Agency says fence will hinder border life

McALLEN, Texas — The U.S.-Mexico border fence will make life harder on some South Texas farmers, damage valuable wildlife habitat, impair views and generally become an obstacle to border life, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged in an environmental study of the fence's impact.

For the people of the Rio Grande Valley, the federal government said in the recent study that there are serious trade-offs for 70 miles of fence segments that will help Border Patrol control illegal immigration and smuggling from Mexico. But it added that residents will benefit from increased security against "illegal cross-border activity."

Construction could begin in the valley next week.

"If you live within a mile or so of the river, which is where the fence will be built, you are eternally sentenced to an unsafe existence," Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, head of the anti-fence Texas Border Coalition, said in a prepared statement.

However, some South Texas denizens will get a break — the fence will include hundreds of holes so the endangered ocelot and jaguarundi can get to the Rio Grande to drink.

The department's Environmental Stewardship Plan for the Rio Grande Valley was controversial before it was ever released. DHS drew up the plan after Secretary Michael Chertoff waived environmental studies required by federal law to speed construction of the fence.

As the federal government ramps up efforts to build fencing along the border, Chertoff also has waived environmental laws to build barriers in California and Arizona.

"The secretary made it clear when he invoked the waiver authority that that by no means meant we would act without some responsible plan," Customs and Border Protection spokesman Barry Morrissey said. "The environmental work is still being done."

Environmental advocates said they hadn't fully reviewed the document Tuesday afternoon but said it was a mistake for Chertoff to waive the normal process for vetting projects and minimizing their environmental impact.

"There was a formal process in place for how to go through the (environmental impact statement) process and it's something we believe in firmly," said Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club in Texas. "Any attempt to come up with your own fixes we're going to be very wary of that."

New maps of the 21 fence segments running through the lower Rio Grande Valley showed very little variation from preliminary maps released last fall.