Arizona Business Gazette
July 28, 2011
by Howard Fischer
The prime mover behind the fund to have the state build its own border fence is telling would-be donors they may be able to get a tax deduction out of the whole thing.
But a couple of attorneys with an expertise in tax law say those who decide to list the donations, and reduce what they owe the federal and state government, could wind up with a rude surprise.
The state website set up by Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, includes a statement from state Comptroller D. Clark Partridge declaring that, under the Internal Revenue Code, the definition of a charity includes contributions made to a state "if such gift is made exclusively for public purposes." Partridge said Arizona law defines charitable contributions the same as federal rules.
Smith said that, legally speaking, he cannot tell someone that a specific donation qualifies as deductible.
"When you read the comptroller's letter, there's a precedent out there that when you give to a state or a subdivision of - which clearly this would be - it's tax-deductible," he said. "They pretty much say it in black and white."
Partridge, however, takes pains to ensure he does not go that far.
"Although it is not the function of the state to give legal or tax advice, a donation made to the state of Arizona to support a public purpose may qualify as a deduction in determining the donor's federal and Arizona taxable income," he wrote. "Donors should consult with their legal and/or tax advisers for guidance."
Attorney and tax practitioner Bob Kamman said that, on the surface, donations for the state to build a wall would appear to qualify. But, he said, the legislation setting up the fund is not clear enough to assure the Internal Revenue Service, which will review the tax returns, that the money really is going to the state.
He pointed out that the law establishes the Border Security Trust Fund, administered by the treasurer. And the state can be the beneficiary of this fund.
But he also said that the legislation allows Arizona to enter a compact with other border states to pool resources.
In that case, Kamman said, the compact also could be a beneficiary. But the compact organization, unlike the state, does not automatically have tax-exempt status and would have to apply for such a designation.
Kamman said the IRS would be likely to grant it tax-exempt status.
"But that process may take years and may not be retroactive," he said. "I would not assure my clients that gifts to the Border Security Trust Fund, even though administered by the Arizona state treasurer, are deductible on their federal income-tax returns."
That also is the assessment of attorney and tax specialist David Kozak.
He said the whole idea behind the deduction for gifts to governments is largely to benefit those who make donations, like land for public schools, parks and fire stations. He said there is no real precedent among tax-law cases on whether a border fence would qualify.
But Kozak's reasoning in warning off clients goes beyond the tax code itself. He said the whole thing could take on political implications.
He said the deduction is likely to be questioned.
"Assuming the administration and the (U.S.) Treasury is not happy about the border fence - which apparently they're not - it's really easy for them to just deny the deduction," Kozak said. "And then, it will go to trial."
Ultimately, he said, whoever loses there will take the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"And you can guess as well as anyone else what they're going to do," Kozak said. "They're generally thought of as the most liberal of any court of appeals."
At that point, he said, the taxpayer is going to have to make a decision.
"If anyone has enough money in this to make it worth their while, it will go up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court," Kozak said. "But that's years down the road."
He said that, for most taxpayers, the amount of money they would save by taking a deduction on a border-fence donation would not be worth the legal fees involved.
http://www.azcentral.com/business/abg/articles/2011/07/28/20110728abg-borderfence0728.html
Friday, July 29, 2011
$24.4M for Arizona fence repairs
Arizona Daily Star
July 28, 2011
by Brady McCombs
Border fences, roads and lighting are not only expensive to build, they are costly to repair and maintain.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a $24.4 million contract to a private firm to perform repairs and maintenance on border barriers, roads, lighting and electrical systems along Arizona’s border with Mexico, announced Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office.
The contract is the largest of four regionally based agreements that Customs and Border Protection has to maintain fences and roads, said Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Jenny Burke.
It is a one year contract for $7.7 million with two additional one-year options that would make it worth $24.4 million, she said.
The contact — awarded to Houston-based Kellog Brown & Root — includes repairs and maintenance of five areas:
• Fences and gates
• Roads and bridges
• Lighting and electrical systems
• Drainage and grates
• Vegetation control and debris removal
Giffords’ chief of staff, Pia Carusone, applauded the contract, noting that it’s essential that border infrastructure be properly and fully maintained.
Customs and Border Protection agency spends an estimated $97 million annually on this work across the border, Burke said. The 20-year life-cycle costs of maintaining the fences, roads, lighting is estimated at about $6.5 billion, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2009.
The federal government spent $2.4 billion to build 264 miles of pedestrian fencing and 226 miles of vehicle barriers from 2004-2009, the GAO has found. Today, there are a total of 350 miles of pedestrian fences and 299 miles of vehicle barriers along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
More than four-fifths of Arizona's 378 miles of Mexican border have some type of border barrier. There are 123 miles of pedestrian fences, 12- to 25-foot-high barriers designed to stop, or at least slow down, people. There are another 183 miles of vehicle barriers, waist- to chest-high barricades designed to stop cars.
It cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build the new barriers in Arizona. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile.
Customs and Border Protection officials acknowledge that fences are not a panacea, but say they help deter, slow and funnel traffic. The impact of barriers on illegal immigration and drug smuggling is unknown because it has not been measured, according to a September 2009 GAO report.
The buildup of fences and roads along the border could have environmental consequences, too. Fencing has caused flooding and erosion, and it could be fragmenting wildlife habitat.
http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/border-boletin/article_9951e1ee-b886-11e0-83b4-001cc4c03286.html
July 28, 2011
by Brady McCombs
Border fences, roads and lighting are not only expensive to build, they are costly to repair and maintain.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a $24.4 million contract to a private firm to perform repairs and maintenance on border barriers, roads, lighting and electrical systems along Arizona’s border with Mexico, announced Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ office.
The contract is the largest of four regionally based agreements that Customs and Border Protection has to maintain fences and roads, said Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Jenny Burke.
It is a one year contract for $7.7 million with two additional one-year options that would make it worth $24.4 million, she said.
The contact — awarded to Houston-based Kellog Brown & Root — includes repairs and maintenance of five areas:
• Fences and gates
• Roads and bridges
• Lighting and electrical systems
• Drainage and grates
• Vegetation control and debris removal
Giffords’ chief of staff, Pia Carusone, applauded the contract, noting that it’s essential that border infrastructure be properly and fully maintained.
Customs and Border Protection agency spends an estimated $97 million annually on this work across the border, Burke said. The 20-year life-cycle costs of maintaining the fences, roads, lighting is estimated at about $6.5 billion, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2009.
The federal government spent $2.4 billion to build 264 miles of pedestrian fencing and 226 miles of vehicle barriers from 2004-2009, the GAO has found. Today, there are a total of 350 miles of pedestrian fences and 299 miles of vehicle barriers along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
More than four-fifths of Arizona's 378 miles of Mexican border have some type of border barrier. There are 123 miles of pedestrian fences, 12- to 25-foot-high barriers designed to stop, or at least slow down, people. There are another 183 miles of vehicle barriers, waist- to chest-high barricades designed to stop cars.
It cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build the new barriers in Arizona. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile.
Customs and Border Protection officials acknowledge that fences are not a panacea, but say they help deter, slow and funnel traffic. The impact of barriers on illegal immigration and drug smuggling is unknown because it has not been measured, according to a September 2009 GAO report.
The buildup of fences and roads along the border could have environmental consequences, too. Fencing has caused flooding and erosion, and it could be fragmenting wildlife habitat.
http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/border-boletin/article_9951e1ee-b886-11e0-83b4-001cc4c03286.html
'Invasion' claim over SB 1070 shot down
Arizona Daily Star
July 29, 2011
Howard Fischer
PHOENIX - A federal judge said Thursday that there appears to be no legal basis for a request that she order the Obama administration to do more to protect the border.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton noted that the state wants her to rule the federal government is failing in its mandate to protect the country from "invasion," based on the contention that Arizona and the United States are effectively being invaded by large numbers of illegal immigrants.
But the judge pointed out that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals specifically rejected an identical argument presented by California 14 years ago.
Bolton also said Assistant Attorney General Michael Tryon may be on no more legally secure footing in a separate contention that the federal government is breaking its own law by refusing to fully reimburse Arizona for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants who have violated state laws. Instead, Arizona and other states with similar costs get what Tryon called "pennies on the dollar."
"Everyone is getting pennies on the dollar," Bolton responded, noting that Congress has never appropriated enough money to cover all of the costs of all of the states. "I don't have the authority to tell Congress to give the Department of Justice more money."
Thursday's hearing was on a request by the Obama administration that Bolton throw out the claims the state filed against the federal government earlier this year, which are actually counterclaims to the decision by the administration to challenge the key provisions of SB 1070, last year's far-reaching measure designed to give state and local police more power to detain and arrest illegal immigrants.
Bolton has so far sided with the federal government on much of that original lawsuit, enjoining the state from enforcing key provisions of the law until there can be a full trial on the merits. And that is unlikely to occur before next year.
Gov. Jan Brewer, who attended Thursday's hearing, said afterward that she remains hopeful Bolton will allow the state to pursue its claims, despite the judge's comments.
"We know it's an uphill battle," Brewer said.
"I understand there was a precedent set," the governor said of the 14-year-old appellate court ruling. But Brewer said "things have changed" since then.
Tryon tried the same argument in court. For example, he said, Congress has since passed a law requiring the Department of Homeland Security - which did not exist at the time - to gain "operational control" of the border.
Bolton did not appear to buy that argument.
She said the 9th Circuit has ruled the requirement of the federal government to protect its citizens from invasion refers only to actions by a foreign power.
Varu Chilakamarri, an assistant U.S. attorney general, agreed that federal law does require Homeland Security to achieve "operational control" of the border. But she said Congress set that only as a goal, leaving it up to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to determine exactly how to achieve it.
"She is the only one who has an eye across the entire border," Chilakamarri said.
Similarly, Chilakamarri said there is no basis for the state to demand that Homeland Security build more miles of fence along the Arizona-Mexico border.
She said that while Congress directed the agency to build 700 miles of fence, lawmakers provided no deadline. And Chilakamarri said Congress left it up to Napolitano to decide where to put that along the nearly 2,000-mile international border.
That means Arizona cannot seek a court order demanding that Arizona get more miles of fence, Chilakamarri said. At this point, she said, 649 miles have been constructed, with more than 300 miles of that in Arizona.
The state's claim over its prison costs springs from a federal law requiring the Justice Department to reimburse states for locking up people here illegally who have been convicted of violating state laws.
The law authorizes funding at $950 million a year. But the Obama administration has requested - and Congress has authorized - only a fraction of that amount. That amount is split among the states based on the number of inmates.
Bolton told Tryon that judges cannot tell the Justice Department how to divide up its money. Tryon, however, said the formula amounts to an "abuse of discretion" by the agency, something that is within the judge's power.
http://azstarnet.com/article_b009ad69-4564-5280-ae22-f25eeabc2d1f.html
July 29, 2011
Howard Fischer
PHOENIX - A federal judge said Thursday that there appears to be no legal basis for a request that she order the Obama administration to do more to protect the border.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton noted that the state wants her to rule the federal government is failing in its mandate to protect the country from "invasion," based on the contention that Arizona and the United States are effectively being invaded by large numbers of illegal immigrants.
But the judge pointed out that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals specifically rejected an identical argument presented by California 14 years ago.
Bolton also said Assistant Attorney General Michael Tryon may be on no more legally secure footing in a separate contention that the federal government is breaking its own law by refusing to fully reimburse Arizona for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants who have violated state laws. Instead, Arizona and other states with similar costs get what Tryon called "pennies on the dollar."
"Everyone is getting pennies on the dollar," Bolton responded, noting that Congress has never appropriated enough money to cover all of the costs of all of the states. "I don't have the authority to tell Congress to give the Department of Justice more money."
Thursday's hearing was on a request by the Obama administration that Bolton throw out the claims the state filed against the federal government earlier this year, which are actually counterclaims to the decision by the administration to challenge the key provisions of SB 1070, last year's far-reaching measure designed to give state and local police more power to detain and arrest illegal immigrants.
Bolton has so far sided with the federal government on much of that original lawsuit, enjoining the state from enforcing key provisions of the law until there can be a full trial on the merits. And that is unlikely to occur before next year.
Gov. Jan Brewer, who attended Thursday's hearing, said afterward that she remains hopeful Bolton will allow the state to pursue its claims, despite the judge's comments.
"We know it's an uphill battle," Brewer said.
"I understand there was a precedent set," the governor said of the 14-year-old appellate court ruling. But Brewer said "things have changed" since then.
Tryon tried the same argument in court. For example, he said, Congress has since passed a law requiring the Department of Homeland Security - which did not exist at the time - to gain "operational control" of the border.
Bolton did not appear to buy that argument.
She said the 9th Circuit has ruled the requirement of the federal government to protect its citizens from invasion refers only to actions by a foreign power.
Varu Chilakamarri, an assistant U.S. attorney general, agreed that federal law does require Homeland Security to achieve "operational control" of the border. But she said Congress set that only as a goal, leaving it up to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to determine exactly how to achieve it.
"She is the only one who has an eye across the entire border," Chilakamarri said.
Similarly, Chilakamarri said there is no basis for the state to demand that Homeland Security build more miles of fence along the Arizona-Mexico border.
She said that while Congress directed the agency to build 700 miles of fence, lawmakers provided no deadline. And Chilakamarri said Congress left it up to Napolitano to decide where to put that along the nearly 2,000-mile international border.
That means Arizona cannot seek a court order demanding that Arizona get more miles of fence, Chilakamarri said. At this point, she said, 649 miles have been constructed, with more than 300 miles of that in Arizona.
The state's claim over its prison costs springs from a federal law requiring the Justice Department to reimburse states for locking up people here illegally who have been convicted of violating state laws.
The law authorizes funding at $950 million a year. But the Obama administration has requested - and Congress has authorized - only a fraction of that amount. That amount is split among the states based on the number of inmates.
Bolton told Tryon that judges cannot tell the Justice Department how to divide up its money. Tryon, however, said the formula amounts to an "abuse of discretion" by the agency, something that is within the judge's power.
http://azstarnet.com/article_b009ad69-4564-5280-ae22-f25eeabc2d1f.html
Friday, July 22, 2011
Border-fence website raises more than $80K
Arizona Daily Star
July 22, 2011
by Brady McCombs
More than $80,000 in donations have come in to a website set up to raise money for a state-supported border fence.
Through Thursday at 5 p.m., the website has received donations from 1,837 people for a total of $80,014, said Mike Philipsen, spokesman for Senate Republicans. Donations have come from every state in the union, he said.
The website went live Wednesday at 12:01 p.m. under a bill passed by the Arizona Legislature in April and sponsored by first year Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa. Smith said he won't accept the federal government's stance that there are enough barriers along the border.
More than four-fifths of Arizona's 378 miles of Mexican border have some type of border barrier already. There are 123 miles of pedestrian fences, 12- to 25-foot-high barriers designed to stop, or at least slow down, people. There are another 183 miles of vehicle barriers, waist- to chest-high barricades designed to stop cars.
If donations continue coming in as briskly as they did the first two days, it would take about 130 days to raise enough money - $5.2 million - to build at least two miles of the type of border fence Smith envisions.
Smith said his wish would be to build an 18-foot-high steel beam fence such as the one up along 6.24 miles of border west of the San Pedro River in Cochise County. That fence was built by Kiewit Western Co. under a $16.6 million contract in 2008 - an average of $2.6 million per mile, information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows.
It cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build hundreds of miles of new fencing in Arizona over the last five years. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile.
But Smith expects a state-supported fence to cost less because the state would use inmate labor at 50 cents an hour and because he expects competitive bids from construction companies.
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_2d0a8552-0aa2-52cf-aed6-1a254b437835.html
July 22, 2011
by Brady McCombs
More than $80,000 in donations have come in to a website set up to raise money for a state-supported border fence.
Through Thursday at 5 p.m., the website has received donations from 1,837 people for a total of $80,014, said Mike Philipsen, spokesman for Senate Republicans. Donations have come from every state in the union, he said.
The website went live Wednesday at 12:01 p.m. under a bill passed by the Arizona Legislature in April and sponsored by first year Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa. Smith said he won't accept the federal government's stance that there are enough barriers along the border.
More than four-fifths of Arizona's 378 miles of Mexican border have some type of border barrier already. There are 123 miles of pedestrian fences, 12- to 25-foot-high barriers designed to stop, or at least slow down, people. There are another 183 miles of vehicle barriers, waist- to chest-high barricades designed to stop cars.
If donations continue coming in as briskly as they did the first two days, it would take about 130 days to raise enough money - $5.2 million - to build at least two miles of the type of border fence Smith envisions.
Smith said his wish would be to build an 18-foot-high steel beam fence such as the one up along 6.24 miles of border west of the San Pedro River in Cochise County. That fence was built by Kiewit Western Co. under a $16.6 million contract in 2008 - an average of $2.6 million per mile, information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows.
It cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build hundreds of miles of new fencing in Arizona over the last five years. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile.
But Smith expects a state-supported fence to cost less because the state would use inmate labor at 50 cents an hour and because he expects competitive bids from construction companies.
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/article_2d0a8552-0aa2-52cf-aed6-1a254b437835.html
What is the impact of the border fence on Texas animals?
Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine
August 2011
by Rob McCorkle
On a mild December day in the subtropical Rio Grande Valley, I’m following wildlife biologist Steve Benn along U.S. Highway 281 southeast of Weslaco toward the Hidalgo-Cameron County line. Winter crops like cabbage and onions poke from fecund Rio Grande delta soil along the narrow blacktop that heads south toward the river. An ink-black indigo snake — one of the Valley’s rare species — slithers across the road.
Pulling up behind Benn’s Texas Parks and Wildlife Department truck just north of the levee next to a large gap in the border wall, which rises 18 feet from the dirt, I spot two bobcats about 30 yards away on a bulldozed road that parallels the wall. Cut off to the south by the concrete and steel wall, the cats cast a furtive glance my way before wheeling and dashing north into the thin line of brush adjacent to the bare sugar cane fields just beyond. Had we not been parked next to the gap in this segment of the border wall on TPWD property, where federal government contractors will eventually install a gate, the cats might have slipped through and headed south toward the Rio Grande.
Though I’d read about the fence and seen photos, seeing the border wall with my own eyes bordered on the surreal. Broken segments of the 18-foot-tall, picket-like steel fencing zigzag across the tabletop-flat South Texas landscape, often beginning and ending in the middle of a field, visible at times from the highway, while at other times hidden beyond a distant tree line. While news coverage in the past few years has focused on the wall’s human-related purpose and impacts, little has been communicated about what effects the border fence might have on wildlife, land management practices and ecotourism in one of the state’s most impoverished regions.
* * *
The imposing fence inside the Anacua Unit of the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area represents but one small part of Texas’ 110 miles of the 670 miles of congressionally mandated Southwest border fence hopscotching across the almost 2,000 miles of border from San Diego to Brownsville to deter drug smuggling and illegal crossings from Mexico into the United States.
In the lower Rio Grande Valley, all but a few of the 22 segments of the called-for 70 miles of pedestrian fencing (as opposed to vehicle fencing) already have been built under the direction of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most of the shorter segments measure about a mile in length and were erected adjacent to international bridges or at traditionally heavily trafficked border crossings.
The half-mile-long Anacua Unit segment sits in the middle of 2.52 acres purchased by the federal government under condemnation proceedings initiated by the Department of Homeland Security under authority of the Secure Fence Act. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission opposed the land seizure, expressing concern that it would negatively affect wildlife habitat conservation efforts begun some 40 years ago in one of North America’s most important ecological regions, where nature tourism produces a $125 million-a-year economic impact. But federal authorities got the property and installed bollard-type fencing on a 60-foot-wide strip of land in the heart of the unit.
“When finished, and the gate’s put in, bobcats and many other terrestrial wildlife won’t be able to get through this fence here,” explains Benn, project leader for the 3,300-acre Las Palomas WMA, originally purchased by TPWD for white-winged dove nesting habitat with federal excise taxes on hunting equipment and white-winged dove stamp sales. The Anacua Unit is one of 18 units that make up the WMA, and three of them are adversely affected by the wall. “There’s only a 4-inch gap between the steel bars, and with the bars set into a 9-foot-deep concrete trench, animals won’t be able to burrow under it.”
The wildlife biologist worries that the border fence will only compound the Valley’s ongoing habitat fragmentation. He says the wall complicates the area’s wildlife management efforts and threatens indigenous rare species such as the ocelot, Texas tortoise, indigo snake and Texas horned lizard. Benn wonders, too, where animals trapped north of the wall, away from the river, will find drinking water.
Ironically, the wall has gone up in an area where TPWD, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an army of conservation organizations have spent more than $150 million and several decades acquiring acreage and restoring native habitat in the Valley, where 95 percent of the Tamaulipan thornscrub and riparian woodlands has been eradicated. The result is a sprawling checkerboard of almost 200,000 acres under conservation protection in the Rio Grande delta, a government-protected wildlife corridor that facilitates animal migration and supports plant and animal diversity.
Conservationists fear the border wall will reverse much of that progress and hasten the demise of species such as the endangered ocelot, whose breeding U.S. population — confined to South Texas ranchland and the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — has dropped below 100.
* * *
In the field of wildlife biology, empirical evidence rules. But trying to discern just what kind of impact the still-unfinished border wall is having on wildlife proves to be a less-than-exact science. USFWS and TPWD biologists in 2008 struggled to establish baseline data before fence installation.
Biologists trapped and collared bobcats in several areas, including the Anacua tract, so they could track their movements as the wall went up. At TPWD’s Champion Unit in Hidalgo County, managed by the USFWS, biologists did a series of three-minute bird counts before fence construction began to see how bird populations might be affected by any habitat destruction, as well as the noise associated with building the fence and future U.S. Border Patrol operations. Although birds can fly over any barrier, conservationists note that destruction of riparian habitat for wall construction means many bird species would have less habitat in which to survive.
Much of the Valley’s wildlife exists in the USFWS South Texas Refuge Complex. The Santa Ana, Laguna Atascosa and Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuges include 100 tracts totaling 180,000 acres. Biologists and volunteers sampled wildlife and bird populations along wall segments being built inside the complex.
USFWS wildlife biologist Mitch Sternberg coordinates biological programs for the refuge complex. He oversaw pre- and post-construction wildlife track surveys conducted along roads at the base of four sections of the fence in Cameron County south and east of Brownsville in the Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary, the Southmost Preserve and Boscaje de la Palma.
Biologists found numerous animal tracks from coyotes, lizards, snakes and raccoons skirting the end of the fence segments, which typically abut roads used to access the river levee. In addition, biologists found that the wildlife crossings (8-by-11-inch “cat holes”) were being frequented primarily by raccoons. While the more than 300 passages incorporated into the various Valley fence segments at the request of USFWS can accommodate smaller terrestrial creatures, they are too small to allow passage of larger animals, such as coyotes, bobcats or tortoises.
In the summer of 2009, Sternberg conducted bobcat tracking surveys at several future fence construction sites. He set up infrared cameras near several wildlife corridors along natural drainages. Sternberg followed the movements of a bobcat mating pair and their kitten as construction got under way. When an adult female came into their territory, the bobcat pair killed her.
“In December, I saw both the male and female dead by Highway 281,” Stern recalls. “Their territory had been squeezed down to 400 square yards of agricultural fields and brush near the wall and highway. They were likely searching for more territory. There are 600 acres of brush south of the wall, but it was a mile to the gate opening and they didn’t find it.”
In Arizona, the border fence has been in place long enough for conservation scientists and others to track some of the consequences caused by fragmented habitat for specific wildlife populations. Aaron Flesch, senior research specialist with the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment, documented some of the effects of habitat connectivity issues on desert bighorn sheep and ferruginous pygmy owls in an article published in Conservation Biology.
Of the diminutive owls that tend to fly only a few feet off the ground, Flesch wrote: “They tend to avoid large vegetation openings. And when they encounter large vegetation openings greater than 200 meters, they tend to turn around.” He concluded that large vegetation gaps coupled with tall fences “could limit trans-boundary movements” of the owls.
Flesch’s team also concluded that the “disruption of trans-boundary movement corridors by impermeable fencing would isolate some populations [of female bighorn sheep] on the Arizona side,” likely having a negative effect on the overall population living in the resulting fragmented Arizona habitat.
Flesch and his team suggested additional funding was needed to support research among governmental agencies, universities and other organizations to find the best ways to balance border security and the needs of wildlife species.
To that end, a team of University of Arizona researchers working with the U.S. Geological Survey in 2010 developed a protocol for monitoring the border wall’s potential effects on wildlife to help identify locations that need to have mitigation actions. It has been submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Department of Homeland Security and is still under review.
“What we’ve got now is anecdotal information and studies that look at one species or one section, but we really need a comprehensive analysis of the impacts over a large stretch of the area,” says Laura Lopez-Hoffman, assistant professor of the university’s School of Natural Resources.
Nancy Brown, public outreach specialist for the South Texas Refuge Complex, estimates the border wall has affected 60 to 75 percent of the complex’s land. Three-quarters of the federally owned acreage fronts the Rio Grande, which snakes for 275 miles through the Valley. In her Santa Ana NWR office is a map of the green swath of the river corridor marked with red squiggles that look like tiny worms, denoting the proposed segments of the wall to be built between Brownsville and Lake Falcon.
In Hidalgo County, contractors built roughly 20 miles of concrete wall — not along the river, but atop the meandering earthen levees that protect the southern part of the county from floodwaters. Here, no wildlife passages exist at the wall’s base.
The opposite end of the county is home to the Valley Nature Center. Overseeing the center’s operations in the heart of Weslaco is Martin Hagne, who moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 1979 and serves on the board of the Friends of Santa Ana NWR.
While the wall’s present impact on the Valley ecology and wildlife is just now becoming known, at least anecdotally, Hagne frets over the long-term effects of closing off wildlife corridors in so many different places, where the river sometimes takes wicked twists and turns.
Although the Valley Nature Center is far enough inland not to be impacted, the wall has affected operations at two of Cameron County’s most significant nature preserves bordering the Rio Grande.
Uncertainties surrounding the wall’s construction and access issues forced Audubon in May 2009 to close its Sabal Palm sanctuary, home to the nation’s last substantial stand of the subtropical sabal palm. The 527-acre nature preserve did reopen in January 2011 when a private group, the Gorgas Science Foundation of Brownsville, stepped forward to help fund and run the refuge.
A few miles downriver lies the 1,034-acre Southmost Preserve, another major native sabal palm sanctuary as well as a native plant nursery, organic citrus operation and critical native wildlife habitat for rare snakes, cats and other critters. The Nature Conservancy has filed suit contesting U.S. condemnation and seizure of eight acres that today hosts a 6,000-foot-long, 60-foot-wide strip of land bisected by the border fence. Its location cuts off the northernmost part of the preserve, isolating 900 acres between the wall and Rio Grande in what critics call a “no man’s land.” Preserve operators find themselves grappling with myriad land management challenges.
“My concern now is how do we manage the property, operate the nursery where we’re growing 80,000 seedlings under contract with the USFWS and keep the wetlands and resacas pumped full of water,” says John Herron, the Nature Conservancy’s director of conservation.
Herron says many people don’t realize that the fence doesn’t follow the river, that huge gaps exist between fence sections and that hundreds of acres end up stranded between the wall and river.
“The fence is exempted from environmental laws, so there hasn’t been any assessment of the environmental impact,” Herron says. “Who should pay for that? The USFWS hasn’t been given any money for that, nor have we. Here we are three years into it and there are lots of areas with no clarity.”
Fifth-generation South Texan Max Pons, who manages the preserve and lives on the property, hopes the wall’s presence doesn’t threaten the preserve’s wildlife that thrives amid the native Tamaulipan thornscrub and ancient stands of Sabal mexicana. The native palms once forested much of the Rio Grande Valley, but are now found only in deep South Texas and northern Mexico. Each palm, which can grow up to 40 feet tall, creates a micro-habitat of its own.
“You can have a population of southern yellow bats living under its leaves,” Pons explains, “and turkeys and other birds nesting and roosting. Invertebrates collect in leaf litter at the base, which attracts lizards and snakes such as the endangered indigo. Wood rats live in the trees and hop from one tree to the other.”
Pons credits the federal government, however, with working with him and other conservation agencies to try to mitigate some of the wall’s impact on wildlife. On a drive along a recently installed wall segment, he gets out to show me a hard-to-spot, notebook-paper-size opening that has been cut out at the bottom of the steel fencing to allow snakes and other small critters to pass through. In another concession to conservation organizations, he says federal contractors dug up several hundred sabal palms in the fence right-of-way for replanting at Southmost Preserve, Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary and Bosque de la Palma NWR.
Some representatives of the Valley’s lucrative nature tourism industry, a business fueled by world-class birding that draws enthusiasts hoping to add such local specialty birds as the green jay and chachalaca to their life lists, worry about the wall’s impact on local economies.
Nancy Millar, director of the McAllen Convention and Visitors Bureau, says news of the border wall has already resulted in one British birding company canceling future tours to the area. And, she says she gets plenty of questions about the impact of the fence when she attends travel shows in the U.S. and abroad.
For Keith Hackland, president of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor and owner of the Alamo Inn and Outdoor Store in Alamo, concerns remain about what impact the border wall will have on prime birding spots in riparian forests farther upriver.
“The greatest fear I have is for the part of the wall being built from Rio Grande City to Falcon Dam in Starr County,” Hackland says, “because the plan is to place it along the river. Clearing the narrow strip of riparian forest on the banks would be an ecological disaster, eliminating the red-billed pigeon, Audubon’s oriole, Muscovy duck and all of the rare nesting birds.”
He contends that such habitat destruction in such an ecologically rich region blessed with more than 500 bird and 300 butterfly species will have a huge impact on wildlife,
conservation efforts and the economy.
“If nature tourists lose confidence in this area and can’t access the river forest,” Hackland says during my visit to his inn, “I’ll be looking for new use for this building. They are the ones who pay the bills and help make this enterprise work.”
http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2011/aug/ed_3_borderwall/
August 2011
by Rob McCorkle
On a mild December day in the subtropical Rio Grande Valley, I’m following wildlife biologist Steve Benn along U.S. Highway 281 southeast of Weslaco toward the Hidalgo-Cameron County line. Winter crops like cabbage and onions poke from fecund Rio Grande delta soil along the narrow blacktop that heads south toward the river. An ink-black indigo snake — one of the Valley’s rare species — slithers across the road.
Pulling up behind Benn’s Texas Parks and Wildlife Department truck just north of the levee next to a large gap in the border wall, which rises 18 feet from the dirt, I spot two bobcats about 30 yards away on a bulldozed road that parallels the wall. Cut off to the south by the concrete and steel wall, the cats cast a furtive glance my way before wheeling and dashing north into the thin line of brush adjacent to the bare sugar cane fields just beyond. Had we not been parked next to the gap in this segment of the border wall on TPWD property, where federal government contractors will eventually install a gate, the cats might have slipped through and headed south toward the Rio Grande.
Though I’d read about the fence and seen photos, seeing the border wall with my own eyes bordered on the surreal. Broken segments of the 18-foot-tall, picket-like steel fencing zigzag across the tabletop-flat South Texas landscape, often beginning and ending in the middle of a field, visible at times from the highway, while at other times hidden beyond a distant tree line. While news coverage in the past few years has focused on the wall’s human-related purpose and impacts, little has been communicated about what effects the border fence might have on wildlife, land management practices and ecotourism in one of the state’s most impoverished regions.
* * *
The imposing fence inside the Anacua Unit of the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area represents but one small part of Texas’ 110 miles of the 670 miles of congressionally mandated Southwest border fence hopscotching across the almost 2,000 miles of border from San Diego to Brownsville to deter drug smuggling and illegal crossings from Mexico into the United States.
In the lower Rio Grande Valley, all but a few of the 22 segments of the called-for 70 miles of pedestrian fencing (as opposed to vehicle fencing) already have been built under the direction of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Most of the shorter segments measure about a mile in length and were erected adjacent to international bridges or at traditionally heavily trafficked border crossings.
The half-mile-long Anacua Unit segment sits in the middle of 2.52 acres purchased by the federal government under condemnation proceedings initiated by the Department of Homeland Security under authority of the Secure Fence Act. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission opposed the land seizure, expressing concern that it would negatively affect wildlife habitat conservation efforts begun some 40 years ago in one of North America’s most important ecological regions, where nature tourism produces a $125 million-a-year economic impact. But federal authorities got the property and installed bollard-type fencing on a 60-foot-wide strip of land in the heart of the unit.
“When finished, and the gate’s put in, bobcats and many other terrestrial wildlife won’t be able to get through this fence here,” explains Benn, project leader for the 3,300-acre Las Palomas WMA, originally purchased by TPWD for white-winged dove nesting habitat with federal excise taxes on hunting equipment and white-winged dove stamp sales. The Anacua Unit is one of 18 units that make up the WMA, and three of them are adversely affected by the wall. “There’s only a 4-inch gap between the steel bars, and with the bars set into a 9-foot-deep concrete trench, animals won’t be able to burrow under it.”
The wildlife biologist worries that the border fence will only compound the Valley’s ongoing habitat fragmentation. He says the wall complicates the area’s wildlife management efforts and threatens indigenous rare species such as the ocelot, Texas tortoise, indigo snake and Texas horned lizard. Benn wonders, too, where animals trapped north of the wall, away from the river, will find drinking water.
Ironically, the wall has gone up in an area where TPWD, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and an army of conservation organizations have spent more than $150 million and several decades acquiring acreage and restoring native habitat in the Valley, where 95 percent of the Tamaulipan thornscrub and riparian woodlands has been eradicated. The result is a sprawling checkerboard of almost 200,000 acres under conservation protection in the Rio Grande delta, a government-protected wildlife corridor that facilitates animal migration and supports plant and animal diversity.
Conservationists fear the border wall will reverse much of that progress and hasten the demise of species such as the endangered ocelot, whose breeding U.S. population — confined to South Texas ranchland and the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge — has dropped below 100.
* * *
In the field of wildlife biology, empirical evidence rules. But trying to discern just what kind of impact the still-unfinished border wall is having on wildlife proves to be a less-than-exact science. USFWS and TPWD biologists in 2008 struggled to establish baseline data before fence installation.
Biologists trapped and collared bobcats in several areas, including the Anacua tract, so they could track their movements as the wall went up. At TPWD’s Champion Unit in Hidalgo County, managed by the USFWS, biologists did a series of three-minute bird counts before fence construction began to see how bird populations might be affected by any habitat destruction, as well as the noise associated with building the fence and future U.S. Border Patrol operations. Although birds can fly over any barrier, conservationists note that destruction of riparian habitat for wall construction means many bird species would have less habitat in which to survive.
Much of the Valley’s wildlife exists in the USFWS South Texas Refuge Complex. The Santa Ana, Laguna Atascosa and Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuges include 100 tracts totaling 180,000 acres. Biologists and volunteers sampled wildlife and bird populations along wall segments being built inside the complex.
USFWS wildlife biologist Mitch Sternberg coordinates biological programs for the refuge complex. He oversaw pre- and post-construction wildlife track surveys conducted along roads at the base of four sections of the fence in Cameron County south and east of Brownsville in the Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary, the Southmost Preserve and Boscaje de la Palma.
Biologists found numerous animal tracks from coyotes, lizards, snakes and raccoons skirting the end of the fence segments, which typically abut roads used to access the river levee. In addition, biologists found that the wildlife crossings (8-by-11-inch “cat holes”) were being frequented primarily by raccoons. While the more than 300 passages incorporated into the various Valley fence segments at the request of USFWS can accommodate smaller terrestrial creatures, they are too small to allow passage of larger animals, such as coyotes, bobcats or tortoises.
In the summer of 2009, Sternberg conducted bobcat tracking surveys at several future fence construction sites. He set up infrared cameras near several wildlife corridors along natural drainages. Sternberg followed the movements of a bobcat mating pair and their kitten as construction got under way. When an adult female came into their territory, the bobcat pair killed her.
“In December, I saw both the male and female dead by Highway 281,” Stern recalls. “Their territory had been squeezed down to 400 square yards of agricultural fields and brush near the wall and highway. They were likely searching for more territory. There are 600 acres of brush south of the wall, but it was a mile to the gate opening and they didn’t find it.”
In Arizona, the border fence has been in place long enough for conservation scientists and others to track some of the consequences caused by fragmented habitat for specific wildlife populations. Aaron Flesch, senior research specialist with the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment, documented some of the effects of habitat connectivity issues on desert bighorn sheep and ferruginous pygmy owls in an article published in Conservation Biology.
Of the diminutive owls that tend to fly only a few feet off the ground, Flesch wrote: “They tend to avoid large vegetation openings. And when they encounter large vegetation openings greater than 200 meters, they tend to turn around.” He concluded that large vegetation gaps coupled with tall fences “could limit trans-boundary movements” of the owls.
Flesch’s team also concluded that the “disruption of trans-boundary movement corridors by impermeable fencing would isolate some populations [of female bighorn sheep] on the Arizona side,” likely having a negative effect on the overall population living in the resulting fragmented Arizona habitat.
Flesch and his team suggested additional funding was needed to support research among governmental agencies, universities and other organizations to find the best ways to balance border security and the needs of wildlife species.
To that end, a team of University of Arizona researchers working with the U.S. Geological Survey in 2010 developed a protocol for monitoring the border wall’s potential effects on wildlife to help identify locations that need to have mitigation actions. It has been submitted to the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Department of Homeland Security and is still under review.
“What we’ve got now is anecdotal information and studies that look at one species or one section, but we really need a comprehensive analysis of the impacts over a large stretch of the area,” says Laura Lopez-Hoffman, assistant professor of the university’s School of Natural Resources.
Nancy Brown, public outreach specialist for the South Texas Refuge Complex, estimates the border wall has affected 60 to 75 percent of the complex’s land. Three-quarters of the federally owned acreage fronts the Rio Grande, which snakes for 275 miles through the Valley. In her Santa Ana NWR office is a map of the green swath of the river corridor marked with red squiggles that look like tiny worms, denoting the proposed segments of the wall to be built between Brownsville and Lake Falcon.
In Hidalgo County, contractors built roughly 20 miles of concrete wall — not along the river, but atop the meandering earthen levees that protect the southern part of the county from floodwaters. Here, no wildlife passages exist at the wall’s base.
The opposite end of the county is home to the Valley Nature Center. Overseeing the center’s operations in the heart of Weslaco is Martin Hagne, who moved to the Rio Grande Valley in 1979 and serves on the board of the Friends of Santa Ana NWR.
While the wall’s present impact on the Valley ecology and wildlife is just now becoming known, at least anecdotally, Hagne frets over the long-term effects of closing off wildlife corridors in so many different places, where the river sometimes takes wicked twists and turns.
Although the Valley Nature Center is far enough inland not to be impacted, the wall has affected operations at two of Cameron County’s most significant nature preserves bordering the Rio Grande.
Uncertainties surrounding the wall’s construction and access issues forced Audubon in May 2009 to close its Sabal Palm sanctuary, home to the nation’s last substantial stand of the subtropical sabal palm. The 527-acre nature preserve did reopen in January 2011 when a private group, the Gorgas Science Foundation of Brownsville, stepped forward to help fund and run the refuge.
A few miles downriver lies the 1,034-acre Southmost Preserve, another major native sabal palm sanctuary as well as a native plant nursery, organic citrus operation and critical native wildlife habitat for rare snakes, cats and other critters. The Nature Conservancy has filed suit contesting U.S. condemnation and seizure of eight acres that today hosts a 6,000-foot-long, 60-foot-wide strip of land bisected by the border fence. Its location cuts off the northernmost part of the preserve, isolating 900 acres between the wall and Rio Grande in what critics call a “no man’s land.” Preserve operators find themselves grappling with myriad land management challenges.
“My concern now is how do we manage the property, operate the nursery where we’re growing 80,000 seedlings under contract with the USFWS and keep the wetlands and resacas pumped full of water,” says John Herron, the Nature Conservancy’s director of conservation.
Herron says many people don’t realize that the fence doesn’t follow the river, that huge gaps exist between fence sections and that hundreds of acres end up stranded between the wall and river.
“The fence is exempted from environmental laws, so there hasn’t been any assessment of the environmental impact,” Herron says. “Who should pay for that? The USFWS hasn’t been given any money for that, nor have we. Here we are three years into it and there are lots of areas with no clarity.”
Fifth-generation South Texan Max Pons, who manages the preserve and lives on the property, hopes the wall’s presence doesn’t threaten the preserve’s wildlife that thrives amid the native Tamaulipan thornscrub and ancient stands of Sabal mexicana. The native palms once forested much of the Rio Grande Valley, but are now found only in deep South Texas and northern Mexico. Each palm, which can grow up to 40 feet tall, creates a micro-habitat of its own.
“You can have a population of southern yellow bats living under its leaves,” Pons explains, “and turkeys and other birds nesting and roosting. Invertebrates collect in leaf litter at the base, which attracts lizards and snakes such as the endangered indigo. Wood rats live in the trees and hop from one tree to the other.”
Pons credits the federal government, however, with working with him and other conservation agencies to try to mitigate some of the wall’s impact on wildlife. On a drive along a recently installed wall segment, he gets out to show me a hard-to-spot, notebook-paper-size opening that has been cut out at the bottom of the steel fencing to allow snakes and other small critters to pass through. In another concession to conservation organizations, he says federal contractors dug up several hundred sabal palms in the fence right-of-way for replanting at Southmost Preserve, Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary and Bosque de la Palma NWR.
Some representatives of the Valley’s lucrative nature tourism industry, a business fueled by world-class birding that draws enthusiasts hoping to add such local specialty birds as the green jay and chachalaca to their life lists, worry about the wall’s impact on local economies.
Nancy Millar, director of the McAllen Convention and Visitors Bureau, says news of the border wall has already resulted in one British birding company canceling future tours to the area. And, she says she gets plenty of questions about the impact of the fence when she attends travel shows in the U.S. and abroad.
For Keith Hackland, president of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor and owner of the Alamo Inn and Outdoor Store in Alamo, concerns remain about what impact the border wall will have on prime birding spots in riparian forests farther upriver.
“The greatest fear I have is for the part of the wall being built from Rio Grande City to Falcon Dam in Starr County,” Hackland says, “because the plan is to place it along the river. Clearing the narrow strip of riparian forest on the banks would be an ecological disaster, eliminating the red-billed pigeon, Audubon’s oriole, Muscovy duck and all of the rare nesting birds.”
He contends that such habitat destruction in such an ecologically rich region blessed with more than 500 bird and 300 butterfly species will have a huge impact on wildlife,
conservation efforts and the economy.
“If nature tourists lose confidence in this area and can’t access the river forest,” Hackland says during my visit to his inn, “I’ll be looking for new use for this building. They are the ones who pay the bills and help make this enterprise work.”
http://www.tpwmagazine.com/archive/2011/aug/ed_3_borderwall/
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Fundraising website for border fence starts quest
Arizona Daily Star
July 20, 2011
by Brady McCombs
The website where people can donate to build a state-supported border fence is up - but it'll likely take millions of dollars for the ballyhooed plan to lead to actual construction.
Modern, sturdy border fences are expensive - it cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build hundreds of miles of new fencing in Arizona over the last five years. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile.
The Arizona lawmaker who sponsored the fence bill is aware of the high costs, but Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, says that standing by and accepting the federal government's refusal to build more fences is not an option.
"Somebody has to put the first foot on the ladder and start climbing," said Smith. "Border security is the name of the game. That's why we are doing this."
Under the legislation passed in April, the governor is allowed to enter an "interstate compact" to build and maintain an international border fence using private or public donations.
Critics call Smith's plan a misguided stunt that will only inflict more damage on the border environment that has already been harmed by the unprecedented buildup of barriers, roads and agents in the last decade.
"Their intent is to score some cheap political points by acting tough on immigration," said Dan Millis, program coordinator for the Sierra Club Borderlands Campaign. "These lawmakers are misled if they think this a project they are going to be able to complete."
More than four-fifths of Arizona's 378 miles of Mexican border have some type of border barrier already. There are 123 miles of pedestrian fences, 12- to 25-foot-high barriers designed to stop, or at least slow down, people. There are another 183 miles of vehicle barriers, waist- to chest-high barricades designed to stop cars.
The rest of the Arizona-Mexico border doesn't have barriers due to natural barriers such as mountains and other difficult terrain, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Victor Brabble.
The agency declined to comment on the state project because it is a state legislative issue, Brabble said.
The federal government spent $2.4 billion to build 264 miles of pedestrian fencing and 226 miles of vehicle barriers from 2004-2009, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2009. Today, there are a total of 350 miles of pedestrian fences and 299 miles of vehicle barriers along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
Customs and Border Protection officials acknowledge that fences are not a panacea, but say they help deter, slow and funnel traffic. The impact of barriers on illegal immigration and drug smuggling is unknown because it has not been measured, according to a September 2009 GAO report.
Saying the fence is "basically complete," as President Obama did during a May 10 speech in El Paso, is disingenuous because the vehicle barriers are not fences, Smith said.
"It might stop a car, but it certainly isn't going to stop anyone on foot," Smith said. "If we really had a secure border and fencing that is adequate, explain to me how we have 12 million illegal aliens in this country?"
The type of fence built will be contingent on how much money is raised and upon the decision of the committee that will be formed, Smith said. But his wish would be to build an 18-foot high steel beam fence such as a the one up along 6.24 miles of border west of the San Pedro River in Cochise County.
"That's exactly what I think the state needs," Smith said.
That fence was built by Kiewit Western Company under a $16.6 million contract in 2008 - an average of $2.6 million per mile, information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows.
But this fence should cost less because under the legislation approved in April, the state would use inmate labor at 50 cents an hour, Smith said. He also expects very competitive bids from construction companies.
Ideally, they'll be able to build fence on the federal government's 60-foot "Roosevelt easement" right next to the border, Smith said. But he's not expecting to get permission and said he's already identified several tracts of state or privately owned land that are highly trafficked areas where a fence would be helpful.
If they are able to raise enough money to build fences, it will be bad news for border wildlife and habitat, Millis said.
While it could take years to fully gauge the environmental toll of border fences, there are already examples of flooding caused by the barriers and wildlife being blocked by the barriers.
A recent study in the Diversity and Distributions journal of amphibian, reptile and some mammal species that live along the border found that additional barriers would further increase the number of threatened species whose survival would be at risk, Millis said.
"That's why we are fighting so hard against additional barriers," Millis said. "We're already seeing problems."
Smith said they won't build fences through riverbeds, for instance, and that there will always be open sections for animals to migrate.
The website - www.buildtheborderfence.com - will be simple, offering opportunities to donate online or by mail with a simple click of a button. It will also feature a letter from Smith about why the fence is needed.
"No matter if you live in Arizona or Maryland, you will be able to clearly understand the problem we are facing and why we need to do something about it," Smith said.
He hopes to get donations from all over the country from people who recognize illegal immigrants and drug smugglers who cross through Arizona end up throughout the nation. Donors will be able to print out a certificate that shows they donated to the border fence, he said.
If they can't raise the millions needed to build a fence, Smith said the project may at least pressure the federal government into continuing to build more fences.
This isn't the first time the state has set up a special fund for a border-related cause. In 2010, Gov. Jan Brewer set up a defense fund to accept private donations to pay the legal costs in fighting challenges to SB 1070. To date, more than 45,000 people had given almost $3.8 million to the fund, said spokesman Matthew Benson.
As soon as they have enough money in the fence fund, construction can begin, Smith said.
"I have teams that are ready now," he said. "It's all contingent on the amount of money raised."
http://azstarnet.com/article_5b7aea2d-8f67-5ff0-838f-9d0d0004ad36.html
July 20, 2011
by Brady McCombs
The website where people can donate to build a state-supported border fence is up - but it'll likely take millions of dollars for the ballyhooed plan to lead to actual construction.
Modern, sturdy border fences are expensive - it cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build hundreds of miles of new fencing in Arizona over the last five years. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile.
The Arizona lawmaker who sponsored the fence bill is aware of the high costs, but Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, says that standing by and accepting the federal government's refusal to build more fences is not an option.
"Somebody has to put the first foot on the ladder and start climbing," said Smith. "Border security is the name of the game. That's why we are doing this."
Under the legislation passed in April, the governor is allowed to enter an "interstate compact" to build and maintain an international border fence using private or public donations.
Critics call Smith's plan a misguided stunt that will only inflict more damage on the border environment that has already been harmed by the unprecedented buildup of barriers, roads and agents in the last decade.
"Their intent is to score some cheap political points by acting tough on immigration," said Dan Millis, program coordinator for the Sierra Club Borderlands Campaign. "These lawmakers are misled if they think this a project they are going to be able to complete."
More than four-fifths of Arizona's 378 miles of Mexican border have some type of border barrier already. There are 123 miles of pedestrian fences, 12- to 25-foot-high barriers designed to stop, or at least slow down, people. There are another 183 miles of vehicle barriers, waist- to chest-high barricades designed to stop cars.
The rest of the Arizona-Mexico border doesn't have barriers due to natural barriers such as mountains and other difficult terrain, said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Victor Brabble.
The agency declined to comment on the state project because it is a state legislative issue, Brabble said.
The federal government spent $2.4 billion to build 264 miles of pedestrian fencing and 226 miles of vehicle barriers from 2004-2009, the Government Accountability Office reported in 2009. Today, there are a total of 350 miles of pedestrian fences and 299 miles of vehicle barriers along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
Customs and Border Protection officials acknowledge that fences are not a panacea, but say they help deter, slow and funnel traffic. The impact of barriers on illegal immigration and drug smuggling is unknown because it has not been measured, according to a September 2009 GAO report.
Saying the fence is "basically complete," as President Obama did during a May 10 speech in El Paso, is disingenuous because the vehicle barriers are not fences, Smith said.
"It might stop a car, but it certainly isn't going to stop anyone on foot," Smith said. "If we really had a secure border and fencing that is adequate, explain to me how we have 12 million illegal aliens in this country?"
The type of fence built will be contingent on how much money is raised and upon the decision of the committee that will be formed, Smith said. But his wish would be to build an 18-foot high steel beam fence such as a the one up along 6.24 miles of border west of the San Pedro River in Cochise County.
"That's exactly what I think the state needs," Smith said.
That fence was built by Kiewit Western Company under a $16.6 million contract in 2008 - an average of $2.6 million per mile, information from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows.
But this fence should cost less because under the legislation approved in April, the state would use inmate labor at 50 cents an hour, Smith said. He also expects very competitive bids from construction companies.
Ideally, they'll be able to build fence on the federal government's 60-foot "Roosevelt easement" right next to the border, Smith said. But he's not expecting to get permission and said he's already identified several tracts of state or privately owned land that are highly trafficked areas where a fence would be helpful.
If they are able to raise enough money to build fences, it will be bad news for border wildlife and habitat, Millis said.
While it could take years to fully gauge the environmental toll of border fences, there are already examples of flooding caused by the barriers and wildlife being blocked by the barriers.
A recent study in the Diversity and Distributions journal of amphibian, reptile and some mammal species that live along the border found that additional barriers would further increase the number of threatened species whose survival would be at risk, Millis said.
"That's why we are fighting so hard against additional barriers," Millis said. "We're already seeing problems."
Smith said they won't build fences through riverbeds, for instance, and that there will always be open sections for animals to migrate.
The website - www.buildtheborderfence.com - will be simple, offering opportunities to donate online or by mail with a simple click of a button. It will also feature a letter from Smith about why the fence is needed.
"No matter if you live in Arizona or Maryland, you will be able to clearly understand the problem we are facing and why we need to do something about it," Smith said.
He hopes to get donations from all over the country from people who recognize illegal immigrants and drug smugglers who cross through Arizona end up throughout the nation. Donors will be able to print out a certificate that shows they donated to the border fence, he said.
If they can't raise the millions needed to build a fence, Smith said the project may at least pressure the federal government into continuing to build more fences.
This isn't the first time the state has set up a special fund for a border-related cause. In 2010, Gov. Jan Brewer set up a defense fund to accept private donations to pay the legal costs in fighting challenges to SB 1070. To date, more than 45,000 people had given almost $3.8 million to the fund, said spokesman Matthew Benson.
As soon as they have enough money in the fence fund, construction can begin, Smith said.
"I have teams that are ready now," he said. "It's all contingent on the amount of money raised."
http://azstarnet.com/article_5b7aea2d-8f67-5ff0-838f-9d0d0004ad36.html
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Critics blast proposal while supporters decry limitations
Nogales International / Cronkite News
July 12, 2011
by Matthew Trotter
A bill that would grant the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented access to federal lands near the border was sharply criticized Friday for giving the department unchecked authority.
The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would let DHS waive 36 environmental-protection laws for patrol activities within 100 miles of U.S. borders.
Opponents of the legislation went so far as to call the bill, HR 1505, “particularly stupid” during Friday’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. They called it overly broad and said it opened the door for DHS to completely disregard environmental-protection laws.
“1505 may succeed in decreasing immigration, but only because the water, air and environments of border communities will be so degraded, no one will want to come here,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represents Nogales and Rio Rico in Congress.
John Leshy, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, testified that the legislation would make DHS “immune from review by the courts, except for constitutional claims.”
Supporters of the bill, however, said the current setup — a memorandum of understanding between DHS and federal land-management agencies — makes it impossible for Border Patrol to do its job.
“There’s a problem here in that Border Patrol is being restricted,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the bill’s sponsor. “They are not the problem.”
The memorandum of understanding requires Border Patrol officials to get permission from land-management agencies before conducting operations on federal lands, from maintaining roads to installing surveillance systems.
Claude Guyant, founder of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, said the current system is an unnecessary distraction.
“Border Patrol’s focus must be on preventing illegal entry,” said Guyant.
While Border Patrol agents have the discretion to bend some rules in emergency situations, they typically have to comply with all laws affecting an area they want to access. In designated wilderness areas, for example, that would mean traveling only on foot or horseback.
Kim Thorsen, an Interior Department law enforcement official, testified that Border Patrol agents do have the latitude to do their jobs under the current setup.
“There is absolutely no restriction for Border Patrol to pursue anyone anywhere on federal lands,” said Thorsen, the Interior deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement, security and emergency management.
In April, the Government Accountability Office reported the agreement had its flaws and the agencies were not always in full cooperation, but that most of the supervising officers surveyed said federal land laws were not affecting their areas’ security.
But Gary Thrasher, a veterinarian and rancher from Hereford, Ariz., told the committee he’s witnessed the impact of federal land laws on border security.
Thrasher, an Arizona Cattle Growers Association board member, said that more than once he’s had immigrants “crawl through the cat door” to spend the night in his locked barn.
Republicans on the committee said the bill was an attempt at keeping citizens like Thrasher safe, not a way of granting DHS unlimited power.
“All we’re trying to do is protect our nation, protect the people of the United States,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.
Leshy — referencing the unchecked power of the British king who moved the U.S. to declare its independence — said those who oppose the bill are also trying to protect the people.
“1505 would make DHS the George III of our age,” he said.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/07/12/news/doc4e1c6544b68f1146229745.txt
July 12, 2011
by Matthew Trotter
A bill that would grant the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented access to federal lands near the border was sharply criticized Friday for giving the department unchecked authority.
The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would let DHS waive 36 environmental-protection laws for patrol activities within 100 miles of U.S. borders.
Opponents of the legislation went so far as to call the bill, HR 1505, “particularly stupid” during Friday’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. They called it overly broad and said it opened the door for DHS to completely disregard environmental-protection laws.
“1505 may succeed in decreasing immigration, but only because the water, air and environments of border communities will be so degraded, no one will want to come here,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represents Nogales and Rio Rico in Congress.
John Leshy, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, testified that the legislation would make DHS “immune from review by the courts, except for constitutional claims.”
Supporters of the bill, however, said the current setup — a memorandum of understanding between DHS and federal land-management agencies — makes it impossible for Border Patrol to do its job.
“There’s a problem here in that Border Patrol is being restricted,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the bill’s sponsor. “They are not the problem.”
The memorandum of understanding requires Border Patrol officials to get permission from land-management agencies before conducting operations on federal lands, from maintaining roads to installing surveillance systems.
Claude Guyant, founder of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, said the current system is an unnecessary distraction.
“Border Patrol’s focus must be on preventing illegal entry,” said Guyant.
While Border Patrol agents have the discretion to bend some rules in emergency situations, they typically have to comply with all laws affecting an area they want to access. In designated wilderness areas, for example, that would mean traveling only on foot or horseback.
Kim Thorsen, an Interior Department law enforcement official, testified that Border Patrol agents do have the latitude to do their jobs under the current setup.
“There is absolutely no restriction for Border Patrol to pursue anyone anywhere on federal lands,” said Thorsen, the Interior deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement, security and emergency management.
In April, the Government Accountability Office reported the agreement had its flaws and the agencies were not always in full cooperation, but that most of the supervising officers surveyed said federal land laws were not affecting their areas’ security.
But Gary Thrasher, a veterinarian and rancher from Hereford, Ariz., told the committee he’s witnessed the impact of federal land laws on border security.
Thrasher, an Arizona Cattle Growers Association board member, said that more than once he’s had immigrants “crawl through the cat door” to spend the night in his locked barn.
Republicans on the committee said the bill was an attempt at keeping citizens like Thrasher safe, not a way of granting DHS unlimited power.
“All we’re trying to do is protect our nation, protect the people of the United States,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.
Leshy — referencing the unchecked power of the British king who moved the U.S. to declare its independence — said those who oppose the bill are also trying to protect the people.
“1505 would make DHS the George III of our age,” he said.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/07/12/news/doc4e1c6544b68f1146229745.txt
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)