Agency Agrees to Study Effects of Border Barriers

Federal officials have settled a lawsuit by environmental organizations by agreeing to a formal review of how high-powered lights, boat ramps and roads built by the U.S. Border Patrol along the lower Rio Grande in Texas are affecting endangered wildlife.

The lawsuit against the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which oversees the Border Patrol, received national attention because it pitted wildlife advocates against beefed-up federal efforts to stop illegal immigrants and drugs from crossing the shallow river from Mexico to the United States.

Environmentalists hope that the settlement will force federal officials to abide by the Endangered Species Act and similar laws in other border areas, including San Diego, where construction of a 14-mile fence and other border-control activities have stirred similar concerns about wildlife.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., construction of new floodlights, fences and roads will be halted until officials fully assess their impact on endangered wildcats such as the ocelot and other creatures along a stretch of river known for its dramatic array of rare wildlife.

Other Border Patrol operations will continue. The pact allows the agency to continue cutting vegetation along certain levies and to maintain existing roads and boat ramps.

But the agreement also lays out complex interim rules, limiting where lights can be used in the vicinity of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge and the National Audubon Society’s Sabal Palm Sanctuary, for example.

Under the agreement, the INS will complete a full-scale environmental impact statement on Operation Rio Grande and will conduct all reviews required of federal agencies under the Endangered Species Act.

“The [federal government] has finally admitted that it is fully bound by environmental laws,” said William Snape, vice president for law at the Washington, D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife, which brought the suit, along with the Sierra Club and the Frontera Audubon Society of Texas.

A U.S. Department of Justice attorney representing the INS said the parties reached a good middle ground with the pact.

“This settlement carefully balances the requirements of environmental laws to protect endangered species with the need to reduce illegal immigration in the Brownsville, Texas, area,” said Peter Coppelman, principal deputy attorney general in the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

But such attention to rare cats has surprised and annoyed many who favor even stricter crackdowns on illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), for example, told the Houston Chronicle last year that “I cannot imagine a group that would value the habitats of a nocturnal ocelot over keeping drugs out of our country that are preying on our children.”

Border Patrol officials reported in the past that Operation Rio Grande was a major success in curbing illegal traffic. The much-publicized crackdown on border crossings was launched by the Border Patrol in 1997. It targeted a 50-mile stretch of the lower Rio Grande used by illegal immigrants to wade from Mexico into the United States.

Wildlife Advocates See Damage to Habitat

To discourage such crossings, the Border Patrol began building new roads and fences and clearing thick brush along the river. Its most controversial tactic was aiming 1,000-watt lights at riverbanks where illegal immigrants sought shelter.

Wildlife advocates, appalled by the Border Patrol buildup, argued that it would destroy fragile river habitat. They singled out the stadium-type lighting, arguing that it could disrupt the movement of the area’s rare Neotropical cats, ocelots and jaguarundi, which depend on darkness for protection. The cats have been protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since the 1970s.

Another federal agency--the Fish and Wildlife Service--has been attempting to piece together a 280-mile-long wildlife corridor along the Rio Grande to allow the wild cats and other creatures to roam between wildlife refuges and help protect them against extinction.

The area also contains seven other animal species and six plants listed as federally endangered, court papers state. The region is popular among bird-watchers because of its rich populations of colorful migratory birds.

The INS conducted a short environmental review in 1998, but conservation groups insisted that a full-scale environmental impact statement was required, including the opportunity for public hearings.