The wall is well on its way
Somebody on Friday tossed in the towel on the great border fence battle. The only problem is that as yet we are not quite sure who surrendered. Was it Michael Chertoff and his Department of Homeland Security, which has been bullying everyone in sight with threats and actual lawsuits in an effort to get Valley residents to go along with the ludicrous fence idea as originally proposed? Or, was it the local government and business leaders who have opposed the concept from the outset who ran up the white flag?
Either way, it looks pretty much like the fight is essentially over and there will be a sort of kind of structure at the border that maybe kind of might stop — or at least slow down — some illegal crossers.
Fortunately, off the table, at least for now, is the concept of installing a 15-foot high combination corrugated steel and chain link, barbed-wire topped monstrosity at border. Instead, what we are now likely to get — if you believe Chertoff, and we all know how truthful he’s been — is a levee/wall that will supposedly serve both to hold back flood waters in the event of a potentially devastating hurricane and prevent at least those not in possession of 16-foot ladders from entering the United States illegally.
What’s more, maybe the best, or possibly the worst, or certainly most ironic thing about the compromise, or capitulation (pick your favorite term), is that Hidalgo County taxpayers are going to get stuck with at least part of the bill. To construct the levee/wall, the county will have to fork over somewhere in the neighborhood of $41 million, which will come from the $100 million drainage improvement bond issue recently approved by voters. That money, however, supposedly will be eventually repaid once the federal government coughs up the funds needed to fix the deteriorated levee system.
Although some area leaders, like Hidalgo County Judge J. D. Salinas, are hailing this as a win-win situation, we think it’s probably more like a lose-win-lose. Here is the tally:
>> Lose: No matter how you look at it, those who opposed construction of a border barrier are losing, even with this compromise since there will be a 15-or-so-foot high structure. It just won’t be a prisonesque fence.
>> Win: The levee system which is badly deteriorated and in desperate need of repair so that we can avoid a catastrophe like that which befell New Orleans during hurricane Katrina, will be fixed sooner than had originally been anticipated.
>> Lose: We, as taxpayers, will be paying for at least part of the cost of a border barrier that most of us didn’t want in the first place, with some vague hope that we will be reimbursed somewhere down the line by the federal government, which was supposed to be responsible for seeing to it that the levees were in good repair in the first place.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security says it will continue to press forward with the lawsuits it has filed against Valley landowners who have refused to allow government surveyors access to their property, including one filed Friday against The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, which lies along the path of the proposed border fence, and the University of Texas System. This is a process that likely will cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars on top of the billions that will be spent by the time the entire length of the border fence from Texas to California is finished.
On balance, although the Hidalgo County levee/wall “compromise” announced Friday still stinks, it is probably better than the alternative, which was no alternative at all.
