Residents worry about consequences of group’s border wall

HOUSTON — Claims that a private group has started building its own border wall in South Texas were questioned this week by some longtime residents worried that the construction could cause flooding and violate treaty obligations between the U.S. and Mexico.

The organizers of We Build the Wall, a nonprofit launched in December to support President Donald Trump’s signature promise of a border barrier, said this week in a Facebook video that they were going to build a 3.5-mile project on private land in the Rio Grande Valley, at Texas’ southernmost point.

In the video, a construction worker says the project would be as close as 25 feet from the Rio Grande, with a wall and concrete road. That’s much closer than most government-built wall in the Rio Grande Valley.

“This is going to cause catastrophic flooding to all the surrounding properties on the U.S. and Mexico side,” said Marianna Trevino Wright, executive director of the National Butterfly Center, a nonprofit that is up the river from the construction site.

We Build the Wall has raised more than $25 million. So far, the group has built about half a mile of wall near El Paso.

The video’s claims could not immediately be verified. We Build the Wall founder Brian Kolfage, who is seen in the video, did not respond to several requests for comment made through a spokeswoman, and the video appeared to have been taken off the group’s Facebook page Friday.

Unlike at other parts of the border, the U.S. government in the Rio Grande Valley doesn’t build barriers at the edge of the land border. The Rio Grande often swells and can knock down structures close to the river. A large fence or wall could also change flood patterns.

The International Boundary and Water Commission was set up by the U.S. and Mexico under treaties that define the border and how the river is used.

Spokeswoman Sally Spener said the commission received an email Wednesday night with “some general information” from Fisher Industries, a construction company that built the group’s half-mile section near El Paso.