At half a mile a week, Gov. Greg Abbott’s border wall will take around 30 years and $20 billion

Texas Standard ^ | July 9, 2024 | Jasper Scherer

[BeauBo]

Three years after Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas would take the extraordinary step of building a state-funded wall along the Mexico border, he has 34 miles of steel bollards to show for it... (at) a price tag of some $25 million per mile (similar in cost and capability to Trump Wall)... Progress has been hampered by the state’s struggles to secure land access... Nonetheless, state contractors have already propped up more wall mileage than former President Donald Trump’s administration managed to build in Texas, and Abbott’s wall project is plowing ahead at a quickened pace. State officials hope to erect a total of 100 miles by the end of 2026, at a rate of about half a mile per week.

[BeauBo]

From the Article:

"To date, though, steel barriers cover just 4% of the more than 800 miles identified by state officials as “in need of some kind of a barrier.”...

...Under Abbott’s direction, state lawmakers have approved more than $3 billion for the wall since 2021, making it one of the biggest items under the GOP governor’s $11 billion border crackdown known as Operation Lone Star. The rest of the money is being used for items like flooding the border with state police and National Guard soldiers and transporting migrants to Democrat-controlled cities outside Texas...

...The construction pace has largely hinged on the state’s success securing rights to build the wall through privately owned borderland... But things picked up last year as the state began working out more agreements covering larger tracts. Through mid-June, officials had secured 79 easements covering about 59 miles of the border... state officials were in various stages of negotiation with landowners over another 113 miles. “We knew from the beginning that this was going to be the choke point, you know, one of the most challenging parts of this program,” (Mike) Novak (executive director of the Texas Facilities Commission, which is overseeing the effort) said of land acquisition. “And it proved true. But we’ve remained steadfast.”...

...the pace of building about half a mile of wall per week is expected to continue for the “foreseeable future.” At that rate, about 100 miles would go up every four years... no Texas Republican has voted against border wall funding. Lawmakers approved nearly $2.5 billion for the effort in the state’s current two-year budget...

...The scope of Texas’ wall construction — and Abbott’s broader border security efforts — are unprecedented in nature, as the federal government is generally responsible for immigration enforcement and the costs associated with it.

Even with the state’s improved pace securing easements, Novak has said land access remains the biggest challenge for the project, and “it’ll probably remain that way through most of the program.” The Trump administration encountered the same issue... Trump’s administration built just 21 miles of new wall along the Texas-Mexico border. (Unlike the other States Bordering Mexico, Texas was not included in the "Roosevelt Reservation" of land along the border - it is mostly privately owned)...

...Abbott and GOP lawmakers, are armed with a huge budget surplus and polling that shows a majority of Texas voters support the state’s wall effort and overall border spending. More than 90% of Republican voters support the wall, with 74% voicing “strong” support, according to an April poll by the Texas Politics Project...

...It’s not just land access that complicates wall construction, Novak said at the June TFC meeting, where he ticked off a list of other factors: changing soil conditions that require “complicated engineering solutions”; steering clear of irrigation systems when building on agricultural land; weather; and “sensitivity” to cattle, oil and gas and hunting operations.

“It’s a difficult and complex task, at best,” Novak said. “But with that said, we’re whipping it. The latest stats reflect what I like to call just steadfast progress.”

[oldplayer]

Just think, instead of doing this, Texas could be spending 20 billion on a rocket train to nowhere, a la California.

[Leep]

Who’s on first?

Oh, different Abbott.

[9YearLurker]

By then we’ll be trying to squeeze our way out through the last open segment.

[donozark]

Much smaller crews. I believe at the height of Trump’s Wall construction a mile or 2 everyday. They were rolling along, then Biden screwed the pooch.

[central_va]

Do they take volunteers?

[DAC21]

“Just think, instead of doing this, Texas could be spending 20 billion on a rocket train to nowhere, a la California”

Yep, it’s year 16 in Kalifornia since the nitwit voters approved it and estimated it will be 100 billion over budget and nowhere near completion.

But but...the Rats media lapdogs yap that it created 9 thousand construction jobs. BIG FRICKING DEAL.

[donozark]

Union payola.

[Made In The USA]

How many miles of border has the potato in chief put down?

If I recall correctly President Trump has momentum on building the wall. Let’s get him reelected and get the ball rolling again. FedGov should be paying for this, because all Americans are paying for Biden’s incompetence of enabling an invasion.

[BeauBo]

“Much smaller crews. I believe at the height of Trump’s Wall construction a mile or 2 everyday.”

Yes. Part of the value of this Texas effort, is that it keeps the contractor industrial base warm, for when the next Trump Administration takes office, so things can get rolling more quickly. Companies are still making the bollards, and keeping the related design engineers working on the project. Experienced crews can help scale up more crews quicker.

Additionally, they are not just shooting in the dark - they are investing in the high priority segments first, that provide as much impact as possible.

[NWFree]

Because congress couldn’t find 5 billion for Trump’s wall and now they spends hundreds of billions to finance war and flood our borders

[ridesthemiles]

I noted in the beginning of Trump’s wall:

IF you open it up to experienced construction persons

IF you give them areas to stage their RV’s, etc. All along the border

IF you let them bring along women to cook & do laundry

IF you supply huge military mess tents for feeding, etc.

IF you bring in the Semi trucks with PORTABLE showers & Laundries (TIDE HAS THEM)

The wall would have been built within 6 months-—AND most of the VOLUNTEER labor would have made it all happen

[ridesthemiles]

AND-—DIFI’s Hubby’s Company has the CONTRACT-——

[Colt1851Navy]

1254 miles of border, think about that

[Captainpaintball]

That wall SUCKS. This Trump Chump Blump Dump style bollard bullshit steel border wall is a god damned joke.

And it is WAY too expensive for that crap. "Yes, Mister presidente,, I mean preident. we need a wall we can SEE THROUGH, señor, I mean sir. We need a wall where, if needed, we can pass drugs and bioweapons, I mean, have animals pass through! And we need a wall that can be cut down with a chinese angle grinder, I mean be tough and made of steel! (rubs hands, despite having a spanish last name)

You all must realize we are already dead. And to PREPARE to survive. We are incapable of doing anything anymore without corruption and outright stealing. That is what is going on here. there is no way a garbage wall like this is the right way to do things.

We are incapable of doing ANYTHING right anymore. Even the good guys are stupid and weak and can be tricked by the legions of traitors among us.

[T Ruth]

Moving in the right direction.

[Sicon]

The Panama Canal was built in 10 years. The Hoover Dam in five years. The Empire State Building in 13 months.

There is no greater illustration of how far this country has declined, than the idea that it would take 30 YEARS to build 1200 miles of fence.

[NorthernTraveler]

Have you been down to the wall?
I mean, right there at the base?

I have.

In March 2021 I rode at the base of the wall from Mission TX up to Roma. That’s about 50 miles.

Then in late March 2021 I rode from 20 miles upriver of Presidio to 20 miles down river. That’s just west of Big Bend.

Then in early April 2021 I rode at the base of the wall from Columbus NM east 65 miles to the commercial crossing near El Paso.

Your right - the wall doesn’t completely stop them.

That’s not it’s purpose.

It’s to discourage most of them from trying and slow down the ones who do try to allow the BP to get there to deal with them.
It does a pretty good job at that.

An yeah, they can cut a chunk out of a bollard... which they have done... but it ain’t easy or they would have done more of it.

And an administration that wanted to could have crews on call to fix such a breach in fairly short order.

This administration doesn’t want to stop them, so they don’t fix the breaches.

Oh, and the looking through the wall? That was at the request of CBP so they could watch the other side.

If I could have my choice, I would go with a Trump Wall with CROWS stations every mile.... remote controlled .50 cal machine guns.

[BeauBo]

“If I could have my choice, I would go with a Trump Wall”

The Texas Wall is essentially Trump Wall - which in turn is essentially the whole of the Border Patrol’s Wish List for a barrier system.

The barrier itself is tall and durable, but it has clear fields of observation on both sides, and is wired with lights, cameras and a suite of sensors that can detect footsteps, motion, tunneling, sawing or hammering of bollards, and the sound of drones flying - all fed into integrated screens at Border Patrol Command posts. An alarm flashes on the screen, and the guy on watch can zoom a camera right onto the spot. All weather Patrol roads enable rapid response and maintenance.

[Captainpaintball]

HUGE REINFORCED CONCRETE/STONE wall. Like Israel. You know, the country who brings/dumps the turd world on the west, but mention so much as intermarriage!!! OY!!!

Walkable, with turret towers every half mile. Behind that, 10-50 foot DITCH with scraps of the bollard bullcrap wall dumped inside the ditch.. Barbed wire behind that. Breaks every couple of miles or so to allow for animal migration, but with a gate, and manned 24/7. Shoot to kill man, woman or child. Bollards in the rio grande.