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From: SELF, JEFFREY D

To: AGUILAR, DAVID V; COLBURN, RONALD S; (b) (6)
Date: Thursday, October 11, 2007 3:39:35 PM
Attachments: Briefing Memo - Levees in Rio Grande Sector 10 11 07 (4).doc

Chief,

In preparation for tomorrows RGV Levee/Grant meeting with S-1, S-2 and other I sent you a newspaper article
from the valley. It gives you a good idea where Cornyn stands on this issue.

The attachment was a request for information on my and Greg’s brief to the Senator. It consist of my responses to
his questions.

I will also send you separate e mail with Ron’s AAR from yesterday’s roundtable.

Jeff

The Monitor

PHARR — The federal government should examine using levees along the Rio Grande for both flood protection
and border security, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday.

Cornyn, R-Texas, toured the Valley’s levee system Wednesday afternoon and listened to Hidalgo and Cameron
county judges’ concerns about building a security fence along the U.S. border with Mexico on top of a levee
already in dire need of repair.

Valley officials adamantly oppose the border fence, citing concerns about the socioeconomic and environmental
impact it would have.

Current federal plans for the fence call for it to closely follow the levee, and there has been talk of constructing it
on top of the levee.

“(I’ve heard) interesting ideas of how to maximize the effectiveness of taxpayer dollars … and we can hopefully
engage in something that will provide the security measures, but also flood control — if we can find some way to
combine all those things that make sense,” Cornyn said during a private meeting of local and federal officials.

Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas and Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos want the federal government to
provide funding to repair the levee for flood protection and use it as a barrier to help secure the border. Officials
have suggested raising the levee by 18 feet.

Cornyn said a diagram of the proposed improvements that include fencing encouraged him to take the county
judges’ pitch to Washington.

Their suggested solution is the “beginning of an idea to produce a win-win that I had been hoping for,” he said.

Cornyn also said U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is committed to visiting the Valley soon to
investigate the proposal.

Ronald Vitiello, U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s chief of the Rio Grande Valley Sector, said he has never
heard of levees doubling as border fencing and would need more information to determine if it was an acceptable
alternative.

“They are important to us for a field of view,” he said of the levees. “But it is not a physical barrier.”
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Cornyn’s response to the proposal may be encouraging to Valley leaders intent on improving flood control and
stopping the border fence, but the past six months have brought them more bad news than good news.

Not only did the federal government let it be known that 70 miles of fencing is planned to be built in the Valley by
the end of 2008, but there was also word that the feds may declare portions of the 180-mile levee system
insufficient to protect the area during extreme flooding.

Decertification of portions of the levee by the Federal Emergency Management Agency would leave many Valley
residents and business owners facing increased flood insurance costs.

Hidalgo County voters — heeding the warnings of county officials to not wait for federal funding to fix the levee
— passed a $100 million bond last year that includes $40 million to repair the most dilapidated portions.

But Salinas is concerned it may be unwise to spend local taxpayers’ money to make the repairs, given that federal
officials could later decide those repairs conflict with their fence plans.

Leslie Phillips, communication director for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee,
said no one on the committee staff has reviewed the levee proposal yet.

Restructuring the levee system would cost roughly $200 million, The Associated Press has cited Cornyn as saying
by. Estimates for building the planned 700 miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border range from $3 billion to
$30 billion, according to the AP.
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