Posted on 10/01/2007 8:35:48 AM PDT by vietvet67
ROMA — Noel Benavides stood on the banks of the Rio Grande, its clear water gurgling over sandstone slabs, and watched a butterfly wing into the small clearing.
A green jay glided down from arching trees overhead, disappearing into a tangle of thornbrush thicket that has grown undisturbed on this land since it came into his wife's family in the late 1700s. On this mile-long riverfront tract, Benavides has fished for alligator gar and crawfish, led his Boy Scout troop on weekend campouts and presided over countless family gatherings.
''This area has never been disturbed, and this is what they're going to bulldoze, this beautiful habitat," said Benavides, a 65-year-old merchant and city councilman. ''If we disturb this habitat, this ecosystem, it's never going to come back."
Benavides is deeply worried because the most recent map of a border fence proposed in South Texas shows the 16-foot-tall steel structure slicing across the length of his family's 150 acres of riverside property.
From Roma to Brownsville, the reality of a looming fence has set in among ranchers, farmers, conservationists, city officials and residents who live next to the river. Already, surveyors have been tracking down property owners, in some cases offering them $3,000 for permission to survey the land.
Reality sinks in A week ago, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published the first detailed locations and maps of the initial phase of the fence in the Federal Register. The maps plotted 21 proposed sites along the South Texas border where nearly 70 miles of fencing are to be installed, largely along a network of existing government river levees. Bulldozers will begin clearing up to 508 acres of land for the fence beginning next spring, with construction finishing December 2008.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Wow! 70 whole miles???
And of course, not a word about the environmental harm done by illegal crossers...
In Penitas, a riverside community west of McAllen, Maria Cantu said human smugglers have parked their car in her driveway more than once as they waited for undocumented migrants to cross the river. Her home is behind the city's water treatment plant and 150 yards from the Rio Grande.
''So really, I'm for it," said Cantu, who recalled one smuggler who drove across her yard and toppled the back fence. ''The illegal immigration back here is bad."
I stopped reading right there...
"*bleeping* green jay...?"
*barf* is too mild a comment.
Insanity is now the norm in many areas, it seems.
Since everybody owns public land, each nutjob can behave as if he runs his own little private "country". No matter what he smokes regularly, or what periods of lucidity he has between alcoholic oblivion...
Cry me a river.
I read & see pictures of the trash these Illegals leave..I wonder why Noel Benavides place is so pristine.
Will the fence cut off their river access?
And the crystal clear water comment makes me laugh. they must be talking about a different river.
Wait a minute. If the government wants to build something and needs to survey an easement on your property, I kind of doubt that they need to ask your permission or pay you money to do so.
Will the fence cut off their river access?
And the crystal clear water comment makes me laugh. they must be talking about a different river.
Will the fence cut off their river access?
Benavides is deeply worried , so move to Mexico!
Last I heard butterflies and green jays can fly higher than the often talked about but yet built fence.
Huh? It might have been clear in the 1700's but today? Whoever wrote this had a few too many "little green butterflies."
Not even. The article said "nearly" 70 miles which at the rate this fence is being built could be .07 miles.
Get over it.
ping
Good point!
Good advice.
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