Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The brand-new Texas Border Security Council had a rough time of it this week in McAllen. The group was created to advise Gov. Rick Perry on how to maximize Texas' anti-terrorism dollars. But its debut public meeting devolved into a bitter complaint session about the topic foremost in border officials' minds: the federal government's security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

According to the first detailed maps for fence segments in Texas, the installation will visit huge damage on the Rio Grande Valley's commercial and natural resources.

In one respect, Texas is relatively lucky. Unlike Arizona, where the bulldozing has already started, Texas will undergo environmental impact and engineering studies before any fencing construction begins.

But lower Valley residents, led by their political and public safety officials, are horrified by what they already have seen.

The hapless Border Security Council — which has no jurisdiction over the fence — listened attentively to their concerns. But it will be hard to influence a politically influenced plan cobbled by Congress.

From sheriffs to mayors to the Sierra Club, representatives of border residents are demanding that lawmakers pay attention to the damage the planned Rio Grande fence would do and to either change the location — or use alternative technology.

As planned, the fence will block access to a unique national treasure: the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge.

These 88,000 acres of land along the river are the fruit of decades of painstaking cooperation between the Fish and Wildlife Service and nonprofit conservation groups.

The partnership poured $70 million into saving this stretch of habitat along the Rio Grande. Clearing it now to build a fence, then cutting it off from public use would inflict a double blow to the local community.

This is the most popular and productive birding destination in the United States, said Nancy Millar of the McAllen convention bureau. If its value as a national resource is incalculable, the impact on McAllen is easy to figure.

Cutting it off will rob the area of $150 million in yearly income, Millar said.

The fence's hostile symbolism also will have tangible costs. McAllen is the No. 1 shopping destination in America for Mexican residents. That business relationship accounts for more than one-third of all McAllen retail, Millar said.

These concerns might be moot if a border fence magically could end illegal immigration — and Americans' massive demand for it. The fence's placement might also be defensible if it could guarantee Americans' safety from terrorists.

It will do neither, of course.

That's why border officials, public safety experts and state law enforcers turned the security council meeting into an impromptu protest.

"A fence isn't going to work. It's not the solution," Steve McCraw, Texas' homeland security director, said bluntly. What Texas needs instead of a fence, officials said over and over, are infrastructure, improved technology and more boots on the ground.

No one knows better than Rio Grande Valley residents that illegal immigration contributes to overcrowded schools and overburdened hospitals.

The answer, though, is not a fence that would despoil a Texas wildlife preserve and kill pivotal commerce. One after another, border officials made the point to the state Security Council. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn should be listening, too.