Jay Johnson-Castro, executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, stands at the entrance to Camino del Indio. (Photo: RGG/Bill Rovira)

“I have to say to myself, ‘Yes, I don’t want to disturb the habitat of a lizard, but am I prepared to pay human lives to do that?’” - Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff regarding the waiver of 28 environmental laws to build the Border Fence in Wildlife Refuges. October 11, 2007.

LAREDO, Feb. 4 - The above words by the former Homeland Security Secretary were anathema to environmentalists up and down the U.S.-Mexico border.

They were a slap in the face to those that had toiled for years to establish wildlife corridors to protect the native vegetation and endangered species such as the Ocelot and Jaguarundi as well as the thousand plus wildlife species that inhabit the borderlands of the Southwest.

Lawsuits and injunctions followed the passage of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. If there are winners and losers after a protracted environmental versus governmental battle, both the environmentalists who wanted no border wall at all, and the more extreme border security proponents who wanted double tiered Pacific Ocean to Gulf of Mexico walls lost. Neither got what they wanted. In the Rio Grande Valley, Bentsen State Park and the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge survived the border wall and the ecological disturbances of its construction. Communities like Granjeno ended up with an eighteen foot concrete wall to their back.

In Laredo, at the Lamar Bruni Vergara Environmental Science Center at Laredo Community College’s Fort McIntosh Campus, the battle goes forward. National security issues versus the protection of an ever fragile ecological system. The Center includes an 80 acre wildlife reserve along the banks of the Rio Grande River called the “Paso del Indio,” a historic crossing point for indigenous peoples of the region. It lies behind the border fence constructed on the banks of the river adjacent to the Laredo Community College in 2006. Over 1,000 animal species and numerous species of native vegetation abound and flourish in the reserve, many more than Mr. Chertoff’s lizard. The irony of the reserve’s location is that across the Rio Grande lies Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, the infamous narcotics and human trafficking city, whose lawlessness and violence is legendary.

I had the good fortune to be escorted through the locked gates blocking access to the trail by Jay Johnson-Castro, executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center. Mr. Chertoff’s earlier characterization of “the habitat of a lizard” was obviously an understatement. “Every month there are thousands of students that come through here to learn about the flora and the fauna,” said Johnson-Castro. According to Johnson-Castro and Science Center director Tom Miller those species even include occasional sightings of such endangered species as the Ocelot and the Jaguarundi.

“There have been reported sightings by naturalists and Border Patrol agents of both Ocelot and Jaguarundi,” said Tom Miller, director of the Science Center. “While we don’t have photographic evidence or road kill to support the sightings, I can tell you that on one occasion I think I saw one myself. The spotted long-tail cat is very distinctive. It’s hard to mistake.”

Whether the rare cats were actually spotted or not, the center boasts over 1,000 species between animals, birds and fowl that permanently or seasonally through migration inhabit the eighty acre tract built through “thousands of hours of volunteer labor put in to build this trail,” according to Johnson-Castro.

It is the Trail’s location on the banks of the Rio Grande in a heavily vegetated area bordering Nuevo Laredo that is the bone of contention. No one disagrees that human and drug trafficking occur in the area because of its location. In an effort to more efficiently patrol the area, the Department of Homeland Security and the Center are engaged in negotiations to determine how much of the Center will be altered by bulldozers and earth-moving heavy equipment in order to provide an all-weather road through the eighty acres of the Center to Border Patrol vehicles below the fence and along the embankment.

Disagreement between the two parties stems from the width of the easement for the all-weather road that is being built through the center. “The Department of Homeland Security seeks to build an all-weather road through the center with a permanent width of 36 feet in order to provide lateral movement of Border Patrol and emergency vehicles along the banks of the river,” said Jason Darling, DHS spokesman. The all-weather road along the embankment is an easement already granted to the DHS by the Laredo Community College and the Science Center since 2005. Contested is the construction of another twenty feet of easement to either side of the all-weather road, which will require the removal of native vegetation and habitat from either side, creating essentially a seventy-six foot swath. “It is a temporary easement to allow the movement of the heavy equipment necessary to complete the all-weather road. Once the project is completed, the temporary easement will be re-vegetated with native plants and trees and an independent contractor will observe that the area is properly restored to its natural state,” said Darling.

But even if 40 feet of the road are restored what is the immediate impact of cutting a 76 foot path through a sensitive habitat? “Most of the habitat in this area was long ago destroyed,” said Johnson-Castro. “This is what is left. Yes DHS has made commitments to preserving or restoring but they often sweet-talk and don’t live up to what they say. And sometimes the ‘rookies’ leave the road in their all-terrain vehicles and drive into the brush creating other trails and causing erosion.”

Darling said his department is sensitive to environmental concerns.

“The Department is sincerely trying to strike a balance between national security issues and preserving a historic habitat. Negotiations are in process between the Department and representatives of the Science Center,” Darling said, optimistic for a win-win that would benefit both sides.

Negotiations on behalf of the Laredo Community College and the Science Center are being conducted by a committee composed of Johnson-Castro, Miller, biologist Dr Jim Earhart, and Danny Gunn, a retiree of Coastal Power and Light (CPL).

Write Bill Rovira

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