Some border wall protestors planning a campaign of civil disobedience

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Some border wall protestors planning a campaign of civil disobedience

By Joey Gomez and Steve Taylor

So far, protests against the border wall in the Rio Grande Valley have been peaceful and lawful, such as this event in Brownsville last December. (File photo: RGG/Steve Taylor)


EDINBURG, June 6 - Some opponents of the border fence are preparing civil disobedience when the bulldozers move into the Rio Grande Valley late next month.


Speaking in an individual capacity, members of the No Border Wall coalition told the Guardian that a number of protests are planned, both locally and nationally. Members of the group made the comments after speaking out against the levee-wall plan at this week’s Hidalgo County Commissioner’s Court meeting.


“There are people ready to do civil disobedience, people who have experience in doing civil disobedience, who are not afraid to do that,” said No Border Wall coalition member Ann Cass.


“We are going to gear up our actions through July 27, that’s when they said they will start building the fence.”


Asked what civil disobedience is, Cass responded: “Civil disobedience is when you are willing to break a law and you know in your conscience that the law is a bad law and what they (the government) are doing is bad.”


Cass was quick to point out that not all No Border Wall group members would participate in civil disobedience. “It is very important to know that civil disobedience is not being endorsed by the Coalition but there are groups in the Coalition that are willing to do that,” she said.


Cass said membership of the No Border Wall group is growing. “You could say we have hundreds of members when you look at the constituents that each of us have and represent,” she said. “We are going to do things statewide and nationwide. This is not an issue just for the Rio Grande Valley. This is a problem for the whole nation.”


Cathy Lovejoy Maloney, executive director of the North American Butterfly Association in Mission, is also a member of the No Border Wall coalition. “I don’t want to be represented by a wall as an American and I think everybody has a right to speak out on that. International relations will be damaged,” Lovejoy Maloney said.


The No Border Wall group makes no distinction between the fence plans the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is planning for parts of Starr, Hidalgo, and Cameron counties, and the 22 miles of levee-wall that Hidalgo County is working on with the International Boundary and Water Commission and DHS. Both projects will cause havoc for the environment, the group says.


No Border Wall group members urged Hidalgo county commissioners to delay the levee-wall project until after the hurricane season. They also questioned why Dannenbaum Engineering is involved in the project when the company has received negative publicity in El Paso and Brownsville.


Gerard Vaello, a retired businessman from McAllen, said he lived through Hurricane Beulah in 1967. He said he could not understand why Hidalgo county commissioners would get involved in the federal government’s border wall plan and waste time on levee-wall studies when local taxpayers approved a $100 million bond issue for levee repair two years ago.


“It is ludicrous, we are putting people at risk,” Vaello told the Guardian. “We are wasting precious time trying to figure out how to build an 18-foot wall inside the levees. They should tell the federal guys to hold it. Let’s fix the levees first and the wall can come later, if that is what the federal government wants to do.”


Lovejoy Maloney urged commissioners to leave the levees alone until the hurricane season ends in November.


“Why would we do this now when the integrity of the levees will have to be compromised in some way? To roll the dice in this way and not wait until the hurricane season is over is a huge risk to the public,” she said. “Nature is unpredictable. It is wonderful but it can also wreak havoc.”


In 2005, the IBWC reported that the Valley’s levees would not hold up under severe rain and that a substantial federal investment was needed. IBWC estimated it would cost more than $125 million to repair the levees but was only given an average of $10 million a year by the federal government for the project.


Fearing a new flood zone map from FEMA would lead to massive flood insurance premiums for Hidalgo County residents and businesses and convinced a border fence was inevitable, county commissioners approached DHS to see if repair of the levees could be incorporated into the border fence plan.


Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1 Director and Consultant Godfrey Garza is the county’s supervisor for the levee-wall project. He prefers to call the project a “hydraulic wall.” Garza disputed many of the claims made by No Border Wall group members.


Garza told county commissioners that the river levees are in danger of being topped all year round, not just during hurricane season. “We could be high and dry in the middle of summer and a 10-inch rain or a 20-inch hits Monterrey and we are flooded,” he said.


Garza said IBWC has a contingency plan in the event that a hurricane hits while the levees are being repaired. “The whole levee is being done in segments so the integrity of the levees can be continued. We’re not tearing out the levees. They are being raised, maintaining the existing elevations we have there,” Garza said.


Garza said the IBWC has stations up and down the Rio Grande that can gauge when and where the river banks will be topped. “It takes days, which gives the contractor time to put whatever dirt is necessary to protect the integrity of the levee,” Garza said.


Garza also disputed claims that building a levee-wall in Hidalgo County could negatively impact Cameron County or Mexico. He said IBWC Commissioner Carlos Marin has kept Mexican officials informed every step of the way. “We are not a bad neighbor. Intentionally, you don’t flood anybody,” Garza said.


“We don’t build fences, we provide protection from floodwaters in the best way we can,” Garza added. “The idea of the hydraulic wall being incorporated into the levee system was a solution that we found was practical, economical, and will save our local taxpayers a tremendous amount of money and will take us out of harms way as quickly as possible.”


Garza said his office has two levee segments out for construction already. Requests for bids for other “hydraulic wall structure” segments are going out Saturday, he said. “We are on schedule, we are on time; we are under budget,” Garza said, which drew applause from members of the Owls, a citizens’ watchdog group.

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