NEWS — County residents speak out against construction of ‘border barrier’

By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times

County residents, including the owners of legacy ranches, the head of a rock art research center and a homeowner from a Lake Amistad subdivision, spoke out against the construction of a border barrier or wall in western Val Verde County during the most recent meeting of county commissioners court.

The county residents made their comments as part of a wider discussion initiated by County Judge Lewis G. Owens and members of commissioners court on mandates by the Trump administration to build vehicle barriers, steel walls and virtual walls along the entire length of the Texas-Mexico border.

The first to speak to the court was Dr. Karen Steelman, science director of the Shumla Archeological Research & Education Center in Comstock, Texas. Before speaking, Steelman handed out a packet of information titled “Border Barrier Threatens Irreplaceable Cultural Heritage.”

Steelman said, “I’m concerned about the border infrastructure, for how it affects my friends and my neighbors, but also how it affects archeological sites. This region of the Lower Pecos is so significant it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021 by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, and I ask what does that kind of protection mean if our own government is going to destroy archeological sites?

“So this contract (for border barrier construction) was awarded, and I ask you to become educated about the border barrier and the changes that are happening. I think that the landowners here have power to protect their land, and I think we, as a county, have the power to stand up for our county,” Steelman said.

She said the current plan for the border barrier places 84 known rock art sites south of the proposed infrastructure, with 15 known rock art sites within 500 meters of the barrier.

Steelman said, “So remember that a vehicle barrier is not just a vehicle barrier. It comes with, as we saw in Big Bend, clearing for access roads, trenching for fiber optics and electrical for technology. A virtual wall is not what we are used to as a virtual wall. It is not the autonomous towers that we are used to in the county. It is actual fiber optic trenching, and it is very destructive.

“I was actually at some rock art sites east of the dam a few weeks ago, and they are actively building 30-foot bollard walls there, and the vibrations, just from the Bobcats and the excavators, was so strong that you could feel the ground shake beneath you. Imagine what trenching will do to these fragile rock art sites,” Steelman said.

Steelman urged everyone to go to Shumla’s website, www.Shumla.org, and sign a petition calling on federal decision-makers “to pursue border security solutions that protect the irreplaceable cultural resources of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands.” (The Shumla petition can be accessed by clicking the link on Shumla website’s opening page.)

Steelman told the court, “Protecting our cultural heritage and border security are not mutually exclusive, and we urge the government to find another way to protect us.”

Steelman charged the Trump administration has waived 28 laws, including the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act and the Antiquities Act, to build the border barrier as quickly as possible. She claimed 62,700 acres of public and private land in Val Verde County will be south of the proposed infrastructure, without any plans of how public or private land on the other side of the barrier can be accessed.

The next to speak was Patrick Zuberbueler, one of the owners of a legacy ranch in western Val Verde County.

Zuberbueler told the court he met with officials from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department recently and wanted to tell the court what he had told state officials.

Zuberbueler said his family arrived in Val Verde County in the 1880s, and he is a fourth-generation landowner here. Some of his family’s land is now within the bounds of Seminole Canyon State Park, he said, and he fondly recalled visiting sites like Presa Canyon and Black Cave with his family.

Zuberbueler told the court the family’s ranching legacy continues as his nephews become the fifth generation on the family’s land and urged the court “to use your authority that Texans have entrusted to you to protect our land and its care the way any good steward protects what was entrusted to them.”

After he finished making his own remarks, Zuberbueler read a statement prepared by another county resident who owns land west of the Pecos River, but who could not attend the meeting.

The resident, Cohl Brazil, wrote, “The construction of any type of barrier in Val Verde County is absolutely unnecessary. The number of vehicles that have driven across the river in this area is basically nothing.”

Brazil wrote the infrastructure planned for western Val Verde County, a 100-foot-wide easement cleared for a 45-foot-wide asphalt patrol road and vehicle barrier system, “is the one-size-fits-all solution for Val Verde County.”

He wrote, “Applying a one-size-fits-all mentality to a diverse landscape is absolutely ignorant. Why build a vehicle barrier where no vehicle has ever crossed? It is destructive and disrespectful. It is taking people’s personal property.

“The unnecessary taking of this property is probably the most un-American act that can be done. Our values are based around the freedom we have to own our property and the fact that the federal government is going to take it to build something that does not increase border security is a travesty, and it should be considered a crime,” Brazil wrote.

Brazil said “no one is crossing the border in this area” and wondered aloud why border law enforcers couldn’t use the existing Highway 90 for their patrols, since the highway is close to the Rio Grande in that area.

He wrote, “Once again, why build a patrol road here? Why build a wall here? Again, a failure of this one-size-fits-all mentality. It is an absolute shame that our government is not gathering more data and creating a plan that is driven by the data. The most respectful thing to do would be to only construct infrastructure that improves our border security and to actually do the research that creates data-driven solutions.

“Anything beyond this is an obvious overreach. I am not sure what the motivation is for a construction project that does not improve border security but does harm personal property and the legacy of many hard-working American families,” Brazil finished.

After Zuberbueler finished reading Brazil’s letter, Owens recognized former County Judge Laura Allen, whose husband John Allen’s family owns and operates one of the county’s legacy ranches.

Allen told the court the proposed border barrier will cross at least one county road and said, “We’re here not asking you to do anything but partner with us.”

She worried aloud about the residents of three county subdivisions along Lake Amistad – Amistad Acres, Box Canyon and Salem Point – whose homes and property will be on the south side of the border barrier or wall.

Of the ranches, Allen said, “Where do we go? How do we funnel livestock? Are we going to have access to water? Are we going to have access to pens? How are we going to cross the road? But you know what? That road is fixing to have whatever barriers on top of it, so that road is going to be a huge issue because not only is it affecting us, at all of our fencing and cross-fencing, but it’s affecting every one of our homeowners that are out there.

“So as landowners collectively, from here to the west, in Val Verde County, all we’re asking, partner with us, make your voices loud. Speak up. Because eventually what’s going to happen, property values are going to decrease. We don’t even know what the effect to our aquifers are going to be. . . It’s going to affect your infrastructure. It’s going to affect things. And we need you to partner with us and speak for us, and I speak for the people that are not brought to the table as stakeholders, because they don’t own the land where that barrier’s going to go,” Allen said.

She claimed contractors are offering property owners $5,000 in exchange for rights to access and build on their land “and we’ll talk about any damages later.”

She said, “That’s not fair to any one of us. So, I’m just asking you to consider, there’s a lot more at stake for our county. . . It’s not about ranchland, it’s about our county as a whole,” Allen said.

Owens next recognized Amistad Acres property owner Harold Sharp.

Sharp told the court, “I started going out there with a friend of mine over 40 years ago. He died and willed me a piece of property. I bought more property out there. My kids have grown up out there. We’ve spent, for me, a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of blood building out there, hoping to leave something for my three sons.

“They grew up out there, fishing and swimming and climbing on the cliffs and diving off the cliffs when I wasn’t looking. Point being, I’ve got that property out there, and I don’t know how I’m going to get to it. There are a lot of unknowns here, and I know you guys can’t strap on a gun and stop what’s happening, but again, I echo everybody else, be our spokesmen and communicate with us as to what’s going on,” Sharp said.

After breaking from the discussion to conduct a public hearing on a separate issue, Owens asked if there was anyone else who wished to comment on the border wall, and ranch owner Mary Fritz said she wished to speak.

Fritz told the court since the proposed border barrier would not cross her property, no one is talking to her, but she said

she will be affected because all of her land will end up on the far side of the barrier.

She said the cameras the Border Patrol has installed on her land “are working just fine,” adding there is very little illegal crossing traffic on her land.

After the landowners spoke, Wardlaw asked, “Judge, can we clarify something with Mrs. Allen and this gentleman, can I ask them a question, so it comes out clear what this place looks like?”

“Across from your house, where you are down there, it’s lake, right?” Wardlaw asked Sharp.

“Well, it’s little bit of lake right now, not as much as I would like,” Sharp replied.

“No vehicle can drive across there?” Wardlaw asked.

“Heck, no,” Sharp responded.

“You’ve never seen a car come across the lake, have you?” Wardlaw asked.

“I have not,” Sharp said.

“And your ranch is surrounded by the lake, right?” Wardlaw asked Allen.

“Yes. We have the lake on one side, and we have the railroad and the highway on the other,” Allen said.

She added, “To put it in perspective, what Harold’s saying, if you take the dirt road that comes to our headquarters, the proposed route comes right there where the Box Canyon Road and the dirt road meet, so what gate do you have? Will it ever be closed? Will it ever be secured?”

“That’s my deal: How do I get to my home?” Sharp said.

The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.