Border ranchers receive 2nd notice from feds threatening to revoke land rights

Nearly 200 ranchers in rural Zapata County on the South Texas border with Mexico have been told by the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission that their families’ decades-old land grazing rights along the Rio Grande are being terminated, and they must move their cattle by month’s end during this coronavirus pandemic when many slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants are closed. Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell was among 117 ranchers who received letters late last month from IBWC telling his family they must relocate 100-head of cattle from about 1,000 acres of grass-rich riverfront land that his family has used for 100 years. “President Eisenhower’s administration, at the time, allowed grazing leases to those family ranchers as the lake levels fluctuated,” Rathmell said. “Falcon Lake is almost never at a constant level so when the land is once again not covered by water ranchers put their fences back up and run cattle and it happens year after year.” Ranching families have done this for the past 70 years, Rathmell said, and so that is why it was so shocking when they were suddenly sent letters telling them they no longer have grazing rights. Worse, they were told they must move their herds by June 30, which Rathmell said is not possible because of a deer tick infestation that requires qu.arantine of all animals from this county. “The IBWC is lawfully terminating this lease,” the letter to Rathmell’s family read. The letter was addressed to his grandfather, however, who died about 40 years ago. And that apparently is part of the issue because when the land rights were issued ranchers were told they were not transferable. But as the elder ranchers died off, one by one, Rathmell said the IBWC allowed subsequent generations to continue the grazing rights, as long as they paid their annual fees. The IBWC letter cites the reason for terminating the lease is because the grazing rights may not be transferable. According to the leases, they may be terminated by IBWC with 30 days notice and for no reason given...MORE