By ABC 7 Reporter Martin Bartlett

NEELY'S CROSSING -- Federal contractors and sub-contractors are holding meeting with local property ranchers and scouting border levees in rural Hudspeth County in advance of construction of the border fence there which could start as soon as Mid-September.

Thursday morning's meeting was held at the U.S. Border Patrol Station in Sierra Blanca and was only open to ranchers who own property along the border and had been invited.

Tom Neely and George Paradas were both invited and both men have spent their entire lives ranching along the Rio Grande near Neely's Crossing.

Neely welcomes the fence while Paradas is vowing to fight it "tooth and nail."

"I live there; I have lived my whole life along the border," Paradas said. "This wall is not going to be a solution to the problem of illegals crossing the border."

Tom Neely, whose family settled in the area in 1902, concedes the fence will not be a fix-all, but he said, "it will help the border patrol agents that have to control the situation down there."

Neely now lives in Sierra Blanca, but says he and his family members still spend a lot of time on the family's property. He recalls one particularly violent incident between drug runners and Border Patrol agents at Neely's Crossing. He said it sounded like "a war has broken out on the river."

That's why Neely favors the fence.

Parada said he waters his 200 head of beef cattle with water from the river.

Neely said the feds have promised rancher some kind of access to the river -- but still no specifics.

But they both agree it's an inherent problem of building a fence that has to be solved. Since the fence is to be built along the levees, ranchers think they'll be pushed back at least 80 yards from the river and the say if there's no water, there's no ranching here.