Environmental groups petition feds to consider border fence's impact on wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife and other environmental groups are hoping the pen is mightier than the fence.

The organizations have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff urging him to consider the environmental impact of constructing a fence on the Texas-Mexico border, and asking his department to consult with environmental and local officials on construction plans.

“You have the power, authority and obligation to avert an economic and ecological disaster in South Texas,” the letter says. “The Department of Homeland Security should make a good-faith effort to understand and consider the needs of local communities, the applicable federal laws, the decades of land purchasing and intensive ecological restoration in the Rio Grande Valley, and the dependence of Texans on a thriving agricultural and wildlife-dependent economy.”

Other groups who signed the letter include the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, National Wildlife Refuge Association, National Audubon Society, North American Butterfly Association and Valley Nature Center.

“Ideally, we’d like Secretary Chertoff to consider our views,” said Noah Kahn, federal lands associate for Defenders of Wildlife. “At the very least, (the letter) will generate more awareness.”

The organizations are calling for DHS to use “virtual fencing,” such as sensors or cameras, on environmentally sensitive land, rather than the proposed reinforced fencing.

Environmental groups are concerned the construction of fencing along the Rio Grande could damage habitat and limit wildlife’s ability to reach fresh water or migrate across the border. Advocates have expressed particular concern about endangered wildcats like the ocelot and jaguarundi, as well as the availability of habitat for birds and butterflies.

“We see the river as a beautiful asset,” said Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the New Jersey-based North American Butterfly Association, which is working on developing a butterfly park in Mission.

“Our idea is to showcase the river,” he said. “Obviously, that’s impossible if you build barbed wire or double walls and make it look like Berlin in the 1970s.”

If habitat is destroyed to build a fence, the region’s rare butterflies will cease to visit those areas, Glassberg predicted. And that will hurt ecotourism, he said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials said recently that the Valley’s refuge land, particularly the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, could be first in line for fencing because the land already belongs to the federal government.

The refuge consists of scattered parcels of land along 275 miles of the Rio Grande’s corridor. Local environmental groups and U.S. Fish and Wildlife have spent three decades and nearly $100 million restoring native habitat along the river, Fish and Wildlife officials have said.

“This wall threatens all of that work,” said Martin Hagne, general manager of Valley Nature Center in Weslaco. “It would be very damaging.”

Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said he hadn’t seen the letter but that the agency would consider the groups’ views.

“Our desire is to continue to listen to concerns from the local community,” Knocke said.

The department hasn’t made any final decisions yet on where the fence will be or the types of materials that will be used, he said.