About 50 people gathered Thursday at a park on the edge of downtown Brownsville to peacefully protest the buoy barriers that the federal government is installing nearby in the Rio Grande.

They played a life-sized game of lotería, passed out aguas fresca in the 90-degree heat, and hit a piñata in the shape of a red border buoys full of candy.

“The Department of Homeland Security is actively installing dangerous border buoys in our river,” Bekah Hinojosa of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network told Border Report as she arrived Thursday afternoon to set up for the protest. “The river is supposed to be a pristine habitat, it nourishes our community and we demand equal protections for our river.”

Hinojosa says she watched buoys being installed on Thursday “causing an ecological disaster.”