Department of Defense installs buoys on the Rio Grande in Cameron County
Contractors with the Department of Defense placed buoys on the Rio Grande in Cameron County, a Pentagon official confirmed to Channel 5 News.
Viewer submitted videos of the buoys show that they are at the mouth of the Rio Grande between Playa Bagdad and Boca Chica Beach where the river meets the Gulf.
The buoys have a sign on them saying that they are in what the Department of Defense calls a “restricted area,” and unauthorized entry is prohibited.
It’s the same sign contractors placed at Playa Bagdad in Matamoros just south of the border across from Boca Chica Beach in November. The Mexican Navy removed those signs shortly afterward.
READ MORE: Mexico responds after U.S. military contractors install ‘no trespassing’ signs along Matamoros beach
When reached for comment, a Pentagon official issued the following statement:
“These buoys are being emplaced in the South Texas National Defense Area. In the context of National Security Presidential Memorandum-4, a National Defense Area is an area of operations on a military installation and is a specified area of Federal land which is under the administrative jurisdiction of DoW, which permits DoW to establish and enforce a controlled perimeter and control access to the area, just as it would on any other part of a military installation.”
A Joint Base San Antonio official said contractors will continue to install the buoys and signs along the South Texas NDA border “to ensure its boundaries are clearly marked.”
Channel 5 News reached out to the office of County Judge Eddie Treviño, Jr. A spokesperson said that as of Thursday, they had not been provided information from the Pentagon about buoys being placed in the Rio Grande.
In October, the Department of Homeland Security announced a 17-mile water barrier will be deployed in the Rio Grande near Brownsville. The buoys that were placed by Department of Defense contractors are not the water barrier that had been previously announced.
RELATED STORY: Government set to deploy buoy barrier along Rio Grande near Brownsville
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