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SELF, JEFFREY D
AGUILAR, DAVID V; COLBURN, RONALD S
waiver update
Saturday, March 29, 2008 11:08:39 AM

Chief,
As I said last night the waiver signing for the SWB and the 22 miles of the RGV Levee
Project will more than likely take place on Monday with the roll out being on Tuesday.
There will be a brief to S-1 on Monday late morning on the waiver and fence issues. I
don’t know if OBP will be attending this meeting yet but I’m looking into it. Yesterday
morning C-1 and Greg met with S-2, the meeting lasted for about 4 hours and
according to Greg S-2 was very upset with what he was hearing about the fence
projects as they pertain to the waiver, the status of the levee project and issues that
were holding it up. It’s my understanding from Greg that his frustration was the result
of him not understanding what was being briefed to him. That’s what led to last night
meeting which went very well. Greg came prepared with maps and issue papers
which answered all of S-2 questions. They are now prepared to take the waiver brief
to S-1 to get him comfortable with signing the waivers. The issues and concerns are
listed below.
Fence
Confusion over 102 miles of VF to be built by SBInet in 2009, C-1, S-2 and everyone
to include OBP never knew anything about these VF 2009 projects. S-2 wanted an
explanation for these projects. The explanation for this was that when SBInet asked
for us to identify VF projects so we could meet the 300 miles of VF the Sectors came
back with an additional 102 mile of VF over the 300 that was required. SBI made
plans to build these 102 miles during 2009. There was added confusion when Greg
briefed that some of these 102 miles of VF project areas scheduled for 2009 would be
used as contingency miles during 2008 if we had problems with VF projects. S-2
apparently couldn’t grasp this until we showed him the process on a map.
There was concern with implementing the waiver on DOI lands for the 2009 VF
projects but this was satisfied with the explanation that these 2009 projects also
serve as contingency miles that may be need to make the 670.
SBI had identified the contingency miles project areas to be waived. S-2 took this to
mean that SBI was asking the Secretary to exercise the waiver in areas where we
had no plans to build fence. Although this may end up being true he did not
understand how important this may be for us to reach the 670. After seeing it
explained using a map he understood.
There was confusion with the contingency miles in that Brian White thought the
utilization of contingency miles meant we would be building more than the 670
translating into spending more funds than were available for fence. When Greg
explained that the utilization of the contingency miles was an equal trade off (1 mile
for 1 mile) they were satisfied. However Greg did explain that there may be additional

 cost with going to contingency miles in that it may have been cheaper to build in the
priority are vs. the contingency area. The problem is that we may have a situation
where we start construction in a priority area and we spend funding for that project
but then we confront a problem that dictates we go to a contingency area. This will
add additional cost that we don?t have.

There was a question as to if contingency miles were actually operationally
impacting. The answer was was briefed that they would
only be used if we had a problem in a priority area and it would simply be done to
make the deadline and the needed number of miles.

There was a question as to if all the outreach has been done in the contingency

miles. The answer is that all the outreach has been done for advised that this is in process.

RGV Levee project

There are man issues with this that are bein worked with progress. They are

. This is

   

Hildalgo doesn?t think we have
because we have told them we on .

  
   
 
    
 
  
 

   

everyone a we 0 ave to do this and directed th to leave

the room and call Hildalgo an em that we can do this. Hildal is concerned

It was determined that we don?t need in that we will do a
F. The problem with this is that at the end of this the project needs to own


 

  

someone other than the Federal Government. The Federal Government cannot

benefit from a cooperative agreement. This is being worked with IBWC, Hildalgo and
SBI.

 

It is being said by the engineers that this project can?t be completed by December 08.

Next step is for Hidalgo to ?le a grant application.

There are still a lot of issues with this project but they are being worked.