Red Lodge Clearinghouse

Now that the 14-foot-high, black mesh fence has been built, Odle, whose front yard ends at Border Road, worries that the porcupine, along with white-tailed deer, mountain lions, jaguars, black bears and ground-nesting birds, will no longer be able to move back and forth along the border. And as the new fence is about to be extended to the west through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, Odle is concerned that one of the West's last free-flowing rivers will be irrevocably altered, degrading important riparian habitat for hundreds of species.

The fence has affected Odle's own habitat too. Odle and his wife, Ellen Logue, once looked out from their front patio to a vast vista of desert grasslands and rugged mountain ranges stretching far to the south into Sonora, Mexico. Now the view is bisected by the new fence.

For all its imposing height and breadth, the fence is no match for migrants or drug smugglers intent on reaching U.S. soil, Odle claimed. Standing along a section of fence just east of his house, Odle points to a makeshift hand-hold wired to the mesh on the other side.

"Wildlife can't get across, but people can," said Odle, who has collected two ladders used by illegal border crossers to scale the new fence. "You're not solving the problem with this fence. It costs too much, it's ugly, and it doesn't work."

The new fence that stretches across Odle's horizon stops a few hundred yards from the San Pedro River. The Border Patrol and Army Corps of Engineers, which is charged with building the fence, temporarily halted construction after unearthing an archaeological site. That site has now been studied and reburied, and prep work for the final section of fence through the river corridor resumed this week.

Odle believes the fence is overkill. A low vehicle barrier and stepped-up patrols would be a better option, he added. That would thwart vehicles ferrying drugs or people across the border but would allow wildlife to pass through the area, he said.

Arizona is a hotbed of illegal border activity, with more migrants and drug smugglers crossing here than anywhere else along the U.S.-Mexico border. In the San Pedro area, the Border Patrol apprehended 19,000 illegal border crossers in fiscal 2007, a significant increase from 2006, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

DHS officials claim the fence project and five others like it along the Arizona-Mexico border are crucial for national security and to stem the northward flow of undocumented migrants and drug smugglers. Under the Secure Fence Act of 2006, DHS is slated to build 700 miles of fence along the 2,000-mile border.

According to DHS, contractors have completed more than 167 miles of pedestrian fence and 134 miles of vehicle fence on the southwest border, for a total of about 302 miles. DHS hopes to complete 670 miles of pedestrian fencing and vehicle barriers by the end of 2008.

'Neglecting the land'

BLM describes the conservation area, home to 84 species of mammals, 14 species of fish, and hundreds of species of birds, as "one of the most important riparian areas in the United States." The site has been designated a World Heritage Natural Area by the United Nations.

BLM approved a right-of-way for the fence last October. In its environmental assessment, which did not involve public comment, BLM decided the fence would have "no significant impact" on the conservation area. The agency has recommended that the fencing be removable to reduce damage to the river corridor during spring floods.

Matt Clark of Defenders of Wildlife's Tucson, Ariz., office said the new fence will sever habitat for an array of wildlife, including mountain lions, white-tailed deer, black bears, ground-nesting birds, and the jaguar and lesser long-nosed bat, both of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act (Land Letter, Oct. 4, 2007).

Clearing habitat to build the structure also will affect the river's hydrology, increasing erosion and sedimentation, Clark added.

Clark and other critics say the fence is at odds with the mission of the conservation area. Congress created the 58,000-acre San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in 1988 to "conserve, protect and enhance the desert riparian ecosystem."

"The mission of DHS is security, but they're neglecting the homeland," he said. "They're neglecting the land itself."

Security vs. environmental protection

Some members of Congress are pressuring DHS to consider the project's environmental effects. "While developing additional layers of border security is a priority for our nation, it should not impede our ability to also continue to be good environmental stewards," wrote Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in a letter to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff in December.

But DHS is under no legal obligation to take environmental considerations into account. Under a waiver issued by Chertoff last October under the REAL ID Act, the fence project is exempt from 19 environmental and cultural laws. Environmental groups secured a restraining order in early October to block construction, but Chertoff invoked the waiver a week later.

At the time, Chertoff said the $3 million-per-mile fence would actually benefit the environment by stemming the flow of illegal border crossers, who leave behind trash in the conservation area.

Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club filed suit in November arguing that the REAL ID Act's waiver provision violates the Constitution. A federal judge dismissed the suit in December, finding that the executive branch traditionally exercises "independent constitutional authority" over matters of immigration control and foreign affairs.

A different federal judge issued a similar determination in 2005 in response to a suit over Chertoff's use of the waiver for construction of 3-and-a-half miles of fence through coastal wetlands near San Diego.

Although the waiver exempts DHS from environmental laws, Chertoff has said the agency still plans to minimize the environmental impact of the fence as much as possible. DHS officials have said they plan to install a removable barrier through the river instead of a permanent fence.

But a removable vehicle barrier comes with its own set of problems, said Sean Sullivan of the Sierra Club's Rincon chapter in southeastern Arizona. "It won't lessen the impacts from having a wall next to the river," he said. "You still have issues with buildup [of debris] and erosion, which could actually cause a change in the channel and kill vegetation along the banks."

Sullivan acknowledges that illegal border crossings also have an environmental impact but said those are temporary problems that can more easily be addressed than permanent infrastructure.

"Trails can be remediated, trash left behind by illegal migrants can be picked up, but that barrier is not going to be easily removed," he said.

Michael Taylor, deputy state director for resources in BLM's Arizona office, said DHS consulted with his office on the archaeological site, because Chertoff's waiver did not include the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. But BLM has not had any contact with Border Patrol or the Army Corps of Engineers, which is constructing the fence, on natural resource issues, he said.

"We have no way of knowing if any of the recommendations in the environmental assessment for the type of construction through the river or on the other side will be used by the Border Patrol in its contract with the Army Corps of Engineers," added Lorraine Buck, a spokeswoman for BLM's Arizona office.

Calls to the Border Patrol requesting information on the final design of the barrier through the river were referred to the Army Corps of Engineers, which in turn deferred to Border Patrol, which did not return additional calls seeking comment.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), whose district is one of two in the state adjacent to the border, has introduced legislation that would require DHS to consult with federal land managers and tribal and local officials on border security decisions. The Borderlands Conservation and Security Act, H.R. 2593, would allow DHS to determine the best approach to securing a particular area of the border, ranging from fences to detection technologies such as cameras and sensors to other options, and calls for full public input. It would also fund mitigation initiatives to address environmental impacts.

An immigration funnel?

Grady Cook, a law enforcement ranger for the BLM's Gila, Ariz., district office, said that from what he has seen, the existing fence has slowed illegal traffic -- so far. "Where the fence is up, we're not seeing as much activity," he said. But Cook added that illegal border crossers are now finding ways over or around the new reinforcements. "We already have examples of people building ramps over the vehicle barriers," he said. "That sort of thing is going to continue to happen."

And determined crossers who cannot get over the fence are likely to go around it, funneling activity into the river corridor, said Bill Woody, BLM's director of Law Enforcement, Security and Protection. "You're closing down high-use areas, and you're taking it out to rural areas," putting a greater strain on BLM's 21 enforcement rangers along the Arizona border, he added.

Critics of the fence have asked DHS to consider using SBInet, a high-tech surveillance system, or a less intrusive vehicle barrier in the conservation area. But SBInet appears to have its own set of problems. Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report outlining technical problems with an SBInet project called P-28. DHS said in a statement that those deficiencies have been addressed and that the system has already helped CBP apprehend 2,000 illegal border crossers since December.

April Reese is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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