At US border, locals push back against Donald Trump's wall [AZ libs]

It’s midday in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. As the sun beats down, saguaro cacti throw little shade over this part of the Sonoran Desert, where summer temperatures regularly top 37°C (99°F). Today though a very narrow segment of the park is getting a little more shade. It’s accompanied by the incessant whine of construction vehicles.

President Donald Trump’s major campaign promise is taking shape — a rusty, nine-meter tall mix of concrete and steel. As of January 31, 185 kilometers (115 miles) of new wall had been built, according to the US Customs and Border Protection Agency. Depending on terrain, the new barrier costs about $12.5 million per kilometer. It’s growing longer by the hour as contractors use mobile cranes to lift the bollards into place.

For Kevin Dahl of the National Parks Conservation Association, the wall is upsetting. He’s been coming here since the 1970s. At Quitobaquito Springs, a small wetland meters from the border, the siren of a steamroller preparing earth keeps interrupting him. “This is a desert oasis where people have lived for millennia and it’s protected by the park service. They’re destroying an archaeological site. There are people buried here,” he says. […]

Arizona, a historically conservative state, voted for Trump in the 2016 general election. But construction of the new border wall has been met with rising opposition. At a demonstration in Cochise County, over a thousand gather at the San Pedro River bridge, which crosses the last free flowing river in the American Southwest. Demonstrators are concerned border-wall contractors will build a solid barrier across the river, effectively cutting it off. …

"At a demonstration in Cochise County, over a thousand gather at the San Pedro River bridge,..."

I don't recall Cochise County residents complaining about the Minuteman years back. In fact the local ranchers welcomed them, as did much of the local population. Their ranches were being over-run, burglaries were frequent, their livestock killed, fencing destroyed, the Coyote trails left massive amounts of trash. Anyone remember that?

How do I know? I was a Minuteman who drove the distance from Orange County to Tombstone. I even personally worked with the co-founder, Jim Gilchrist in his home across the Hwy from me. Too bad the other co-founder, Chris Simcox, turned out to be a child abuser and now serving time. Jim Gilchrist immediately severed ties and that was the end of the joint Minuteman Project.

It was a grand idea. Unlike Simcox's original Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the Minuteman Project had strict ROE. No detainment. No civilian arrests. No interference at any level. They/we were only there to observe and report to Border Patrol. It worked pretty well and BP was thankful for the support.

[Quote from Kevin - Invasive Buffelgrass is the number one threat to our beloved Sonoran Desert. If unchecked, it will take out more desert than all of Trump’s wall-building bulldozers, mobster-backed developers, and stupid Avra Valley freeways.]

Google has ranked search results to cater to greenies, such that all the negatives are stacked up in the first few pages. The bottom line? Greenies hate buffelgrass. But ranchers seem to love it:

https://www.ilri.org/news/buffelgrass-drought-tolerant-bunchgrass
[Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris L.) is a bunchgrass that grows in clumps, it can transform deserts into grasslands. It is one of the most popular forage species and is extensively grown across arid and semi-arid parts of the world as it uses less water to produce more feed allowing sustainable agricultural production. Originating in Africa, Arabia, the Middle-East and India, it is also widely cultivated in Australia, North America and, Central and South America.

In the forage genebank located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) maintains over 200 accessions- different lines of seeds of the same species of this grass- that have been collected from various locations in 19 African countries and offers a valuable resource for the selection and development of new varieties. ILRI and the Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales, Agrícolas y Pecuarias (INIFAP) based in Mexico have been working together to evaluate the performance of these materials. The recently published newsletter, Forages for the Future, Issue 9 expounds on the studies carried out at ILRI’s experimental station in Bishoftu, Ethiopia which demonstrates that the collection contains significant diversity with one group of accessions having exceptional characteristics with respect to traits related to biomass yield, including plant and forage heights, and seed yield, including number of spikelets, important for the multiplication and distribution of varieties.

The team also recently presented their research on the application of the innovative genotype-by-sequencing genetic analysis method, providing greater insight into the genetic diversity held in the collection, at the International Forage and Turf grass Breeding Conference in Florida. The molecular tools developed will enable other scientists to accurately dissect the traits towards the development of new and improved varieties of buffelgrass.

Chris Jones, leader of the Feed and Forage development program at ILRI said, ‘The genetic diversity revealed by genotyping-by-sequencing method, together with the results of the field studies indicates that significant opportunities exist to exploit this variation and select improved material as part of a forage improvement strategy.’

This particular collection (185 accessions) which was sequenced was mapped to a closely related species known as Setaria italica. Through molecular mapping, the accessions have been sorted into two main groups none of which align to the geographic origin. Jones added, that the lack of this alignment could indicate that the same part of the genome has been selected for in more distantly related material across different regions which is valuable for the application of marker-assisted selection.]

Another quote from Kevin - The area is so remote, dry and hazardous that even experienced hikers cannot make the trek that many migrants attempt. It has a reputation for being the most deadly migrant route in the American Southwest. Conservative estimates of the death toll reach 100 people per year in this area alone, but that does not stop migrants from trying.

He also stated that there were Indian’s buried there, but does not state where the sites are. The Indians do not even note that there are burial sites in this stretch.

Let me do my Dacula Math - 100 people die each year trying to cross in this area multiply that by a few years, but no body count from the local Indians as to where they buried their dead in this area and how many.

Cochise County USA - Cries from the Border

This is a documentary produced by Mercedes Maharis available for two bucks at Amazon. As reviews say:

"Extraordinary footage of actual border crossings and controversial scenes of those left for dead..."
"residents of border towns are fearful because of the limited support they have for security and the damage to property that the constant people trafficking causes..."

It seems to be getting harder to find first person accounts of the appalling conditions at the border. Human rights groups say almost one third of the women crossing the border have been raped sometime during their journey. Homes on the U.S. side have been discovered with dozens of border crossers held captive by smugglers seeking further ransom. The tales of tragic conditions just go on and on.

The news reporting media highlighted the inhumane conditions for awhile but discovered that it only reinforced the idea that increased security was necessary. Now reporting of real conditions along the border has become scarce.

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