Owners of small business in Davenport build their own wall around shop to protect against flooding

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    DAVENPORT, Iowa (WQAD) — Some business owners in West Davenport are exasperated with the current flood protection plan that's leaving them to fend for themselves.

Cong Le, the owner of QQ Beauty Supply tells News 8 she was trying to get Hesco barriers from the City of Davenport to protect her inventory, but was told they were not given out to businesses, only city facilities.

"We have been going through two floods and we suffered a lot," she said, referring to Mississippi's historic rise and the time the Hesco barrier broke near East River Drive and Pershing Avenue exactly one month ago, on April 30. "So we think this time, we need to protect ourselves."

She checked into ordering Hesco barriers herself, but the cost was too much.

The Le family, including Cong, her brother Nam Le, two other sisters and even her mother and uncle got together and brainstormed.

"He had been building the first wall for the second floor and it collapsed," Cong Le said of her brother. "And he cried a lot."

They asked friends and neighbors about how to build a wall. Everyone pitched in ideas.

"So then he came up with this wall and I think it works very well," she said, adding that it took three days to build.

All the supplies came from Menard's, she said.

She said she was shocked but not surprised to read Davenport City Administrator Corri Spiegel's column in the Quad City Times stating that "Davenport's flood plan is not and never was intended specifically to protect businesses."

"I was not surprised, because they might think that small businesses are not important. But for me, we are part of the community," she said.

Cong Le says she understands this winter and spring season have been very hard on everybody, including the city.

"Maybe there so many things going on with them they haven't thought about this. But I take this opportunity to stand tall for the small businesses in this area, because I have been talking to all small business neighbors: They are upset about the floods. They were very stressed, like me. " she said.

Across the street, at her sister and brother-in-law's Oriental Food grocery store, and further down, at the Discount Tobacco, owners expressed a similar sentiment. They wondered aloud about a permanent solution.

"You're paying taxes, but not getting any benefits," said Bikram Thapa, the owner of the smoke shop.

Cong Le said she and neighboring businesses were thinking about how to protect their livelihoods, and the city needs to rethink the future as well.

"I really would like to hear directly from the City of Davenport, and all the small businesses," she said. "We need to have a meeting, sit down together and think about future."

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Trump Admin Waives Environmental Laws to Build Border Wall in National Monument, Wildlife Refuge

The fence at the U.S.-Mexico border is surrounded by cacti at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Lukeville, Arizona, on Feb. 16, 2017. (Credit: Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images)

× Trump Admin Waives Environmental Laws to Build Border Wall in National Monument, Wildlife Refuge

The fence at the U.S.-Mexico border is surrounded by cacti at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument near Lukeville, Arizona, on Feb. 16, 2017. (Credit: Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images)

The U.S. government plans on replacing barriers through 100 miles of the southern border in California and Arizona, including through a national monument and a wildlife refuge, according to documents and environmental advocates.

The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday again waived environmental and dozens of other laws to build more barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Funding will come from the Defense Department following the emergency declaration that President Donald Trump signed this year after Congress refused to approve the amount of border wall funding he requested.

Barriers will go up at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a vast park named after the unique cactus breed that decorates it, and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, which is largely a designed wilderness home to 275 wildlife species. The government will also build new roads and lighting in those areas in Arizona.

Environmental advocates who have sued to stop the construction of the wall say this latest plan will be detrimental to the wildlife and habitat in those areas.

"The Trump administration just ignored bedrock environmental and public health laws to plow a disastrous border wall through protected, spectacular wildlands," said Laiken Jordahl, who works on border issues at the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has typically not said much about construction plans.

At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, row after row of cactuses decorate 516 square miles of land that once saw so much drug smuggling that over half the park was closed to the public. But illegal crossings in that area dropped off significantly in the past several years, and the government in 2015 reopened the entire monument for the first time in 12 years.

While Arizona has seen an increase in border crossers over the last year, most are families who turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents. The number of drugs that agents seize in the state has also dropped significantly.

But the government is moving forward with more border infrastructure.

The waivers the department issued Tuesday are vague in their description of where and how many miles of fencing will be installed. The Center for Biological Diversity says the plans total about 100 miles of southern border in both Arizona and California, near Calexico and Tecate.

In Arizona, construction will focus on four areas of the border and will include the replacement of waist-high fencing meant to stop cars with 18- to 30-foot barriers that will be more efficient at stopping illegal crossings.

The government has already demolished refuge land in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and construction is set to begin any day. On one section of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, crews have used heavy construction equipment to destroy a mix of trees, including mesquite, mulberry and hackberry. Those trees protect birds during the ongoing nesting season.

According to plans published last year, the cleared land will be filled in and a concrete wall will be installed, with bollards measuring 18 feet installed on top.

After months of public outcry, Congress forbade U.S. Customs and Border Protection from building in the nearby Santa Ana wildlife refuge or the nonprofit National Butterfly Center. But it didn't stop money from going to wall construction in other refuge lands, nor did it stop the government from building in otherwise exempted land due to the emergency declaration, said Marianna Trevino Wright, the butterfly center's director.

"They're going to have to protect us in every single spending bill going forward, and they have to protect us against the state of emergency," Wright said. "And this administration has made it clear … that they don't want any exemptions."