Posted on 01/05/2009 8:51:05 AM PST by BGHater
A massive earth-moving project is transforming Smuggler's Gulch near San Diego from a narrow canyon used by cattle thieves, bandits and illegal immigrants into a plugged breach.
Reporting from San Diego -- Smuggler's Gulch lived up to its infamous name.
For a century, the narrow canyon leading into California from Mexico provided cover for cattle thieves and opium dealers, bandits and booze runners. More recently, it has hidden thousands of illegal immigrants on their journey north, sealing its place in border lore.
Now, it's a fading memory.
The canyon has been all but wiped off the landscape, its steep walls carved into gentle slopes, its depths filled with 35,000 truckloads of dirt as the federal government nears completion of an extensive border reinforcement project at the southwesternmost point of the United States.
In 2005, the Bush administration waived state and federal environmental laws to overcome stiff opposition to the massive earth-moving effort, which entails cutting the tops off nearby hills and pushing about 1.7 million cubic yards of dirt into the gulch and neighboring Goat Canyon.
Environmentalists and conservation groups fear that the project, scheduled to be completed in May, will harm the Tijuana River estuary, threaten endangered species and destroy culturally sensitive Native American sites. With construction well underway, it's clear that few of the 500 miles of new border fencing projects are transforming the environment as radically as the three miles from the Smuggler's Gulch area to the coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
NOPE... the back door is still quite open..
Anywhere illegals are moving through becomes a toilet in every sense of the term. This gulch would hardly be the exception and filling it in would be like a cat covering its waste except on a grand scale, an improvement to the environment in every way.
One down, many to go.
ping
President Bush and I differ on MOST of his border control policy. However, I have to give him credit for fighting the eco-loons to get this done. Another small reminder of why I’m REALLY going to miss him very soon.
Sounds like a great place for a landfill.
This is the same horsesh-t that environmentalists use to try and stop anything. ANYTHING. From new roads to nuclear power plants to offshore drilling to a local school here in San Diego.
Here are the buzz words:
"Endangered species" -- e.g., some slimy critters in the mud.
"Fragile ecosystem" -- e.g., the birds that eat the slimy critters.
"Sacred Native American sites" -- e.g., a few shards of old pottery and a human bone or two.
Well, 20 million friggin' illegal Mexicans have ruined far more than the Tijuana River estuary. Try ruining the state of California'a budget for health care and education; ruining the fragile ecosystem of the creeks and parks they sleep, eat, and defecate in; and the prisons that they inhabit to far greater numbers than their percentages.
Besides, they already turned smuggler's gulch into a cesspool. Anything we do would be an improvement.
Well, he did sign the bill, after all.
Waiving of the environmental requirements on the San Diego fence and all other subsequent border fences was part of the Real ID Act which was passed as an amendment to the defense supplemental spending bill in 2005. James Sensenbrenner was the bill author.
Exactly! Having been to this area I can say for a certainty that dozing it flat and letting the creosote bushes grow would be a vast improvement.
Would it be too crass to "close" the door while the horse is getting out???
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