Posted on 11/07/2004 11:34:48 PM PST by NewRomeTacitus
Funneling of entrants onto Goldwater Range is feared
The U.S. Border Patrol's latest plans to build more fences, roads and other facilities along the Arizona-Sonora border might send more illegal entrants onto the Barry M. Goldwater bombing range, critics say, and further stress the environment.
Some of the proposed improvements are in the agency's Yuma Sector, where a new port of entry is planned east of San Luis by 2007. The Border Patrol wants to install more than three miles of new primary fencing and nearly seven miles of secondary fencing, as well as utilize several miles of permanent and temporary stadium lights. There are similar plans along the rest of the nearly 280 miles of Arizona's border with Mexico, including construction of 14 miles of new fencing and vehicle barriers as well as installation of six miles of permanent lighting along the border near Douglas.
Tucson Sector officials declined to comment on the plans, referring questions to the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C. Homeland Security officials did not respond by press time to questions on the proposed improvements.
"It's just more of the same: more infrastructure, more agents, and what it's going to do is is create more of a funneling effect … and in this case what they're doing is funneling people onto a bombing range," said Jenny Neeley, southwest associate with the Tucson field office of Defenders of Wildlife.
Illegal entrants are already making their way onto the firing range, said Lt. Kevin Schultz, a spokesman for the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, which manages nearly 700,000 acres of the western portion of the Barry M. Goldwater firing range. However, he could not immediately provide statistics on the frequency with which that happens.
Whenever illegal entrants are spotted on the range, training comes to a stop and Border Patrol agents are called in to assist in their removal.
"If there were an increase in unauthorized personnel on our ranges, it could affect operations, but especially, it would pose a serious risk to those individuals," said Schultz, noting that Marine Harrier jets, and a variety of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft use the range for practice sorties using unarmed ordnance.
"We'll continue to follow the procedures we have in place to prevent entry by unauthorized individuals," he said, "but we're going to continue with our training."
The eastern portion of the Barry Goldwater Range is managed by the Air Force, which also shuts down training because of illegal immigration. That happened as recently as Thursday, when Border Patrol agents were called in to remove a group that had wandered onto the range, which spans 1 million acres of Arizona desert, said Kevin O'Berry, interagency liaison for the range management office at Luke Air Force Base.
In the last fiscal year, there were 37 range closures that cost over 135 hours of lost mission time. The cost of delays can easily run into several thousand dollars an hour, said O'Berry. Some 200 sorties a day are scheduled for aircraft ranging from F-16 and A-10 jets to attack helicopters as well as training for the C-130 cargo planes.
The proposed construction near Yuma also will have a direct impact on the flat-tailed horned lizard, which although not listed as endangered, is the focus of a wildlife management plan aimed at preventing its continued decline.
"What this fencing project does is redirect migrant traffic straight into lizard habitat. The Border Patrol admits it will probably result in the killing of lizards, and that could result in the listing of this species," said Neeley of Defenders of Wildlife. "It is really heartbreaking for us to see this policy continued. If we were gaining in the realm of national security, the environmental damage would be easier to stomach, but from our perspective all of this destruction is really for nothing."
The Border Patrol has worked closely with other federal and state agencies to ensure all of the environmental and operational issues are addressed, said Joe Brigman, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Yuma Sector.
Fencing projects and road construction have been planned in a way that minimizes the impact on the flat-tailed horned lizard in the Yuma area, he said. And east of the proposed port, where vehicle barriers are planned to cut down on cross-border smuggling through the Organ Pipe National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, the movement of antelope-like Sonora pronghorn has been taken into consideration.
In addition, he said, agents receive ongoing training from environmental managers they work with on minimizing the agency's impact on the land. The Border Patrol also limits off-road activity to cases in which there are life-and-death issues involved.
"We're working closely with those folks to make certain we have a minimal impact on the environment, as well as ensuring the mission of the Department of Homeland Security is accomplished also," Brigman said. "The bad guys in this environmental destruction are the narcotics smugglers and illegal-alien smugglers who drive into these areas from Mexico with complete disregard for the damage they cause."
The scope of the work proposed in both the draft environmental assessment for fencing, lighting and other infrastructure improvements at Yuma and the environmental impact statement along the Arizona border is too great to be reviewed and analyzed in the 45-day period allowed for public comment, said Kim Vacariu, southwest representative for the Wildlands Project in Tucson. That's why his organization and others are requesting a 60-day extension of the mid-December public-comment deadline currently in place.
His organization, Vacariu says, has serious concerns about the design of the vehicle barriers proposed.
"We need to take a step back and make sure we understand the science and how these things would affect wildlife," he said. "We've just received the documents in the last two weeks, and it's just a lot of information to go through.
"Our concern is that all of these things, the all-night stadium lighting, new road construction, aerial surveillance, increased foot traffic and Border Patrol vehicular traffic could easily combine to create an impermeable barrier to wildlife that will affect the movement of species between the U.S. and Mexico."
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Didn't some Freepers suggest we do that on purpose? =o)
Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Sorry but I fail to see a problem here. I must be a stoopid red stater
Having a bombing range named after you. How cool is that?
Yup. What is the problem?
We all seem to agree - they shouldn't interfere with the process of natural selection.
I would however advocate a booth at the border dispensing free sunglasses in case we decide to test a nuke there. I'm a compassionate conservative.
The folks who encourage migrants should be made culpable for those who die.
Don't forget the Barry G. Goldwater bombing range which hopefully is very active due to the shut down of Vieques, Puerto Rico. Oh the humanity!
Good! I don't see a problem targeting criminals and outlaws. It just gives us live targets to practice with.
Well, it has taken nearly 5 years, but the wildlife wienies have finally weighed in on this issue.
I wonder what took them so long...?
"Horney-Toads" aren't cute and cuddley. Here's blood in your eye (their neatest trick).
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