uld destroy some of their habitat and put other species at risk of drowning the next time the Rio Grande floods. (Right now the reptiles and mammals that can’t fly can crawl over the levee that runs through the refuge when the river floods.)
But to many activists’ surprise, the pushback against building the wall in the refuge paid off: Congress included special language in the spending bill to exempt it.
“It was something that I fought for,” Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) said in an interview. “Thanks to the Democrats on the Appropriations Committee, this has been a priority to protect the environmentally sensitive areas.”
Except Congress allocated $1.6 billion for more border wall — $445 million for 25 miles in Hidalgo County and $196 million for 8 miles in Starr County — which are slated to impact several other critical protected areas for wildlife. (An additional $251 million was allocated to replace 14 miles of existing secondary wall in the San Diego sector and $445 million was included to replace an unspecified amount of other wall.)
“I was worried about this: that Santa Ana would be saved and everyone else gets wall,” said Jim Chapman, a Texas environmentalist who helped organize against the Santa Ana wall. “We never wanted to just save Santa Ana. It’s kind of bittersweet.”
The spending bill authorizes money for a wall that would go through other protected areas
The picture that has emerged from plans shared with the local press is that the new 33 miles of wall will connect existing sections in Hidalgo and Starr counties. And it turns out a lot of it will go through land that’s already been protected for wildlife in one form or another.
Kersten, the local activist, has been looking at all the Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge tracts, state properties, county parks, and private nonprofit nature sites that would be affected by the proposed, funded border walls for Hidalgo County. And she’s compiled an astonishing list that include, among other sites:
- La Parida Banco Refuge Tract (447 acres)
- Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park (797 acres)
- El Morillo Banco Refuge Tract (654 acres)
- National Butterfly Center (100 acres)
- Cottam Refuge Tract (1,037 acres)
- Pharr Settling Basin (720 acres)
- Milagro Refuge Tract (846 acres)
- Marinoff Refuge Tract (432 acres)
That means the total nature space affected by the proposed, funded walls would be more than 6,500 acres in Hidalgo County, according to Kersten’s calculations. (The location of the 8 miles of wall in Starr County is still undetermined.)
Among the most visited natural areas in Hidalgo County is the National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. It’s a 100-acre wildlife center and botanical garden run by the North American Butterfly Association.
Plans suggest the proposed wall would go right through it, though Jeffrey Glassberg, the president of the center, says he hasn’t heard a word from the government about its intention to build through the center.
“This is complicated — it is not clear to me what this legislation authorizes or requires,” he said. “But they would have to exercise eminent domain to build a wall through it.”
A wall would certainly destroy the little remaining butterfly habitat at the center, he said. And it would further erode the region’s ecotourism. Look no further than what happened at Audubon’s Sabal Palm Sanctuary once a border wall was built through it: Visits fell by half because the wall made it a much less pleasant place to be, according to Glassberg.
Border fences have been terrible for wildlife and plants in other areas of the border
The 654 miles of existing barriers and walls — built with materials ranging from barbed wire to steel, bollard to wire mesh, and chain link — have already been a disaster for the unique and sensitive ecosystems and wildlife on the border.
Not many scientists have measured the full impact of fences on biodiversity on the border. One of the few studies to tackle these questions was written by Jesse Lasky, a biologist at Penn State who has studied the impact of border fences on border species, with h