“It was a negotiation, and it had to start somewhere,” said Steve LaMantia, a riverfront rancher who has steadfastly opposed the construction of the Border Wall.
LaMantia spoke of the conditional Right of Entry document he recently signed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) for a survey of the banks of the Río Grande that define the southern boundary of Dolores Ranch, which is located at the intersection of FM 1472 and State Hwy. 255.
“A Right of Entry agreement is not a condemnation. Saying ‘no’ and refusing to sign will get it pushed into a courtroom for condemnation and you are done. This gives us time. I’ve said ‘no’ the whole time, but I’ve had to be realistic,” LaMantia said.
“Talking to them makes them more apt to talk to you, and maybe the exchange will bear the influence for where and what you’d like to see happen on your property,” he said. “It’s important to understand that when they condemn, they will decide where the wall will be and where the access will be for contractors who are not government employees.”
LaMantia signed the conditional ROE on February 25, 2020 after extensive negotiations with representatives of the USACE, sometimes 20 of them in a room to LaMantia and his daughter, attorney Annie LaMantia Cullen.
He said that discussions with the USACE have been “congenial and business-like.”
He added, “They seemed willing to listen and to hear our opinions, and yet, I have no real sense for how this will play out.”
LaMantia said there are two pieces of family land the government wants for wall construction — one downriver from the Colombia Solidarity Bridge, and the other upriver. The upriver parcel falls into the jurisdiction of another sector of the government, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and is under auspices of the Department of Homeland Security.
“I don’t want the wall. I don’t want them taking our property. I don’t want to stare down a bulldozer, but I had to make the best of a bad situation,” LaMantia said, adding that it has been the government’s position that land inside the fence to the river — the land he could lose —has no value.
“If they walled off a thousand acres of our land, how can I monetize what I lost?” he asked.
LaMantia said of John Jefferies of the USACE, “He negotiated in earnest, but I told him as he isn’t the ultimate decision maker, it’s hard to trust him.”
The rancher referred to “the inevitability” of the Border Wall and said there was “a better than average chance it will happen.”
He said signing the conditional ROE “in these uncertain, chaotic times” was not an easy decision.
“I have acted in the best interest of my family, and I hope I made the right decision based on the knowledge I have today,” he said.
LaMantia recalled his earliest thoughts on the Border Wall. “I believed there was no way they could build this stupid thing. That they could, came into focus when the government started pulling money from anywhere it could, including the defense spending bill. This is all so disheartening. It won’t answer the question about solving immigration or drug issues. That’s not the question anymore. It’s: how do I get re-elected?”
More reason to be rid of the Orange Ogre in November. Mr. La Mantia is a reasonable man, a lot more reasonable than me as it concerns the scarring and destruction of our Río Grande environment. Trump’s race-baiting to get re-elected is too obvious. The ludicrous wall, if constructed, will be a monument to Trump’s bullying stupidity. It will not hinder drug and human smuggling, especially when our country is the world’s biggest consumer of such contraband. And it’s not Mexico inducing drug addiction, it’s simple economics: the law of supply and demand and U.S. citizens looking for thrilling good times at whatever cost. Trump may look and act very stupid, but he knows how to manipulate semi-literate people, dumbass power-hungry Christian nationalists and his rich sycophants. Let November 2020 be time to be done with Trump’s crass cruelty and allow the country to heal.