues in the other part of Precinct 1,” Phillips said.

“I am a marketer. From a marketing perspective, selling one penny to resolve our drainage issues to me is a no brainer and very easy to sell.”

Phillips said he hoped Hidalgo County leaders would “think big” when it comes to raising the funds to fix the county’s drainage issues.

“Hidalgo County is growing tremendously. I think people are aware of the recent floods and what can happen. I think people in the metropolitan area of McAllen are aware of the fact that some of the monies were originally destined to go to Edcouch-Elsa came in to protect the industrial base. But that does not mean we do not need to very quickly get in and make that right. With record low interest rates, now is the time, probably to think big rather than small,” Phillips said.

Garza said the board of Drainage District No. 1, which comprises Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia and the four county commissioners, agree with such an approach. He said the board was looking to find the best financing mechanism and that he could come back to the advisory committee in three or four months with such a plan.

Phillips said he has spoken to many business owners in Hidalgo County and he detects no opposition to a tax increase if the money is used to resolve the county’s drainage issues.

“I have heard people are say it may take three or four cents and that’s nothing to make sure we never get flooded out. There is a lot of sympathy, I think, within the business community of the whole Valley. It is not just the McAllen area or Mission area. We’ve got to make sure Edcouch-Elsa does not flood. We’ve got to make sure other parts of Precinct 1 do not flood. Everybody understands. The colonias were built, people bought because land was cheap. It does not matter. We’ve got to take care of them,” Phillips said.

Giving an overview of Hidalgo County’s efforts to improve the drainage system over the decades, Garza said the federal government has hardly ever come through for the county. He said in the absence of federal help, county leaders were taking the initiative. He said county commissioners are about to issue a ‘Request for Qualifications’ to hire a firm to begin updating of the county’s master drainage plan. He said the plan has not been updated for the last 14 years.

Asked by a reporter how much it would cost to develop a quality drainage system in Hidalgo County, one that would safeguard all residents, Garza said: “You are probably looking at anywhere between $500 million to $700 million.” Asked how much money the county has for such a project, Garza said: “Zero.” Asked how it could be financed, Garza said: “It is going to be a combination of state money, bond money, a project to recapture water where we would sell water and use the money to offset bonding needs so that we do not need to raise so much from taxes. We are looking at a bunch of different avenues that are out there.”

Fixing the levees and building a border wall is supposed to be the responsibility of the federal government. Drainage Advisory Committee member Virginia Townsend said she would like to see Hidalgo County recover the $60 million it spent on the levee-wall project. Garza replied that county commissioners are about to hire a firm that will seek to recover the funds.

One of the co-chairs of the Drainage Advisory Committee is Dr. Francisco Guajardo, a professor at the University of Texas-Pan American. When discussion turned to whether county commissioners were right to move drainage money earmarked for the Delta to the McAllen Foreign Trade Zone, Guajardo said: “I appreciate the business community… but San Carlos and Edcouch don’t feel good about the $100 million (bond issue) that was passed previously.”

“I do not blame them,” Phillips responded.

Guajardo said he would like to see more documentation about the state of the county’s drainage system posted online. “Let’s begin to post stuff that can help our community understand what this is,” he told the committee.

Guajardo also said that he and the other co-chair of the committee, McAllen City Commissioner Jim Darling, will be meeting with County Judge Garcia and the county commissioners within the next few days to ascertain the exact function of the advisory committee.

“There needs to be a clear communication between this committee and the elected officials. We need to understand what their thinking is. I see this as a reciprocal kind of communication. I do not think it will be a one sided thing,” Guajardo said.

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=20

The Border’s Merry Pranksters

The Daily Beast
June 30, 2011
by Brian Curtis


A few months have passed without a peep from the feds, so it’s probably OK to talk about what happened down on the border on April 1:

A silver Dodge Caravan rolled through the hot South Texas plains. The last Border Patrol agents had drifted way, and the four men in the Caravan were feeling pretty good. True, Ron, the driver, had a puddle of sweat on his forehead. But that’s because, as one of the men puts it, “Ron is a white boy.” The van pulled within six feet of the border wall. Ron and his team slipped out. Their work took less than two minutes. Then they were driving north again, with a studied nonchalance that stopped just short of looking at the sky and whistling. Someone muttered, “Mission accomplished.”

Ron and his men aren’t gunrunners. They’re artists. They’d left a piece of art on the border wall. Politicians have called America’s 600-mile fence a snub to a friendly neighbor or a necessary roadblock against north-bound immigrants. Ron English, the New York street artist, sees it as a canvas. “It was a virgin wall,” English says proudly.

English, who is 52 years old, is like Banksy without the camera-shyness. A large man with white hair glaciating down the sides of his head, English invites me to his Beacon, New York, home to explain the details of the caper. The usual target of English’s art is a billboard. He seeks out a billboard with a corporate icon—Ronald McDonald, say—scales the thing, and replaces the image with one of his own wicked devising. Some people call this “culture jamming”; English calls it “billboard liberation.” After the English treatment, Ronald McDonald becomes a fatso. Joe Camel lies in state in a coffin. Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, which enlists poor Albert Einstein as a computer salesman, acquires a new face: Charles Manson.

English began liberating billboards in the 1980s in Dallas, where, to hear him tell it, he was defending the populace from “corporate ballyhoo.” English is a relentless corporate noodge; he has been called the “Robin Hood of Madison Avenue.” But since those early billboards, English’s work has gotten so skillful, so deliciously on the mark, that he has reached cultural jamming’s endpoint. These days, his billboards don’t lift from Madison Avenue as much as upstage it. English’s “Abraham Obama” poster became a totem of Obama’s 2008 campaign, while his John McCain spoof was arguably McCain’s most professional-looking ad.

English paints border walls, too. Back in 1986, he painted a sweeping mural on the Berlin Wall. In 2007, at Banksy’s invitation, English hung posters on Israel’s West Bank wall, working under the gaze of Israeli guards with rifles. "I wasn't that concerned with being shot," English tells me.

What’s with the wall-painting? “Nobody has any concept of a wall,” English says. “But if we go paint on it, then all these people will come photograph it.” The border wall, like a Mickey D’s ad, can no longer sit sedentary in the back of the American mind. Once the wall is jammed, it loses some of its metaphorical fearsomeness. You might even begin to wonder why the wall exists at all. After he’d conquered Berlin and Bethlehem, English’s friends asked him, “Why don’t you go paint your wall?”

The heretofore secret South Texas border-wall team can now be named: English; his assistant Beau Stanton; the Austin-based artist Antonio Reyna III; and Joseph Bravo, the executive director of the International Museum of Art & Science in McAllen. “We did it,” says Bravo, “so we as might as well confess to it.” Brian Wedgworth, a South Texas artist and sculptor, says he acted as a lookout down the road.

An English team comes together haphazardly. For instance, Antonio Reyna met English in a McAllen bar the night before the caper and somehow wound up in the van the next day. To run with English, you can’t mind being arrested. (English has been arrested several times.) Indeed, as the silver Dodge Caravan made its way to the border, Bravo, the museum director, announced he had pre-arranged his bail money. This was the moment Reyna began to envision himself being thrown into a hole by Homeland Security officials. “The whole time I’m thinking, Why are we here?” Reyna says. “For the sake of art, I guess.”

Reyna led the men to a section of the border wall between La Joya and Penitas, Texas, two specks on the map with a few thousand residents. This wasn’t the San Diego fence that pols like to pose in front of, or even the El Paso boundary, where a 15-year-old was shot by the Border Patrol last summer. This was a forgotten realm of America. “All the buildings on the north side of the wall are boarded up,” Bravo says. “All the businesses are boarded up. It was cryptic. There was something toxic. Life had existed, and then the wall happened. Now, everything was dying.”

The four men got out of the van. Earlier they’d seen Border Patrol SUVs parked like predators in the tall grass, and they knew they’d be back. “Our window was less than two minutes,” Reyna says. The South Texas wind was blowing so hard that Reyna and Bravo had to hold the flapping poster facedown on the ground, while English slathered the thing with wheat paste. Bravo caught a glop of paste right in the eye.

The poster was typical English. It featured a two-headed donkey, one donkey head decorated with a U.S. flag and the other with a Mexican flag. If the men had paused to consider English’s message, they might have thought the United States and Mexico are linked by historical destiny, but that mulish policies on both sides had created the current madness. But nobody had time to think of that. They slapped the poster on the border wall, took a photo, and hopped back in the van. On the road, they passed Border Patrol agents cruising toward the spot they’d just vacated. Later, the men celebrated by drinking Dr Pepper.

English’s team also crossed the border into Reynosa, Mexico, where they unveiled another piece of art. It was a cardboard Uncle Sam, designed to look like the signs you see next to roller coasters telling you the minimum height. The sign read, “You must be this color to enter this country.” A photo of that piece wound up on Boing Boing.

So: Can we consider the border wall jammed? Stanton: “As far as execution, it could not have gone better.” Bravo: “It was wonderful. Tremendous impact. It put wind in everybody’s sails in the art world down here. It’s a little anticlimactic that it’s over.” Reyna: “Ron did shake it up a little. He added fuel to the fire. He was the rock in a pond and the waves are still going, you know?”

A week after the caper, Brian Wedgworth, the lookout, went back to the border wall. He found English’s donkey poster had been mauled. Someone had torn off the Mexican half, leaving the metaphorical “America,” here at its most extreme point, cut off and alone. Now that was an artistic statement! Joseph Bravo says, “At which point I thought, Everybody’s a curator.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/30/billboard-liberation-artistically-redesigning-the-u-s-mexico-border-fence.html

Officials OK final levee-wall segments

The Monitor
December 1, 2010
by Jared Janes

More than three years after officials floated a plan to combine the county’s levee repairs into border fence construction, county commissioners are signing off on the concrete barriers that serve both as a deterrent to illegal border crossings and a barrier against a raging Rio Grande.

County commissioners have approved certificates of final completion on roughly 75 percent of the 20.26 miles of levee-fence that were given the green light by former Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff in spring 2008. Only paperwork remains for the last stretch of work done by Ballenger Construction before the barrier is officially complete.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Tito Palacios, who was on the Commissioners Court when the levee-fence compromise was proposed, said the barrier has helped limit drug smuggling and held back floodwaters this summer. Although county officials were adamantly opposed to the fence at the time because of its socioeconomic and environmental impact, Palacios said the county’s solution was a win-win.

"We were able to push the right buttons in (Washington) D.C. with our congressional people," Palacios said. "Without it, we would have been left without the levee work
we needed."

Hidalgo County drainage district manager Godfrey Garza, the county’s director for the project, said all construction on the barrier has been complete for about nine months. The drainage district has been preparing the paperwork that is needed to certify the barriers as meeting the specifications of levees.

The International Boundary and Water Commission will use the county’s documentation to prepare the report that includes the barriers on the flood maps, said agency spokeswoman Sally Spener, whose federal agency manages flood control along the Rio Grande. The certification package will be turned over to the Federal Emergency Management Agency sometime early next year.

Constructing the barrier wasn’t a problem-free exercise. Hidalgo County’s hybrid levee-wall project cost roughly $9.5 million per mile — a $3.9 million-per-mile increase from initial estimates, increased costs that were covered by DHS. But the county still hasn’t been reimbursed by the federal government for the $82 million it invested in the hybrid barrier and other levee improvements.


Hidalgo County’s levee-fence barrier is part of 670 miles of security fencing constructed along the county’s southwest border. Only about six miles remain incomplete, mostly due to environmental or land acquisition problems.

But DHS officials consistently call it a crucial component of an overall border security strategy.

In the Rio Grande Valley, the number of illegal immigrants apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents dropped about 15,000 from 2008 to 2009, the first full year the barrier was complete. A weaker U.S. economy likely contributed to the drop in apprehensions as fewer had an economic incentive to cross, but DHS officials also believe that tough enforcement measures — including the wall — are deterring some would-be-crossers.

Rosalinda Huey, a local Border Patrol spokeswoman, said the levee-fence pushes illegal entries away from dense, brushy areas into gaps in the fence where they are easily spotted.

"With the agents we have out there, they’re going to be monitoring the wall," Huey said. "It does what it was intended to do, which is being a persistent impediment that pushes them out to open areas where we can apprehend them."

But Garza, the drainage district manager, said the barrier also had a significant impact in holding back the worst river flooding the Rio Grande Valley had seen since Hurricane Beulah. Without the attention that constructing the levee-wall barrier brought to the need for greater flood protection, Garza said, another $220 million in levee improvements might not have been included in the federal stimulus package.

Those stimulus package funds are being used to complete virtually all of the remaining work needed to bring the Valley’s levees up to certification. Certification will save residents in low-lying areas from having to pay expensive flood insurance premiums.

Preventing the high flood insurance costs mean most Hidalgo County residents will never see one aspect of the levee-fence, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo. Cuellar voted against the Secure Fence Act of 2006 that funded the construction of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

He said he never believed the fence was a cost-effective security strategy, but he added that it worked as a two-prong approach here.

"(The levee-fence) is serving a dual mission," Cuellar said. "One mission is for border security and the other is protection of life and property from any flooding we might see."

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/officials-44929-floated-wall.html?cb=1291214264#slComments

Former IBWC counsel alleges abuses affecting safety

Brownsville Herald
August 8, 2010
by Emma Perez-Trevino

While water seeps quietly under the foundation of the two dams in the vast water-management system along the Rio Grande, a whistle-blowing lawyer says he has important information that he hopes will filter to the surface before tragedy occurs.

The dam and levee system provides water for more than 3 million people who live along the Rio Grande.

The two dams – Amistad in Val Verde County and Falcon in Zapata County – are operated by the International Boundary and Water Commission, a U.S.-Mexican agency charged with handling issues concerning bodies of water, sanitation, water quality and flood control along the border.

Robert McCarthy, a self-described whistleblower from El Paso who was employed as general counsel for the U.S. section of the IBWC, says he was fired shortly after he made allegations of fraud, waste, abuse and suspected criminal activity within the agency. A judge has backed the firing but McCarthy has appealed the decision and says he is hoping his termination will be declared improper.

In an interview last week with The Brownsville Herald, McCarthy said abuses within the IBWC have compromised operations, including the safety of the dams and the levee system along the Rio Grande.

In the summary of his appeal, McCarthy states: “The agency operates several international wastewater treatment plants, international dams, and other flood-control facilities, all of which are put at greater risk by this tiny cabal (of some employees at IBWC in 2009) that sees no further than their own parochial bureaucratic interests, jeopardizing the health and safety of millions of border residents.”

Representatives of the IBWC have denied wrongdoing and say the agency continues to properly do its work in managing the dams and levees.



THE ALLEGATIONS

McCarthy’s list of complaints about some of the processes within IBWC in 2009 includes claims that certain employees:

* Solicited bids and issued a contract to construct levees with funds received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with architectural designs for which the agency had no contractual rights and which cited state rather than required federal rules and standards. IBWC received $220 million in Recovery Act funds for rehabilitating levees and for flood-control projects.

* Conspired to conceal mismanagement of the $220 million flood-control project funded under the Recovery Act, making false and fraudulent reports to the U.S. Department of State.

* Illegally subsidized a border barrier in Hidalgo County for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with Recovery Act funds intended solely for flood control.

* Chose to build a “cosmetic” levee with $37 million of emergency flood-control funds in Presidio to give the appearance of safety while covering up geophysical reports that the new levee would not withstand another flood.

* Issued an $88 million contract for an expansion of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Diego, Calif., months before Congress appropriated the funds, then knowingly covered up the violation;

“While senior agency officials help themselves to illegal pay raises, spy on their colleagues with remote surveillance equipment, and routinely abuse agency staff, levees crumble, millions of dollars are siphoned off for projects unrelated to the agency’s mission, and millions of border residents are put at ever-greater risk of catastrophic injury to their health and safety,” according to McCarthy’s appeal.

He also maintains that the agency has downplayed deficiencies at Amistad Dam near Del Rio and Falcon Dam near Roma, saying an inspection in 2007 conducted by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and technical advisers to IBWC found that the entire foundation of Amistad Dam needs evaluation due to the potential impact of seepage from naturally occurring sinkholes.

The reports show that inspectors also noted that Falcon Dam’s entire foundation was in need of further assessment, citing a problem with seepage.

“It’s hard to see what, if anything, has been done since then,” McCarthy told the Herald Thursday.



RUTH RESPONDS

McCarthy’s allegations predate the administration of present IBWC Commissioner Edward Drusina, who was appointed in January by President Barack Obama.

McCarthy is appealing his firing by the former IBWC commissioner, La Feria native C. W. “Bill” Ruth.

McCarthy says Ruth fired him on July 31, 2009, three days after he reported his allegations to an array of federal agencies, including the White House. McCarthy had been with the agency just six months. Previously, he had served as a supervisory attorney with the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1999 to 2008.

Ruth declined to comment on McCarthy’s termination but did address the issue of sinkholes at Amistad Dam and said studies are under way.

“We have been working on that problem and we’ve been with our technical advisers, the Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, and Mexico, and the preliminary report has been made,” he said.

Ruth is referring to a report that a panel of technical advisers issued in November 2009 regarding the condition of Amistad Dam and a plan of action.

“The judgment is that we needed to go forward and do additional studies and that is in progress at Amistad, and we were supposed to have gotten started looking at Falcon Dam this year.

“The judgment was that there was no immediate danger and that the dams had been maintained properly and were in a good state of repair, but that these other problems should be looked at, and they are,” Ruth said.

He said they are monitoring Amistad very closely “to make sure that there isn’t any increase in that flow or that there is no change in the flow being monitored coming from under the foundation.”

“You know, every dam leaks to some extent,” Ruth said. “I mean, that is just a natural occurrence. You will never be able to, in my opinion, completely shut it off. But I mean, whatever needs to be done will be done.”

He said that the longevity of the dams proves that they are of sound structure.

“Most of the dam failures that take place take place when the dam is first put into service,” Ruth said. “If there is a problem developing, you need to address it and that is what we are trying to do now – to determine if there is a problem or not.”

The IBWC has refused to release a copy of the November 2009 report on Amistad Dam to The Brownsville Herald, despite a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act.

IBWC’s FOIA Officer Eric Meza on Thursday declined the request in writing, stating that the report on Amistad Dam is exempted from public disclosure because it falls in the category of “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters which would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.

“Such record is privileged as reflecting the deliberative process of government, in addition to containing the guidance of consultants acting in the interest of the agency,” he said, noting that the decision could be appealed.



McCARTHY’S SITUATION

Regarding his firing from the IBWC, McCarthy has filed a petition for review by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

Ruth, the man who fired him, declined to discuss the matter, citing ongoing litigation.

However, in the July 31, 2009, termination letter to McCarthy, obtained by the Herald, Ruth said McCarthy’s conduct had failed to demonstrate his fitness for continued employment. He writes that McCarthy had not supported him or the executive staff in a “constructive and collegial manner” in Ruth’s effort to bring unity within the executive staff.

McCarthy’s petition on his firing already has been heard by merit board Administrative Judge David A. Thayer.

IBWC spokeswoman Sally Spener said in a written statement Friday that Thayer on April 9 denied McCarthy’s request for corrective action.

“Judge Thayer found clear and convincing evidence that the agency would have terminated Mr. McCarthy’s employment regardless of his alleged whistleblower disclosures,” Spener said. “Judge Thayer found that Mr. McCarthy’s employment was terminated after he prepared and distributed numerous factually and legally erroneous memoranda.”

Spener also noted that levee rehabilitation projects in Hidalgo County have been designed to meet federal criteria for the 100-year flood and that all construction contracts issued have been in accordance with federal contracting rules and standards.

In a letter she sent to McCarthy’s lawyers last August, Spener described the agency as one that had undergone a significant and positive transformation. Earlier, in 2005, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Inspector General had issued a scathing report that found the agency under then-Commissioner Arturo Duran to be grossly mismanaged and lacking oversight.

McCarthy believes there can be no changes within IBWC until it comes under the oversight of a larger agency, such as the Department of State, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

In October 2006, the Department of State’s Office of Inspector General wrote that the IBWC “is simply too small, too isolated, and too vulnerable to management abuse to continue without the protection and oversight of a major government department.”

“The Department (of State) was asked in early 2005 to provide its own solution to the oversight problem and could not do so,” the OIG report further noted.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/water-115220-grande-dams.html

Gringo Pass to Brownsville: Good Neighbor Board urges Obama to take new tack on Border Wall

San Antonio Current
December 2009
by Greg Harman

For a while it looked like the Border Wall was going to be a boon for Martha Gay and her Gringo Pass gas station in Lukeville, Arizona. Homeland Security’s subcontractor Kiewit was paying out $100,000 per month for Gringo Pass land to host a cement batching plant and store equipment. A water deal at 50-cents a gallon had the company owing Gay another $2 million in short order.

Then the flood came.

In the desert, water rushes fast over the hard earth like a sheet, seeking out low spots, arroyos, canyons, sinkholes. What the rainfall found was the border wall. Gay’s attorneys allege that after that water hit the wall it channeled directly into her convenience store, doing an estimated $6 million in damages. All of a sudden the wall wasn’t such a hot item at Gay’s Gringo Pass.

It may have been a freak flood in Presidio, Texas, that forced Homeland Security to finally reject miles of proposed wall construction there, but folks are still feeling jitters regarding the miles of wall constructed in the Valley across private property and through federally protected wilderness.

Nancy Brown, spokesperson for U.S. Fish and Wildlife at the South Texas Refuge Complex said wall construction has finished through the federally protected lands, but how it will affect rainfall and flooding is unknown. “From the beginning we have asked ‘What about hydrology studies?’ and to my knowledge that has never been addressed,” Brown said.

Eloisa Tamez brought a class-action lawsuit against Homeland Security through which she hopes to force the government to pay a fair price for her property. But if she harbored any illusions that a change of administration in Washington would help resolve the issue, nearly a year of non-action on immigration and border justice by Obama has disabused her for such notions.

“Obama and [Homeland Security Secretary Janet] Napolitano have done nothing but take the place of the previous administration. It’s just a new name with the same policies. We have been totally abandoned,” she said.

Now the Good Neighbor Environmental Board has come up with some ideas for Obama.

In a December 2 letter, the advisory board dedicated to matters pertaining to U.S.-Mexico borderlands environmental justice wrote that while the wall was “mandated” by Congress and had “some positive outcomes” that “the construction has caused negative impacts on natural and cultural resources. For instance, the wall has been blamed for flooding on the Mexican side of the river in cities such as Nogales, Sonoyta, and Palomas. Construction also unearthed Native American burial sites of both the Tohono O’odham and the Kymeyaay, and failed to allow room for migration wildlife.

In a series of recommendations to the President, the group urged that those elements of the REAL ID Act that had allowed former Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff to waive dozens of other federal laws to build the wall be repealed and that future “border security infrastructure” conform to federal environmental laws under the National Environmental Policy Act.

Border Wall activist Scott Nicol of the No Border Wall Coalition said repealing the REAL ID Act section is critical.

“Much of the environmental damage that the Environmental Board wants to address would never have occurred if DHS was required to obey all of nation's laws. It is because DHS failed to act responsibly from the beginning that there is now a need for monitoring and mitigation of the severe damage that they have inflicted upon border communities and refuges,” Nichol wrote in an email to the Current. “Border walls in Texas are in clear violation of the endangered species act, and DHS never released any studies proving that the walls stuffed into the Rio Grande's flood control levees do not put communities at risk. Hopefully President Obama will reverse the Bush-era policies, and implement the Board's recommendations."

Will actually grasping the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday convert Obama into a border-loving justice hound? We can only hope.

http://www.sacurrent.com/blog/queblog.asp?perm=70063

Hidalgo County levee system cited in IBWC whistleblower complaint

The Monitor
September 25, 2009
by Jared James

Hidalgo County’s levee system is at the center of a complaint filed Thursday by a former staff attorney at the International Boundary and Water Commission who accuses the agency of failing to follow federal protocol on major projects in the county.

Robert McCarthy, a former general counsel for the bi-national commission’s U.S. section — the federal agency that manages the levee system — filed a whistleblower complaint after he was fired in July.

In the 11-page complaint filed with a civil service board that investigates whistleblower complaints, McCarthy alleges wanton abuses of power at the El Paso-based agency, including illegal wiretapping of employees, a conspiracy to obtain unlawful pay raises and other examples of “gross mismanagement” by rogue employees.

Most notably for local interests, he accuses the agency of breaking the law when it contributed funds to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s levee-wall in Hidalgo County and for using county-owned engineering plans for repair work.

McCarthy, who worked at the IBWC for six months, said the obscure federal agency operates with little oversight from the U.S. Department of State.

“(The IBWC) feel nobody supervises them and they can do whatever they want,” McCarthy said in an interview Friday. “They’re an independent agency and nobody ever calls them out.”

Agency spokeswoman Sally Spener declined to comment on McCarthy’s case or his allegations, explaining they are part of a personnel matter that is under review.

The complaint does not prohibit the IBWC from continuing work on the county’s levees through economic stimulus package funding, she said.

McCarthy said he was fired on July 31, three days after he disclosed fraud, waste and abuse at the agency to four federal oversight agencies.

In a termination letter, U.S. IBWC Commissioner Bill Ruth said McCarthy was fired for failing to act in a constructive and collegial manner with the rest of the staff.

McCarthy’s whistleblower complaint says the agency violated a federal statute prohibiting cost-sharing between two federal agencies when the IBWC contributed $1.75 million in funds for a section of the levee-wall near the Hidalgo pump house.

Cost-sharing with Homeland Security — the federal agency tasked with building the border wall — created substantial risk “because the agency (IBWC) was funded to build flood control barriers, not border barriers,” according to the complaint.

McCarthy also alleges the agency solicited bids for a levee contract under the economic stimulus package using engineering plans prepared for Hidalgo County.

Proceeding based on designs prepared to state regulations for Hidalgo County — instead of to federal regulations — exposes the agency to the risk of design failures or contractual disputes, he said.

Godfrey Garza, the general manager for Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1, said plans for a levee section near Granjeno were turned over to the IBWC with the county’s full support for the agency’s work.

Acting on McCarthy’s behalf, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility — a Washington, D.C.-based group that works to uphold environmental laws — filed the whistleblower retaliation complaint with the Merit Systems Protection Board, demanding his immediate reinstatement.

The board will hear the case within 120 days, said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. The State Department Office of Inspector General is investigating the claims McCarthy made before he was fired.

Last month, a news release from PEER labeled the IBWC the worst agency in the federal government, citing a 2005 State Department Office of Inspector General report that concluded “internal management problems have engulfed (the agency), threatening its essential responsibilities for flood control and water management in the American Southwest.”

Spener, the IBWC spokeswoman, responded in writing that problems identified in the 4-year-old report were cleaned up after the White House asked a former commissioner to step down following its release.

Arturo Duran left the post in late August 2005 after serving as commissioner since the prior year.

He confirmed to various news outlets that the White House had asked him to resign in the wake of a scathing report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General. The report accused Duran of mismanagement and questioned his financial and personnel decisions, saying the agency was consequently in “disarray.”

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/county-31031-hidalgo-levee.html

Fired lawyer complains of border agency misconduct

Associated Press / Houston Chronicle
September 24, 2009
by Michelle Roberts

SAN ANTONIO — A former lawyer for the little-known federal agency that helps control the flow of the Rio Grande and the U.S. boundary with Mexico said Thursday that he was fired after complaining of gross mismanagement, including funds misappropriation and repair of levees that the agency knew would be useless.

Robert McCarthy was fired as general counsel from the International Boundary and Water Commission in July, days after he disclosed his concerns to federal auditing agencies. He complained to the auditing agency after IBWC leadership ignored several written opinions, he said.

"I felt like I was talking to a brick wall. I did put several opinions in writing as these issues were surfacing and never received any positive response," said McCarthy.

Commissioner C.W. "Bill" Ruth, appointed by President George W. Bush in November after the previous commissioner died in a plane crash, cited those opinions in his termination letter, accusing McCarthy of "failure to support me or other members of the executive staff in a constructive or collegial manner."

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that advocates for government employees, filed a whistle-blower retaliation complaint Thursday on behalf of McCarthy with the Merit Systems Protection Board. An administrative judge will hear the case and make a recommendation to the board on whether McCarthy should get his job back.

IBWC spokeswoman Sally Spener said the agency, headquartered in El Paso, could not comment on McCarthy's case or allegations because they were part of a personnel matter and under litigation.

McCarthy, who spent eight years as an Interior Department lawyer before joining the IBWC in January, said he was ordered to sign a cost-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security on the construction of levees that would help settle a fight over the border fence in the Rio Grande Valley. But McCarthy felt the arrangement violated federal law prohibiting one agency from subsidizing the purposes of another agency.

In the case of misappropriated funds, "an employee who doesn't report that is just as liable as one who approves it," he said.

McCarthy said he was also concerned about the agency's decision to repair levees in Presidio, Texas, the site of flooding last fall. The agency had consultant reports saying the levees couldn't be repaired and will be undermined by flooding again, but went ahead anyway.

"I call that a 'cosmetic levee.' It looks like they've done something but they haven't," he said.

McCarthy's personnel complaint filed with the merit system board paints the IBWC as an agency plagued by rogue employees and lax standards. Among the other accusations:

_ An executive staff member wiretapped a group of employees after he didn't get a job he wanted in the agency.

_ Several employees received unlawful salary increases over the objections of personnel staff.

_ A pair of executive staff members made false anonymous reports to the State Department about an engineer who attempted to implement changes at the agency.

_ A multimillion-dollar levee contract was solicited under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act without using federal standards, instead plugging in specifications from a local project that may not comply with federal rules.

IBWC, a binational agency responsible for maintaining the international border, is part of the State Department for funding purposes but is supposed to answer directly to the president.

Based on McCarthy's allegations, the General Accounting Office has an investigation pending and is coordinating with the State Department Office of Inspector General.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6635382.html#

Granjeno levee-wall is not keeping out immigrants, says community leader

Rio Grande Guardian
July 21, 2009
by Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez

McALLEN, July 21 - The hybrid border levee-wall in Granjeno has not stopped undocumented immigrants entering the U.S. from Mexico and the number of crossers may actually have gone up since it was built.

That is the view of Gloria Garza, who led the fight to stop a border wall being built in the tiny border town south of Mission, Texas.

“We are actually now getting more illegals coming in, but now they are going around the levee-wall, which is a few feet away from my house. Now, they are coming in, in bunches of 50 or 100 people. Before you would see one or two,” Garza said.

Garza made her comments in an exclusive interview with the Guardian while attending the South Texas premiere of ‘The Wall” at Cine El Rey in McAllen. The new film is directed by New York-based filmmaker Ricardo Martinez. Garza is featured prominently in the documentary.

Garza and other Granjeno residents put up fierce resistance to the Department of Homeland Security in 2007 and 2008 when the first government maps came out showing a border wall being erected in their backyards.

They told DHS their property is sacred and pointed to land grants issued to their ancestors by the King of Spain. Granjeno, which lies on the banks of the Rio Grande six miles south of Mission, was established by three “porciones” granted by King Carlos III of Spain in 1767. Many of its 450-odd residents can trace their family roots back to three land grant families.

In the end, the government did not build a border wall in Granjeno. Instead, the nearby levee was reinforced and heightened with a concrete wall.

Garza said the levee-wall may be protecting the town from flooding but it is not doing anything to deter immigrants from coming in from Mexico. “How can you build a wall that ends at the city limits? Those coming over just have to go around it,” Garza said.

Garza recalled an unexpected visit to her house by a pregnant woman from Guatemala. The young woman had just climbed the levee-wall.

“I asked her how she did it and she said, ‘I don’t know, I just climbed it.’ I told her, ‘you could have walked around it because there is no fence or nothing at the city limit’,” Garza said.

“She said she and two guys had been followed by Border Patrol but she got away. She was pregnant and yet she climbed the fence. She called me once from New York to thank me because, she said, I was nicer. It was cold that morning. Last I heard she was in New York, coming in from Guatemala.”

Garza said although Granjeno has been spared a border wall, opposition to the project is as strong as ever in the town. “The border wall is nothing but a waste of taxpayers’ money and everybody knows it. In Granjeno, it was just plain politics. And, it does not work. If they have a river as a barrier and that does not stop them, how can a wall stop them?” Garza said.

One personal problem Garza has with the levee-wall is that since it was built Internet and TV reception has been spotty. “I had to stop using the Internet because it keeps kicking you out. We have been told it’s because of the interception of the levee-wall. I have asked around with various companies and that is what I have been informed. The same thing is happening with the TV. I am going to have to get a higher antenna. It’s not hurting other people as much as it is us, because we are closer to the levee, to the wall itself. We are about 250 feet away,” Garza said.

Garza enjoyed 'The Wall,' though she has asked Martinez to correct the name given to the mayor of Granjeno. At the end of the movie, Garza says she is thankful her property was saved but still says the border wall was unnecessary. In her interview with the Guardian, she praised the media for the attention they gave her town.

“I feel the land grants had a lot to do with it but I also think the media did wonders for us. I thank Stefanie Herweck, of the No Border Wall group, because the first day we were going to hold a public meeting she asked if we would like for her to do a press release. I said, ‘please do.’ The Guardian came to the meeting and then the rest of the media started to learn about us. I thank God because there always seemed to be somebody else looking out for us,” Garza said.

When the documentary ended, Martinez hosted a question and answer session about the border wall.

Anayanse Garza, of the Southwest Workers' Union, told Martinez and those in the theater that opposition to the border wall was as strong as ever in the Valley. Garza broadened the discussion to include immigration policy in general and pointed to the large turnout for the César Chávez Day march organized by La Unión del Pueblo Entero and Proyecto Azteca.

“There is still a lot of resistance happening. It’s not just people negotiated (with the government) and it’s over now,” Garza said. “People are taking a stand and our community is in the forefront, I think because we are on the border and we have been colonized. We see the need to put up resistance. It is there.”

Among those attending the premiere were former University of Texas-Pan American President Blandina “Bambi” Cárdenas and state Rep. Aaron Peña, D-Edinburg. “'The Wall' is a powerful condemnation of those who saddled our citizens with a very expensive boondoggle,” Peña said.

Peña said he was disappointed more elected officials from the Valley did not show up to see the premiere. Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada, who is also featured in the documentary, said he really wanted to go but could not make it.

“I told the director, Ricardo Martinez, that he was doing the job that most public officials were failing to do, even at this late date when the cost of the wall has skyrocketed and its effectiveness brought into question,” Peña said.

“I apologized for those in our local community that failed to have the foresight and collaborated to bring about the project. He (Martinez) remained humble and was startled by the reception and praise he was receiving by the attendees.”

Peña urged Valley residents to purchase ‘The Wall’ when it comes out on DVD.

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=28

The Great Fence of Texas

The Daily Beast
June 25, 2009
by Bryan Curtis

Turning his attention briefly from Iran, health care, and the economy, the president takes on immigration Thursday. To get an understanding of the debate, The Daily Beast’s Bryan Curtis took a drive along the still-unfinished Texas border fence.

As President Obama convenes his first major White House meeting Thursday to talk about immigration, it’s worth turning your eyes to Texas. That’s where the final 40 miles of the U.S.-Mexico Border Fence, the object of much controversy three years ago, are being constructed. I went to Texas not long ago to see how the fence was working and what clues it offered for what figures to be one of the fiercest political debates in the Obama presidency.

Two things stand out about the border fence. First, after two years of construction, no one has any idea whether it’s a success. And, in an ironic twist, it’s the Democrats, rather than pro-fence Republicans, who now have an incentive to call it one.

Obama’s White House immigration meeting is a mysterious affair. “I don’t know what to expect, exactly,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California who was planning to attend.

There is no public guest list; the veil of secrecy reflects just how delicately Obama is approaching comprehensive immigration reform. To this point, his position, like that of many Democrats, has been “security first”—keep out new undocumented immigrants and then try to create a path to citizenship for the 12 million already in the country.

As I saw in Texas, “security” is harder to pull off than it sounds. The border fence is not a contiguous fence that spans the 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexican border but a 670-mile partial barrier of varying heights, shapes, and materials. As you drive through the South Texas floodplain, you can see the fence rising up to cordon off small towns like Hidalgo and Granjeno, and then disappearing for miles before rising again.

I drove out to a section of the fence south of Donna, Texas, with an anti-fence activist named Scott Nicol. By Texas standards, it wasn’t an unreasonably hot day. We turned south off a farm-to-market road, drove down a dirt path past a sorghum field, and there was the fence, dramatically rising out of the earth. It was picket-style, made of rusted iron bars a few inches apart. It was 18 feet high. Placed next to the crops and tractors, it looked like the Department of Homeland Security had erected an audacious modern art installation.

“It’s like Christo working with an Eastern Bloc budget,” Mark Clark, a Brownsville art gallery owner, had told me.

The fence certainly looked impenetrable—that is, until I took a couple steps to the east, where it ended abruptly. There was nothing there for several hundred feet except a dirt road and irrigation ditch, plenty of room for an immigrant to sneak through. Or the enterprising immigrant could turn west and walk nine-tenths of a mile, where the fence stopped again. Past the western edge of the fence, there was a gap measuring 15 or 20 miles.

These gaps are by design. The Border Patrol hopes that partial fencing will direct immigrants into the gaps, where they can be apprehended more easily. Nicol and I had parked our SUVs at the fence’s eastern gap. We stood around for 45 minutes, taking pictures and looking like the world’s most hapless coyotes. We didn’t see a single Border Patrol agent.

Feeling emboldened, we got into our SUVs and drove right past the fence, going south, as if we were sneaking into Mexico. We were behind the fence for 20 more minutes. No one bothered us there, either.

As it turns out, this was one of the more uncreative ways to penetrate the border fence. Rick Cardoza, who operates a general store in nearby Granjeno, Texas, describes a scheme in which immigrants appropriated the forklift of the contractor building the fence and used it like an elevator. Mike Perez, the city manager of McAllen, Texas, was crossing the Hidalgo International Bridge not long ago when he saw several immigrants form a human ladder, like circus acrobats. Those lacking in fence-scaling athleticism, Perez notes, “just go around it.”

These, of course, are anecdotal examples, but anecdotes are all Congress has to go on for now. The big problem with the border fence is that there’s no mathematical way to tell if it’s working. In the last year, the number of undocumented Mexicans entering the United States has fallen between 35 percent and 45 percent. But analysts say this has mostly to do with the putrid state of the American economy—there’s no work here, so fewer people are inclined to come at all. (Immigration also plummeted during the 2001 recession.) The fence’s real test comes when the economy recovers and immigrants once again approach the border.

Even fence proponents like Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, say it’s much too early to judge how many people the fence is keeping out. “We certainly don’t know now,” he told me, “and it’s going to be a long time before we can venture estimates.”

Back in Washington, D.C., you might think this kind of data would lead to caution. It hasn’t. Democrats desperately want another shot at comprehensive immigration reform. To get it, they feel compelled to demonstrate that the “security first” policy has been validated—that border defenses are working. Sen. Charles Schumer recently declared, “By several measures, the border is far more secure than it has ever been.”

Lofgren, who voted against the Secure Fence Act in 2006, echoes that idea. “The number of unlawful entries is dropping tremendously,” she told me. “People say it’s the economy, but professionals believe it is strongly related to how difficult it now is to make an unlawful entry.”

This topsy-turvy portfolio has been plopped onto the desk of President Obama, whose political capital is already being siphoned away by the stimulus, health care, and other legislative priorities. Obama declared last Friday that he supports comprehensive immigration reform. By that afternoon, his press secretary had admitted he didn’t have the votes.

Thursday’s much-anticipated White House meeting was slated to be a feeling-out period for attendees like Lofgren, who were curious about where Obama would come down. “The most helpful thing for me to hear from the president directly is the scope of his planning and what timetable he has in mind,” she said.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-06-25/obamas-border-conundrum/?cid=hp:mainpromo7

City Says Border Wall Increasing Crime

KRGV Channel 5
June 12, 2009
by Lisa Cortez

GRANJENO - Residents say when the new border wall was constructed, planned gaps provided smugglers access to the country. One of those gaps is in the middle of town.

The city fought to keep the wall from cutting across their town, they won that fight. The government instead backed the wall up behind improved levees.

Now they say with the gap in the wall in town, they've seen an increase in traffic.

"We see a lot of things. There's a lot of illegal activity going on here in our small town," says Napoleon Garza.

By going through Granjeno, smugglers can get from the Rio Grande to Shary Road.

The U.S. Border Patrol says the gap is doing exactly what it was designed to do.

"If people are seeing more, it could be they see more activity in a specific area away from the community which it was what we hoped," says John Lopez, the U.S. Border Patrol Spokesperson.

Lopez says in fact, apprehensions are down in the Valley and in the area around Granjeno, proving there's less overall activity.

He does say if people are concerned about a specific area they should call authorities to alert them to the problem.

http://www.krgv.com/news/local/story/City-Says-Border-Wall-Increasing-Crime/vcgfxqeD7U2v02tY_JTuyQ.cspx

City Commission OKs border fence accord

Brownsville Herald
June 2, 2009
by Emma Perez-Trevino

Between a rock and a hard place - that's how the City Commission found itself Tuesday regarding the border fence between Brownsville and Matamoros that will be constructed.

There were two immediate options: either approve an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as majority members on the commission advanced or fight to the end as the mayor urged.

Majority commissioners Leo Garza, Ricardo Longoria, Edward C. Camarillo and Anthony P. Troiani prevailed, approving the agreement.

Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. and Commissioner Carlos A. Cisneros voted against the agreement. Commissioner Charlie Atkinson abstained.

The majority argued that the agreement allowing DHS the right of possession to 15.919 acres of city land, which DHS already has title to, provides the city with the ability to one day develop downtown and to complete the project called the East Loop, which would tie south Brownsville to the Port of Brownsville.

The agreement provides that DHS will build what the parties call "temporary" fence segments on the East Loop levee and between the Gateway International Bridge and the B&M International Bridge.

The temporary fence segments would be removed when the city constructs in their place a replacement barrier and relocates the East Loop levee. The relocation of the levee already is a component of the East Loop project.

Ahumada contended that the cost of the replacement levee and barrier is not even known, but predicted that the cost would be prohibitive. "I think the temporary wall is going to be a permanent wall," the mayor said.

"I believe we should fight DHS on the right of possession and hopefully come out with something better than what is being proposed," Ahumada said.

Troiani, through questions posed to counsel Charlie Willette, contended that DHS already has title to the property and that not entering into an agreement placed the city in the position that it could never recoup any of the land required to continue with its economic development plans.

Troiani's comments, however, also showed that he is very concerned that the agreement might not be included in the federal court's order granting DHS possession of the property.

Willette hinted that it might not be possible and that if there were any disputes in the future, these might have to be resolved in a court of claims rather than in federal district court. Willette predicted that DHS would probably object to attaching the agreement to the order of possession, but said that he would try to convince the federal court, where condemnation proceedings are under way, to allow this.

Troiani wanted the attachment of the agreement to be a condition of the agreement but Garza said it would be too risky.

Asked by Ahumada if he (Willette) trusts the federal government to keep its word, Willette summed it up: "I don't think we have a lot of choice."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/agreement-98637-city-commission.html

Wildlife versus the wall

Denver Post
March 26, 2009
by Claire Martin

There's just a set of raccoon tracks on the dusty road in one of Wendy Shattil's new wildlife photographs. You can't see the raccoon.

But you can understand its determination as the tracks travel steadily alongside one stretch of the giant, and controversial, border wall that is going up along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Shattil, a Denver photographer renowned for her wildlife images, followed the little footprints for more than half a mile as they doggedly followed the access road next to the wall in Hidalgo County, Texas. A river courses on the other side of the wall, sometimes close enough to hear.

"It's hard to tell what's in the mind of a raccoon, but it could have been looking for the end of the barrier because it wanted to (cross over)," Shattil said.

"That could explain why it walked so far next to the wall. The tracks didn't stray from the road the entire distance."

Shattil, a slim woman with a piercing gaze and a mane of dark hair, recently spent three weeks on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands along with 12 other International League of Conservation Photographers. Each photographer documented a section of the wall between San Diego, Calif., and Brownsville, Texas.

Her trip to the borderlands produced a portfolio that illustrates how the formidable wall, designed to deter illegal border crossings, is also blocking ancient wildlife migration paths and habitat on more than 100,000 acres of riverfront public land and wildlife reserves.

The public is divided on merits of the wall, to say the least. Proponents argue it is a necessary step toward stopping lawbreakers and preserving security. Others fear it will take a terrible toll on the natural environment.

To hasten the wall's construction, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived scores of federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.

Borderland environmentalists joke, sort of, that once the wall is built, the only ocelot likely to thrive in Texas is the Ocelot Grove subdivision, a housing development. The wall will separate a Mexican ocelot population from a tiny and increasingly inbred Texas ocelot community that wildlife preservationists say desperately needs new blood to survive.

Bulldozed access roads flank both sides of the steadily growing 15-foot wall, ravaging U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuge tracts, a state park, several birding centers and a butterfly preserve. Both the Nature Conservancy's Southmost Preserve and the Sabal Palm Audubon sanctuary are in the wall's path.

"People outside the borderlands don't have a clue about what's up with the wall," Shattil said.

"A lot of animals will starve or dehydrate unless they can find alternatives to what they've historically used."

Though birds can fly over the wall, the construction is destroying habitat hard- won over the past two decades by Ducks Unlimited, state and federal wildlife officials, and other conservation groups.

The refuges lured birds, and then a growing number of bird-watching tourists, who flocked to the borderlands to add to their life lists. Texas is the only state with its own Peterson's Field Guide, the birders' handbook.

Green jays, kiskadees, pauraques, roseate spoonbills, kingfishers and other rare birds — the second sighting of the snail kite was on the no-man's land between the wall and the Rio Grande river — have drawn so many birders to this part of Texas

that birding has become a commercial business along the border.

In acknowledgment of the wall's potential impact on wildlife, construction crews drape potato sacks and other fabric bags on top of the hollow metal posts that spike into the air. The bags are meant to protect the birds in case they land on the posts, one worker explained to Shattil.

Her photographs and others from the project will be displayed on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to proposed legislation that would halt the wall's construction.

"When you look at the wall from the ground, it looks like an artistic statement that will be taken down in a few days," Shattil said.

"It's such an anomaly. It doesn't look like a wall that should exist in the U.S. Especially in Texas."

http://www.denverpost.com/lifestyles/ci_11995806

Rio Grande town with new border fence says illegal immigrants still pouring in

Associated Press / Dallas Morning News
March 21, 2009
by Christopher Sherman

GRANJENO, Texas – When the government announced plans to build a new fence along portions of the Mexican border, residents of this sleepy town on the Rio Grande feared the barrier would cut them off from their backyards and even destroy some homes.

Nearly two years later, the project is almost finished, and the village of Granjeno has managed to hang on – as have the illegal immigrants who still pour through town by climbing over or walking around the nearly two-mile barricade designed to keep them out.

Instead of building a steel fence, the government agreed to turn an existing earthen levee into a stronger concrete one, which was supposed to both keep out illegal traffic and offer the village improved flood protection. The levee is now taller, with a sheer 18-foot drop on the side that faces Mexico.

"The wall is going to help us in the future for a big flood. We're not against that," said Daniel Garza, 76, a lifelong resident. "But border security it ain't going to help. It's getting worse."

This village of 330 people was founded on Spanish land grants in 1767, and most residents are descended from three families who survived the Spanish, the Mexicans and the short-lived Republic of Texas to become Americans. They live in modest frame houses and often take walks down toward the Rio Grande in the evenings.

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security planned to build a double- or triple-layer fence as much as two miles from the river on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. Residents feared their community would wither if it were divided by the fence.

The original plan would have restricted access to the river and to farmland. Parts of the fence would have run through existing houses or backyards.

By using the levee as a barrier, the government eliminated the need to take any private property.

Now the $20 million concrete barrier is nearly done, and families still still have river access.

But most residents say the barrier has done little to stop immigrant traffic. Some people have reported large groups of illegal immigrants simply running around the ends of the levee or climbing over the top.

Garza, who lives at the eastern end of the barrier, said he's seeing more traffic than ever.

"Up here you don't just see a few. You see bunches" of as many as 50 people, he said.

The fence does not cover the entire border. It leaves large open spaces between. When planning where to build the segments, the government targeted places such as Granjeno, where an illegal immigrant emerging from the Rio Grande could blend into the population.

The goal was to force immigrants into open areas where Border Patrol agents could more easily intercept them.

"It has diverted smugglers to the east and the west," said Dan Doty, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. "We have seen a shift in where alien traffic goes."

Doty said immigrants used to take a path that led them right through the middle of Granjeno.

"They're no longer able to do that," he said.

But, he said, the number of people apprehended has not increased.

Granjeno's only business, Cabrera's Bar, has seen a booming business from the wall, serving beer to construction workers.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-borderfence_21tex.ART.State.Edition1.4a60e8f.html

Ahumada: Meeting with DHS officials was 'positive and constructive'

March 6, 2009
Rio Grande Guardian
by Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez

BROWNSVILLE, March 6 - Brownsville Mayor Pat Ahumada says a meeting he and other city leaders had with Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary Randy Beers in Washington, D.C., on Thursday was productive.

The Brownsville leaders wanted to see if DHS officials are more accomodating and open to ideas under new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano than under the department's previous chief, Michael Chertoff. Ahumada said the answer is, yes.

“The meeting was positive and constructive but no decisions were taken on the issue of the border wall,” Ahumada told the Guardian. “I spoke in depth against the border wall and requested a moratorium on construction until an environmental and economic study is performed and a re-assessment of the effectiveness of a wall is completed.”

DPS would not comment on how the meeting went.

Congressman Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, set up the meeting. Others elected officials participating were City Commissioners Edward Camarillo, Leonel Garza and Anthony Troiani. Brownsville Historic Downtown District Manager Peter Goodman and California developer Sam Marasco, who are looking to develop a river walk in downtown Brownsville also attended.

The meeting was set up following a public outcry by Brownsville residents last month over plans by Brownsville City commissioners to sign a contact with DHS to have “temporary” sections of the border wall built. City commissioners said they were left with no option but to sign the contract. However, when Ortiz inquired if this was true the new leadership at DHS, led by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said they had not delivered an ultimatum to Brownsville.

Ortiz pointed out that DHS is planning construction of border fencing between the Gateway and B & M bridges in Brownsville, which lie directly in the path of anticipated downtown revitalization projects. He said the proposed construction will affect an anticipated East Loop project that would connect Port of Brownsville with Veterans Bridge.

Ortiz said Thursday’s meeting focused on alternatives to the current DHS plan, including designating Brownsville as a city for emerging border security technology.

“The current border wall plan would limit Brownsville’s ability to improve its local economy and infrastructure,” Ortiz said. “I am grateful that DHS has an open ear to working with our local community while finding effective ways to address our border security concerns.”

Ahumada said there was a difference in emphasis between his pitch to Beers and those of the city commissioners. “The commissioners’ agenda was primarily advocating solely for the developers, while mine was for landowners, environmentalists, river development, coalitions and citizens against the wall,” he said.

Ahumada said he also pitched the Brownsville/Matamoros Weir Project as an alternative to a border wall.

“The Weir project is a more effective way of securing the border and it will bring economic development and prosperity on both sides of the Rio Grande. It is needed to keep people from coming to the U.S.” Ahumada said. “The Weir project will create a river walk similar to that in San Antonio but it will be bi-national.”

Ahumada said he also stressed the need to protect the ecological, historical and agriculture corridor alongside the Rio Grande and requested that DHS start true and meaningful consultations with the Texas Border Coalition, a group representing cities and counties from El Paso to South Padre Island.

“DHS was non committal and mainly listened to us. As mayor, I thanked them and Congressman Ortiz for hosting the meeting,” Ahumada said.

Ahumada provided the Guardian with a list of 19 key points he presented to Beers. Here they are:

1) It is no secret that Secretary Napolitano is sensitive to border issues, particularly when it comes to immigration, drug trafficking, and all illegal activity that takes place along the Rio Grande River. We welcome and appreciate this fact.

2) As mayor I speak for all those who oppose the fence and firmly believe that any temporary fencing will most likely be permanent, unless DHS were to agree to build it, remove it and replace it at another location at their expense.

3) The Stimulus Bill does not provide funds for Levee / Border Wall construction. Funds appropriated to IBWC are solely for levee repairs and rehabilitation.

4) As mayor, I request that any lands taken from the city be assessed for their true value based on an economic loss and environmental impact study.

5) The October 2006 Secure Fence Act no longer requires that a Wall be built in Brownsville based on the Hutchinson Amendment to the 2008 appropriations bill amending the Act that allows Secretary Napolitano to decide if fencing is the best alternative and where the fencing should go.

6) As mayor, Brownsville has formed alliances thru TBC with those who oppose the Wall, which includes the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, along with state and federal legislators who oppose the Wall. The state is passing at TBC request has introduced a proposed Resolution opposing the border wall. We have also formed alliances with CASA, Valley Interfaith, land owners, and citizens from all over the Continental U.S.A. This alliance with TBC represents more than 4 million citizens along the southwest border region.

7) As mayor and on behalf of the citizens, I pointed out that the numbers supporting the Wall has dropped substantially after 9-11-2001. The knee jerk and extremist reaction for a border wall has diminished and will continue to do so, as people learn how ineffective and costly the proposed fence is going to cost taxpayers.

8) A Washington think tank headed by a former INS Commissioner has recommended border wall construction be halted pending a revaluation on border security.

9) TBC has filed suit to stop construction and is willing to work with DHS providing meaningful consultations with border governments, as required by law.

10) As mayor and TBC member, we believe DHS has not dealt in good faith. DHS approach is to reach an agreement with the City of Brownsville in order to divide and conquer land owners and anyone else who opposes the wall.

11) TBC has asked for a meeting with Secretary Napolitano, because meeting with staff is not the same, since staff is not able to discuss or respond to any dialogue by TBC. Meetings with staff are not enough at this point, because DHS staff can only hear us and is not able to respond to any of our questions or proposals to negotiate. Time is running out and a meaningful meeting with Secretary Napolitano would be beneficial before the wall is being built.

12) A Wall thru Brownsville will not provide the security DHS is seeking and it will be devastating to Brownsville in many different ways.

13) There are better more effective ways and less costly to secure the border. One of them being the Brownsville/Matamoros Weir Project, which causes the river to rise in dept from 12 to 26 feet, it will widen the river to 300 feet, and back up the high rise river to 42 miles, then will allow the river to be patrolled by high speed boats constantly and become a virtual fence with additional boots on the ground and sophisticated electronic equipment.

14) As mayor, I submitted Mexico’s State Department letter supporting the weir project as a virtual fence instead of the border wall being proposed to be built. This project will also help create a river walk and tourist corridor, along with securing water for Brownsville and Matamoros to 2050.

15) Building a Wall thru Brownsville will be devastating to our ecological corridor, which pumps approximately $150 million to our region’s economy. It will also adversely impact our historical and Agriculture corridor. A Wall will hurt our tourism industry.

16) As mayor, I believe this new administration has promised and given us hope for a meaningful dialogue and a different way of doing things with good will and transparency.

17) As mayor, I insist on the ecological and economical studies be performed before any more construction begins.

18) The citizens of Brownsville have expressed their frustration and lack of confidence in the Bush administration because it adopted secretive policies, demonstrated bad faith efforts, along with no good will behind the rush to build a Wall by relying on dictatorial methods.

19) The Obama Presidency gives us hope for a new beginning by granting a moratorium on fence construction until an economic and environmental study is performed.

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=27

Texas town survives despite new border barrier: Residents say security fence has done little to stop immigrants from coming

February 25, 2009
Associated Press / MSNBC

GRANJENO, Texas - When the government announced plans to build a new fence along portions of the Mexican border, residents of this sleepy town along the Rio Grande feared the barrier would cut them off from their backyards and even destroy some homes.

Nearly two years later, the project is almost finished, and the village of Granjeno has managed to hang on — as have the illegal immigrants who still pour through town by climbing over or walking around the nearly two-mile barricade designed to keep them out.

Instead of building a steel fence, the government agreed to turn an existing earthen levee into a stronger concrete one, which was supposed to both keep out illegal traffic and offer the village improved flood protection. The levee is now taller, with a sheer 18-foot drop on the side that faces Mexico.

"The wall is going to help us in the future for a big flood. We're not against that," said Daniel Garza, 76, a lifelong resident. "But border security it ain't going to help. It's getting worse."

This village of 330 people was founded on Spanish land grants in 1767, and most residents are descended from three families who survived the Spanish, the Mexicans and the short-lived Republic of Texas to become Americans. They live in modest frame houses and often take walks down toward the Rio Grande in the evenings.

In 2007, the Department of Homeland Security planned to build a double- or triple-layer fence as much as two miles from the river on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande. Residents feared their community would wither if it were divided by the fence.

The original plan would have restricted access to the river and to valuable farm land. Parts of the fence would have run straight through existing houses or back yards.

By using the levee as a barrier, the government eliminated the need to take any private property. Now the $20 million concrete barrier is nearly done. The houses have been saved, and families still have river access.

Increased foot traffic
But most residents say the barrier has done little to stop immigrant traffic. Some people have reported large groups of illegal immigrants simply running around the ends of the levee or climbing over the top.

Garza, who lives at the eastern end of the barrier, said he's seeing more traffic than ever.

Before construction began, Garza would see a couple of people run by his house at a time. Now they move in groups of as many as 50, he said.

"Up here you don't just see a few. You see bunches."

The fence does not cover the entire border. It leaves large open spaces between. When planning where to build the segments, the government targeted places such as Granjeno, where an illegal immigrant emerging from the Rio Grande could blend into the population.

The goal was to force immigrants into open areas where Border Patrol agents could more easily intercept them.

"It has diverted smugglers to the east and the west," said Dan Doty, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency. "We have seen a shift in where alien traffic goes."

Doty said immigrants used to take a path that that led them right through the middle of Granjeno.

"They're no longer able to do that," he said.

But, he said, the number of people apprehended has not increased.

'It's not helping any'
Gloria Garza, Daniel Garza's niece, said she's seeing more immigrants at her home, which is not especially close to either end of the wall.

About a month ago, she said, a young woman stopped at her home to ask for help. She told Garza she had sprained her ankle coming over the wall.

Garza told her she could have just walked around it. "So I guess it's not helping any," she said.

Other residents near the center of the barrier report a decline in foot traffic.

"During the day people would just run through here and at night it was constant barking," Idolina Guzman said, glancing at her dog. "I don't see it as much anymore."

Granjeno's only business, Cabrera's Bar, has seen a booming business from the wall, serving beer to construction workers.

Mary Garza, who used to work in a Border Patrol office, said a more effective solution would be to hire more Border Patrol agents.

Of the wall, she said: "It's not helping at all. It's only costing."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29393568/