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During the recent flooding in Texas, breakaway border buoys caused chaos in the Rio Grande. NPR first reported on the Department of Homeland Security's chain of buoys in March. They're designed to deter illegal crossings. But river experts warned back then that they could become a public safety threat during Rio Grande flooding. Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies has more on the story.
DAVID MARTIN DAVIES, BYLINE: In mid-July, a slow-moving weather pattern delivered several consecutive days of extraordinary rainfall across south and central Texas, causing multiple rivers to flood, including the Rio Grande. The high water was the first major test of the Department of Homeland Security's floating border wall installed to deter illegal immigration.
AMERIKA GARCIA GREWAL: The buoys were definitely in the water, could not be retrieved, and were on their way down the Rio Grande.
DAVIES: That's Amerika Garcia Grewal, co-director of the Frontera Federation, a binational community organization. She watched as the orange, 15-foot-long, 4-feet-high cylindrical aluminum buoys headed downstream. Each weighs about a ton. They forced the city of Eagle Pass to temporarily close its two international bridges. Most of the buoys had been on land in a staging area and were swept into the river, but some buoys had been installed and anchored to the riverbed, and these broke free.
In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said the buoys were under the control of a contractor and CBP had not taken possession of them. Currently, CBP has not responded to questions about possible changes to the buoys. CBP would not provide an official count of the number of free-floating buoys, but it's estimated to be about 600, according to Tricia Cortez, executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center.
TRICIA CORTEZ: It's such a fiasco.
DAVIES: Cortez said many of the buoys that ended up on the Mexican side of the river were salvaged by Mexican citizens and sold for scrap metal. Cortez had warned about the buoys when the Trump administration announced Operation River Wall in January. DHS said it would install over 500 miles of interconnected buoys in the Rio Grande as a barrier to illegal immigration.
CORTEZ: All of this was already predicted. Our organization commissioned a risk assessment of the wall and buoy system.
DAVIES: Their study concluded that during a river flood the buoys could break free and could slam into critical infrastructure, and that's what happened in Laredo. The city declared an emergency, shut down its international bridges and sent first responders to the river to try to protect critical locations. At a press conference on Monday, Laredo Mayor Victor Trevino said the top concern was protecting the city's water system.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
VICTOR TREVINO: The Rio Grande is a primary source of drinking water. If our water intake facility were compromised, Laredo has approximate only eight hours of water storage.
DAVIES: And he called on the Trump administration to rethink the buoys.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
TREVINO: Our request is straightforward. We respectfully ask the appropriate federal agencies to conduct a comprehensive reassessment of the buoy deployment program before additional deployment decisions are made.
DAVIES: Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, also at the press conference, said the situation with the buoys happened because Congress isn't holding DHS accountable.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
HENRY CUELLAR: You cannot provide $260 billion without any oversight. They got that from there. From the $260 billion, $46.5 billion went for the border wall and for buoys.
DAVIES: Cuellar said because illegal immigration has been reduced, the buoys aren't needed.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
CUELLAR: It went down 96% without a single buoy being deployed in the water.
DAVIES: Cuellar pointed out that the July flood was moderate. He warned that the Rio Grande can have extreme flooding. This time, there were no injuries and no damage, but next time, it could be much worse. For NPR News, I'm David Martin Davies in San Antonio. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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