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By
Stephanie Innes
Arizona
Daily Star
October 2, 2006
A stew of sewage and toxins that puts surfers and swimmers at
risk of disease closed beaches north of the metal barrier
dividing Tijuana, Mexico, from San Diego for more than 80 days
last year.
Pollution flowing north from Mexico
in the Tijuana River could worsen. Eroded earth is smothering
plant life and destroying the fragile Tijuana Estuary, one of
California's last salt marshes and an important filter for
water flowing into the Pacific Ocean.
Eroded sediment, primarily from development on Tijuana
hillsides, already has destroyed 20 acres of the
estuary. And environmental groups say it's being
further imperiled by federal plans to complete
three-plus miles of double border fencing beginning at
the ocean.
The problem is that the fencing project includes
removing a 150-foot-wide strip of vegetation to make
room for a patrol road between the walls. Vegetation
prevents sediment from tumbling down the hills along
the border into the 2,500-acre Tijuana River National
Estuarine Research Reserve. Sediment and the
non-native seeds it brings with it chokes the
estuary's plant life. Adding earth to the estuary also
can cause elevation to change, turning a salt marsh
into dry land.
More such fencing along the international line would
threaten wildlife habitat, biological diversity,
recreation areas and federally protected land, some
environmentalists say.
The construction of fences ---- and the roads needed
to build them ---- denudes huge swaths of land and
affects the migratory patterns of jaguars, wolves,
bobcats and other animals. Improperly built fences can
damage ecosystems with erosion, too.
People also could be affected. Ocean pollution has
hampered the surfing business and area tourism, says
Ben McCue, coastal conservation program manager for
Wildcoast, a nonprofit group of mostly surfers based
in Imperial Beach that aims to preserve coastal
ecosystems. Contaminants in the ocean put swimmers and
surfers at risk for hepatitis, ear infections and
gastrointestinal problems, he says.
Though Wildcoast says existing plans for the new
border fence don't ensure water quality, the
government counters that the fence will more than make
up for the loss of habitat that would occur with an
unsecured border. Federal officials also say they're
minimizing damage to plant and animal life.
''Having personally seen traffic where thousands are
coming across at any given time ---- at our height
500,000 a year were coming across ---- if you can stem
foot traffic, you can protect much more environment
than you would affect,'' said James Jacques, a
spokesman in the U.S. Border Patrol's San Diego
sector.
But protecting the border environment is a complex
balance.
In national lands and wildlife refuges on the border,
illegal entrants leave piles of trash and human waste,
and roads and trails are closed to the public because
drug-smuggling traffic has created a safety hazard.
And areas like the 118,000-acre Buenos Aires National
Wildlife Refuge in Arizona ---- once a peaceful spot
for bird watchers ---- have turned into war zones
where helicopters buzz in the sky, National Guard
troops patrol and Department of Homeland Security
buses wait for new loads of illegal entrants.
Public lands are also threatened west of Buenos Aires;
Organ Pipe National Monument has closed one-third of
its 331,000 acres because of public-safety concerns.
Still, foot traffic has led to a major problem in
federally protected areas along the border: garbage.
Crossers have left behind hundreds of thousands of
pounds of it, from clothes and old food cans to feces,
graffiti and old cars.
''I support trying to have security here without a
wall. But if that can't be done using all possible
methods ... well then, maybe the next step might be a
wall,'' said Roger Di Rosa, manager of the
860,000-acre Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
''If you put in a wall, yes, you are going to affect
the ecology as far as the interchange of species. But,
you are also protecting a lot of habitat behind it and
increasing border security at the same time.''
Environmentalists fighting border security are not
taking the issue seriously enough, says Ira Mehlman,
spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, a nonprofit group that supports improved
border security.
''They don't seem to be worried about literally
millions of people coming through and trampling flora
and leaving tons of trash out there,'' he said.
The defense of America ought to trump what in the
great scheme of things are small environmental
concerns, concurs Steven Camarota, director of
research at the Center for Immigration Studies, which
favors a wall as part of border-enforcement strategy.
The U.S. population is swelling because of illegal
immigration, Camarota says, and that will cause
pollution and sprawl.
Though federal officials say they've completed
necessary environmental studies to proceed with the
project and are taking care to ensure minimal
disruption of wildlife habitat, environmentalists
maintain the plan imperils the Tijuana Estuary.
Further aggravating to many people committed to
protecting land and animal species along the border
was the passage of federal legislation in 2005 that
allows the Department of Homeland Security to skirt
all laws, even the Clean Water Act and the National
Environmental Policy Act, in the name of national
security. The legislation came under the Real I.D.
Act, which was tacked onto an $82 billion spending
bill for U.S. troops in Iraq.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff named the
Real I.D. Act last fall when he announced he'd be
expediting the San Diego fence project.
The nearby estuary is one of 22 wetlands in the U.S.
the United Nations considers internationally
significant. It includes five species of endangered
birds and is more biologically significant and diverse
than the redwood forest, says Clay Phillips, who
manages the estuary's research reserve.
If Congress must build fences, it needs to make sure
the projects are properly executed and researched, and
not just short-term fixes, says Jim Peugh,
conservation committee chairman of the San Diego
Audubon Society, whose group filed an unsuccessful
lawsuit over the San Diego double-fence project. The
case was dismissed because of the Real I.D. Act.
''The sad thing is, we could go ahead and seal the
border, and then some year not long from now we may
not want any border protection at all. But by then,
it's going to be too late.''
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