Posted on 02/18/2004 9:13:46 PM PST by BurbankKarl
California regulators on Wednesday denied a Department of Homeland Security's request to fortify the westernmost stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border, setting the stage for a possible legal battle between the state and the Bush administration.
The California Coastal Commission, in a 10-0 vote, found that the harm the project would cause to sensitive habitats outweighed the security benefits provided by filling in canyons and erecting additional fences along the final 3 1/2 miles of the border before it meets the ocean.
"The operation might succeed, but the patient might die," Commissioner John S. Woolley said.
The U.S. Border Patrol insisted the fortifications were needed to deter illegal border crossers and protect its agents. They said they planned to challenge the commission's ruling.
"It doesn't end here," the Border Patrol's Michael Hance said.
The ruling could delay plans to start construction next year on the final phase of the $58 million fencing project. Nine miles have already been fenced.
If the two sides can't reach a compromise, the issue is likely to land in federal court, officials said. The U.S. government, however, holds a never-before-used trump card: Under federal law governing coastal management, the president has the power to override an unfavorable court ruling.
Woolley, for one, said he welcomed the fight.
"For those individuals who wish to pursue this in other venues I wish them Godspeed," he said. "That's what this nation needs to press so we don't run amok with the kind of laws the Homeland Security Act may provide."
The plans call for two additional fences running parallel to the 11-year-old corrugated steel barrier along the border. A patrol road and series of lights run between the first and second fences, and a maintenance road would run between the second and third set of fences.
Much of the environmental concerns stem from the Border Patrol's plans to fill a deep, half-mile long canyon known as "Smuggler's Gulch," with 2.1 million cubic yards of dirt, enough to fill 300,000 dump trucks.
The Coastal Commission said filling the canyon would erode soil near a federally protected estuary that is a refuge for threatened and endangered birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also opposed filling in Smuggler's Gulch.
The Border Patrol said proposed alternatives, such as switchback roads through the gulch, would leave gaps in enforcement. The agency's apprehensions fell to 16,000 last year, a decline of 88 percent since the federal government launched a crackdown in 1994, erecting fences, adding patrols and installing lights and motion sensors.
Steep, unimproved roads were responsible for the death of three San Diego-based Border Patrol agents over the past two years. In addition, agents also are pelted by rocks and debris hurled from the Mexican side of the border.
"I think we should defer to the people who put their lives on the line out there in very difficult situations," said U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, who long has advocated beefing up the border.
Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the commission's "nutty decision" ignored the risk of a terrorist slipping across the border to attack San Diego's Navy bases. He distributed a letter from Navy Secretary Gordon England that underscored the "unnecessary security risk" posed by a porous border.
"Border security is America's Trojan horse," Mike Giorgino, a congressional candidate in San Diego told the commission.
Migrant advocates said the fencing is part of a crackdown that has not stopped those who routinely cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, but only made it more dangerous. Illegal immigrants now cross the border in the deserts of Arizona and California where the blistering heat and freezing cold have contributed to hundreds of deaths.
"This triple fence is the center of untold human rights violations," said Christian Ramirez of the American Friends Service Committee.
The Associated Press
Time to exit planet California.
What ever you do, please do not bother the vermin! /sarcasm
That wouldn't be very nice!
No End to War - The Frum-Perle prescription would ensnare America in endless conflict.
Looking north over Smugglers Gulch to US. They want to fill this gulch...and add two more fences. 
Fence they want to enhance
US/Mexico border at Pacific Ocean
Colonia Libertad, Tijuana....3 feet from USA
Established footpaths into San Diego....and free benefits!
Tijuana.....or Los Angeles?
If it's good enough for Mexico, it's good enough for America too!!!
Someone please explain to me why someone attacking these United States dying in the desert is a bad thing?
What else do these people who voted down the fence have to gain other than saving a few bugs and snakes?
How? If they didn't break our laws to illegally enter our country then there would be no violations. These people come across our borders repeatedly and in violation of our laws and now want us to make it safer for them to break the law. What kind of insanity is this??
Paul
The $58,000,000 must be for the entire project... including roads (and land purchase?).
This from the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 11, 2004
SAN DIEGO - A group of environmental organizations Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking construction of the final 3.5 miles of a 14-mile project to add two fences along the U.S.-Mexican border to thwart drug smuggling and illegal immigration.The lawsuit asserts that the project will needlessly destroy sensitive habitat in the region near the Tijuana Estuary. The plan calls for the two fences to be built parallel to an existing border fence from the ocean to Otay Mesa. Roads would be constructed for Border Patrol agents to use.
(snip)
The first 9-plus miles of the fence project, from south of Imperial Beach past the San Ysidro border crossing, has been completed, at a cost of $10 million. The final 3.5 miles, because of the more remote location, may cost closer to $25 million, officials said.
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