SPECIAL~REPORT.

Paving OverThe Trans Texas Corridor will open our highways toforeign shipping as part of a plan to undermine ourCustoms checkpoints, our Border Patrol, and eventuallyour borders.

Home on the range: After working for six years to have their ranch certified "organic" andtheir cattle as genetically pure and hormone free, ranchers Sam Harrell (left) and Bubba Kaysaw over half of their ranch taken by the State of Texas for a highway. In exchange, the statepaid far less than market price for the land it took.

THE NEW AMERICAN • APRIL 16, 2007

by Kelly Taylor

Nobodyloves a ranch like a Texan,and Texans Sam Harrell and BubbaKay loved theirs, crafted from 290beautiful Texas acres near Austin. To any-one who has ever lived in, driven across,or even brushed against central Texas in abook, the pull of the land is palpable. Toa native Texan, it's lifeblood. But smack-dab in the middle of Harrell Ranch, 174acres have been lost to a big, ugly slab ofconcrete, compliments of the Texas Depart-ment of Transportation. The highway goingthrough the Harrell Ranch, destined to bepart of a superhighway called the TransTexas Corridor, is just one of a new seriesof highways set to cut across Texas fromsouth to north. The highways and the effectthey will have on landowners and on ourcountry are creating quite a fuss.

In 1993, Sam Harrell, with friend andranch manager Bubba Kay, establishedHarrell Ranch and then built a whopping-ly successful cattle ranch, unique evenamong Texas' legendary ranches. HarrellRanch was the only certified organic ranchin the United States that raised Wagyu,a special brand of non-hormone-treatedcattle (NHTC) from Japan's Kobe region.Mr. Kay single-handedly bred these cattleto an unsurpassed level of genetic purity,earning the ranch's sterling reputation, andproducing the best all-natural Wagyu beefin the country. The enormous investmentof time, money, and energy resulted in asuperior product commanding a high price,and rewarded the partners with a highlyprofitable operation, the satisfaction of ajob well done, and the sense of balance thatcomes after wrangling an agreement withthe land. Harrell beef was sold to high-endrestaurants and organic food stores nation-wide and enjoyed an international market.All was right with the world.

But in 2001, the State of Texas came tocall. Sam and Bubba learned a highway

Kelly Taylor is an Austin-based writer and film-maker, and the producer of a politically based TV

talk show.

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-SUPERHIGHWAYHarrell ranch acreage met theworld's highest standards forraising NHTC. The costlybeeves followed, requiring an-other three-year certificationand careful breeding to meetNHTC requirements. A com-plex control system of cattlegrowing, segregation at slaugh-ter, tissue sampling, and othersteps distinguish this system,but the payoff was impressive.The two men considered this a

special property as it produced a specialincome, and was a much more expensiveoutfit than the average Texas ranch. Thereis no similar ground in Texas. The state,however, didn't see it that way.

The state hired an appraiser to evalu-ate the property. According to Sam, "Ourpoint of view is that it was special land,but they told us 'we don't care, it's justdirt.''' When an offer was finally made, itwas below the land's real value, and Har-rell Ranch went to court. Ajury upheld theHarrell viewpoint and awarded a figureabout three times the state's offer, but still

The NAFTA Superhighway is beingbuilt for the express purpose ofbringing goods from China and Indiainto the United States and Canada viaMexico, using inexpensive Mexicandockworkers and truckers to bypass andundercut U.S. and Canadian workers.

was coming, and the Texas Departmentof Transportation (TxDOT) claimed 174acres of their ranch for road construction.Through a murky labyrinth of question-able processes and eminent domain, itappropriated prime ranch acreage to buildTexas State Highway 130 (SH130), a tollroad now bisecting once pristine acres 100yards from the ranch office.

When we say pristine, we mean it. Theland required three years of special treat-ment to earn the coveted "organic" certi-fication. That certification is tied, not tothe cattle raised there, but to the ground.

below market value. Ranch losses alonewere bigger than the award. The state ap-pealed, and the case continues.

"What the state offered wasn't fairmarket value. Even if a competent case ismade, they won't change their minds. Theprocess is intellectually dishonest," Samtold THENEWAMERICAN.What he objectsto most is that the state won't allow thelandowner to see the standards used tomake the offer, yet it won't look at newinformation after its offer is tendered.

The "process" can take a heavy toll.Their case pending, Sam and Bubba arein limbo about the fate of their remainingacres, but maintain genuine concern fortheir neighbors' predicaments. "The pro-cesses the state uses are heavily biased todisadvantage the property owner who can'tafford lawyers, consultants. or are emotion-ally unable to sustain a long, grinding pro-cess," Sam said. He was referring to about600 property owner along the highwaysegments in question. orne of whom aresmall business owners. retired people, oron limited income . He believes the state'sstrategy is "wait them OUL"

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Meanwhile, back at the ranch, thingsweren't improving. When negotiationsbegan, Sam and Bubba were told theywould receive first notification of the"day of taking" - plenty of time to find,acquire, and certify a new property. Thattime allowance was critical for the three-year certification period. When the certifi-cation time had elapsed on a new property,only then could cattle be moved, allow-ing the ranch to minimize both businessinterruptions and damages. Instead, Har-rell Ranch was last to be acquired, withabsolutely no recovery time. Taking wasimmediate. This action rendered the outfit"out of business." Cattle had to be liqui-dated as there was no place to go. "Youexpect to be lied to in life," says Sam, "butyou don't expect your government to doit. I resent that."

Even though the state paid somethingfor the part of the ranch it took, the entireproperty was rendered useless. The asphaltintrusion destroyed ranch access. The en-trance is gone, requiring a new road builtthrough a neighbor's property, for whichHarrell Ranch was not fully reimbursed

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although the state had promised to do so.The remaining land parcels aren't contigu-ous; some are inaccessible until construc-tion ends and the state provides access."They're gonna tell you that you have ac-cess all the time, they just don't tell youyou need a helicopter," Bubba sardoni-cally joked to THENEWAMERICAN.

Especially critical to any Texas opera-tion is water. Harrell property was entirelyirrigated to provide for the cattle whilemaintaining NHTC standards. Road con-struction destroyed the expensive irriga-tion system, and all access to water. Thisunique property and the animals aren'tsustainable on city water.

No wonder Bubba is bitter about thewhole thing. He didn't hide his despon-dency. "1 believe we need this eminentdomain thing to be able to build high-ways, but I just don't feel like you need togo away feeling like a whipped dog whenthey take everything you've got." Samadds, "We never contested the right tomake the road, but the practice weren'tright. We were misled. You at least ex-pect your government to play by its own

rules. I wish you could look inside theguidelines of TxDOT and see the paththat keeps them from dealing fairly."

One Big HighwayTexans in the path ofthe Trans Texas Cor-ridor (TTC), a monstrous highway run-ning from Laredo, Texas, to Oklahoma- much of it encompassing a 1,200-foot-wide swath of passenger, freight, and railcapabilities, oil and water pipelines, andelectricity and broadband cabling - canlook forward to a similar fate. The build-ing of the TIC may be the most contestedissue in Texas. Local and state controversyhas erupted over the plans for, ownershipof, even need for the superhighway.

For unfortunate property owners in itspath, there's little mercy, as the scope ofeminent domain reaches ever-bigger di-mensions. TxDOT's own documents re-vealed this 2004 statement by Coby Chase,TxDOT legislative affairs director: "Thenumber of courts authorized to hear emi-nent domain cases should be expanded."Sam Harrell recalls a local newspaper ar-ticle indicating that there's an abnormally

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Prime beef: The Harrell Ranch raised a special type of non-hormone-treated cattle called Wagyu.Their efforts to produce the best organic beef led to handsome profits, until Texas took part oftheir ranch and cut off their water supply.

grants, gang violence, and more unsafeMexican trucks and uninsured drivers.The plans for unchecked border trafficthreaten national security, increasingentrance opportunities for terroristsand for weapons. Neither Texas nor thenation is equipped to handle the uncon-trolled invasion of people and problemsthe highway will bring without lower-ing our hard-won standard of living.

Concerns Are Many and LegitimateCan this get worse? Yep. A fundingmechanism for the TIC, which is themodel for all of the future NASCaCorridor projects, is going to be tolls- tolls not only on the planned su-perhighways but on already-exist-ing and paid-for roads that are slated

to be tran formed into toll roads. Alsoegregiously bad, in the case of the TIC,is the fact that the highway developmentcontracts in Texas have been awarded toa Spanish company, Cintra, in exchangefor giving Texas a portion of the toll rev-enue. According to the Dallas MorningNews, Cintra will pay about $1.2 billionto Texas. "In turn," stated the News, "thestate agrees to allow the company to setand collect tolls on whatever it builds forthe next 50 years."

Apart from these valid worries, the riskto national so ereignty is worse. In caseit isn't clear the corridor is intended todo more than speed transport of goodsand people, or relieve traffic bottlenecks.Without this infrastructure, efforts towardbuilding a torth American Union are se-verely hampered. A similar system alreadyexists in Europe (the Trans European Net-work) established to physically link allEU countries. The EU is already accusedof usurping member states' authority, andmany orely regret their involvement.

After the 2005 signing of the Securityand Prosperity Partnership (SPP) betweenCanada, Mexico, and the United States, aho t of documents surfaced revealing theunderlying agenda of this massive proj-ect's promoters. The SPP documents com-mitted and directed U.S. policy toward acontinental merger with Canada and Mex-ico to form a orth American Union, andoutlined necessary infrastructure. The SPPinitiatives call for "facilitating multimodalcorridors" toward the "improvement ofNorth America's transportation system,"

low number of incidents resulting in casesettlements, suggesting many landownersare fighting back.

Texans aren't alone in their woes. TheTIC is intended to be interconnected withsimilar highway infrastructure that connectsMexico's west coast to Canada. Called byits advocates in NASCa (North America'sSuperCorridor Coalition) the "NASCaCorridor," it is more well known amongits critics as the NAFfA Superhighway.This south-north corridor is unheard of insize and was dubbed the "largest engineer-ing project ever undertaken in the U.S." byNASCa.

The sheer size of the corridor goes far inexplaining why it's necessary. Examinationof NASCa and other documents revealsthat the superhighway is being built for theexpress purpose of bringing in goods fromChina and India, which are to be unloadedin a Mexican port and then shipped into theUnited States and Canada using inexpen-sive Mexican dockworkers and truckers,bypassing and undercutting U.S. and Ca-nadian workers. This Mexican truck trafficwould be unencumbered by border checksuntil it reaches Kansas City and a so-calledinland port, or "SmartPort" - as called forby NASCa and a pact between the UnitedStates, Canada, and Mexico called the Se-curity and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

The SmartPort would be operatedwithin U.S. borders by Mexican customsofficials! KC SmartPort's own websiteproclaims: "For those who live in Kan-sas City, the idea of receiving contain-ers nonstop from the Far East by way of

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Mexico may sound unlikely, but later thismonth that seemingly far-fetched notionwill become a reality." The website addsthat new Mexican shipping rules "couldmake shipping containers through LazaroCardenas [Mexico] up to 15 percent lessexpensive than through Long Beach orLos Angeles."

The KC SmartPort website insists thatexpanding traffic through the Mexicanport is wise in this age of terrorism in casea U.S. port gets hit by terrorists, but thenew system makes attacking the UnitedStates easier. "Shipments would be pre-screened in Southeast Asia .... Upon arrivalin Mexico, containers will pass throughmultiple X-ray and gamma ray screen-ings" and then containers will simply betracked via "global positioning systems(GPS) or radio frequency identificationsystems (RFID) ... on their way to inlandtrade-processing centers in Kansas Cityand elsewhere in the United States." Thetrucks would simply stream across ourborder unchecked by U.S. Customs untilthey reach a city in the United States.

How hard would it be to subvert thissystem for illicit purposes? Think of it thisway: by putting our Customs personnel formonitoring truck traffic in cities through-out the United States, we are effectively ex-tending our borders the entire distance ofthose highways to the inland Customs sites.Knowing how poorly our borders are mon-itored now, does this make sense? Peopleare right to be anxious about that - presentrelaxed border policy has already causedincreased drug traffic, more illegal irnmi-

THE NEW AMERICAN • APRIL 16,2007

Documents from a September 2006 meet-ing of the North American Forum directedparticipants to bring about the merger ofthe three countries by stealth, by focusingattention on building corridor infrastruc-ture instead of on directly promoting a new

orth American Union, because resistanceto such a union is growing.

The owners of the Harrell Ranch are al-ready beginning to see what it's like whengovernment becomes unaccountable andruns roughshod over individuals. Until theHarrell Ranch case is settled by the courts,nothing can be done with the remainingproperty; 18 of 1,100 cattle remain, butgenetic purity has been lost. Ironically, thepresent is mimicking the past. An ancestorof Sam, Jacob Harrell, came to Texas andsettled as one of the first five families ofAustin's colony, choosing a spot very nearthe present ranch location. When StephenF. Austin established his colony, those pi-oneers came for cheap and plentiful land,freedom and prosperity, and "paid a highprice for risky choices." In April of 1836,during Texas' bitter Independence War,the early Texans fled their homes in ad-

vance of Santa Anna's Mexi-can army as he attempted toconquer Texas following thedefeat of the Alamo. It doesn'tquite seem fair that Sam Har-rell and Bubba Kay shouldstill be having to do that samething today.

But there is hope. Publicoutrage prompted several Texas lawmakersto introduce legislation opposing the TIC.Two bills filed by state Representative LoisKolkhorst show promise. H.B. 2772 wouldset in place a two-year moratorium prevent-ing TxDOT from entering construction orfunding contracts with a private company.H.B. 3647 would force the Texas AttorneyGeneral to examine the North AmericanUnion and NAFTA so the public will knowthe far-reaching consequences of the supercorridor.

Representative Kolkhorst says, "Ifpassed, H.B. 3647 will require our TexasAttorney General to issue the first-everreport to the legislature about how inter-national organizations and agreements arepossibly pushing agendas that restrict or

Public outrage has prompted severalTexas lawmakers to introduce legislationopposing the Trans Texas Corridor. StateRep. Lois Kolkhorst has led the way.

override our state and federal laws. Forinstance, my office was told by a lobbyistthat they were going to try to kill a billrecently because it was violating NAFTA.Texas is a large border state and if thereare international efforts to affect our statepolicies, we need to know about them.Texans need to know if there's a situa-tion where unelected and unaccountablegroups are attempting to create our stateor federal agenda."

While it's too late for Harrell Ranch,others might be spared if these billspass. More importantly, if the corridor isstopped in Texas, it is stopped. For all theSam Harrells and Bubba Kays, we'll re-mind TxDOT of its own campaign slogan,"Don't mess with Texas.".