Volunteers
restock vegetation along river
(Note:
This is absolutely sickening in its deployment of the language deception
troops. USFWS employee Patty Alexander -- who is paid with taxpayer
dollars, just like the 800 acres USFWS bought from another global
outsourcer business, and the 500 MORE acres on the list to buy soon --
is a master at her craft of making schoolkids and most of the public
think that implementing The Wildlands Project is something other than
the taking of Control of all resources. Please read with this in mind.)
October
31, 2004
By James
Osborne
The Monitor
To submit
a Letter to the Editor: letters@themonitor.com
and/or tgarcia@link.freedom.com
Rio Grande City, Texas - More than 1,000 schoolchildren, parents and
volunteers from across the Rio Grande Valley descended on the La Casita
land tract to work in the dirt and hot sun for hours Saturday.
When all was done, they had planted 14,262 plants, representing 44
species of native vegetation over 54 acres of land.
As 25-mph winds swept across the vast expanse of former farmland,
volunteers turned their heads from the barren soil to the patches of
shrub land in the distance.
Small but teeming with ocelots and green jays, the natural habitats that
survive represent both the past and a potential future of the land they
replanted Saturday for the 13th annual Rio Reforestation project.
After three hours of planting, Julie Hinojosa, 17, and the rest of the
science club from La Joya High School were resting in the shade.
“It’s really hard work. It’s hot and some of the ground is really
hard, so it’s difficult to dig,” she said.
All the hard work was [done] to restore the land to its former state,
said Patty Alexander of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“The wildlife here is used to dense brush, so they have a tough time
crossing these wide open spaces,” Alexander said.
“We have these fragmented pieces of habitat, but the animals can’t
move between them, so we’re trying to connect them up.”
The planted area was a fraction of the 800 acres the FWS
recently purchased from Starr Produce, once a major Valley farming
conglomerate that recently moved all its fruit and vegetable
production to Mexico, according to John McClung, president
of the Texas Produce Association. The company received $900,000
for the land and will likely receive another $563,000 for a further 500
acres once the Senate reconvenes and approves the expenditure.
“(U.S. Fish and Wildlife) is one of the few places they can go to sell
their land,” he said.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/ts_more.php?id=61924_0_10_0_M36 |