(EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated with information from the Texas Facilities Commission)

ZAPATA, Texas (Border Report) — A segment of state-funded border wall is going up in rural Zapata County, the first to be built in this part of South Texas.

Zapata County Judge Joe Rathmell on Monday confirmed to Border Report that the segment is on private land in the ranching county of 14,000 residents east of the more populous border city of Laredo.

Zapata County officials for years fought off the federal border wall from going through their land and a popular birding sanctuary in the remote hamlet of San Ygnacio. But Rathmell says they can’t do anything about state-funded border wall being built on private property.

Rathmell said construction started within the past month. He says he has reached out to the International Boundary and Water Commission, a federal agency that oversees the Rio Grande, and was told they were unaware of the construction.

“The county, we weren’t notified or advised of anything, so we were not involved in it. And the Boundary Commission folks, they also didn’t know anything about it. So I guess it’s a private landowner who is requesting that,” Rathmell said. “If it’s on private property — some landowners want that type of protection — so I don’t know there’s much we can do.”

Border Report spotted construction of the segment off Highway 83, the southernmost stretch of highway that hugs the Texas-Mexico border.

The segment being built is located about 3 miles east of the Webb County line.

On Tuesday, the Texas Facilities Commission — the state agency that oversees all state-funded border wall contracts — confirmed that the 30-foot-tall metal bollards that are going up in Zapata are part of the state’s Texas Border Infrastructure Program. Construction began in mid-March and should be completed by summer 2025. The cost is not to exceed $130 million for the 4.78 miles of border wall that are being built on private property, TFC Spokeswoman Francoise Luca told Border Report.

On Jan. 19, 2023, the Austin-based agency approved a border wall contract with Sullivan Land Services Co., a Galveston-based construction firm that has built federal border wall segments in the Rio Grande Valley.

As part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security initiative, the state hired the company to design and build 6.62 miles of border wall in Webb and Zapata counties.

It was one of the last contracts approved for many months until the Texas Legislature in the fall approved spending $1.54 billion more for state-funded border wall.

The Texas Military Department, in its March 7 Operation Lone Star Dispatch newsletter, said Zapata County is an area where the Texas Army National Guard is also installing miles of wire fencing along the Rio Grande on private lands whose landowners allow the structures. This is far different from 30-foot-tall permanent metal bollards, but TMD says it is still an effective barrier to stop illegal crossings from Mexico.

The Texas Military Department reports over 4 miles of wire fencing have already been installed in Zapata County on the border, with concertina wire atop.

Several miles of the wire fencing also have been installed in the Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, where a year ago thousands of migrants per day crossed the Rio Grande before the lifting of Title 42.

Sandra Sanchez can be reached at SSanchez@BorderReport.com.