Bush administration to fortify westernmost stretch of border
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/09/15/news/sandiego/15_...
By: SETH HETTENA - Associated Press
SAN DIEGO -- The Bush administration said Wednesday it will fortify the westernmost stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border over the objections of
environmentalists and California regulators, who feared the project would harm a refuge for endangered birds.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff signed an environmental waiver Tuesday night that expedites the Border Patrol's long-standing plans to
fill in canyons and erect additional fencing along the final 3 1/2 miles of the border before it meets the Pacific Ocean.
Construction of the fence seemed all but certain after the state's Coastal Commission, which last year denied the Border Patrol permission to proceed
with the project, decided in closed session Wednesday not to challenge the waiver, said Peter Douglas, the panel's executive director. A law passed by
Congress that authorized the waiver also made a court challenge a "fool's chase," Douglas said.
Chertoff said the fortifications would help reduce illegal border crossings, while Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told reporters the project was
"not directly related to illegal immigration," but a broader effort to close gaps that terrorists and others could exploit. "This is about border
security," Aguilar said.
Plans call for two additional fences running parallel to the 12-year-old corrugated steel barrier along the border. A patrol road and series of lights
would run between the first and second fences, and a maintenance road would run between the second and third set of fences. Sensors and cameras would
track any movement. Previous estimates have pegged the project at $58 million, but Aguilar said the final cost had yet to be determined.
Aguilar said the Border Patrol may move to fortify the border in other areas, although both he and Chertoff said the administration had no plans to
wall off the entire 2,000-mile Southwest border with Mexico.
Concern over illegal immigration led Congress to pass legislation in 1996 requiring the Border Patrol to strengthen the westernmost 14-mile stretch of
the border. Nine miles were fortified, but environmental concerns and lawsuits held up construction on the last 3.5 miles leading to the ocean and 1.5
miles farther east.
Earlier this year, Congress gave Chertoff the power to sign a broad environmental waiver to finish the job, citing fears that terrorists could slip
through an unsecured border.
"It's good to know that Secretary Chertoff recognizes that our nation remains susceptible and vulnerable to the threat of terrorism and extraneous
illegal activity unless efforts are made to secure our border," said U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego area Republican who has long championed
efforts to beef up border security.
Mexico has objected to the fencing. A spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox said in May that the president lamented the project and said
constructing walls was not the best way to solve the challenges on the common border. Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez has called the plans
"inappropriate."
The California Coastal Commission was particularly concerned about 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. Commission members feared filling the canyon would erode
soil near a federally protected estuary that is a refuge for threatened and endangered birds. But Congress had thwarted court challenges by
eliminating judicial review of the project on anything but constitutional grounds, Douglas said.
"It's a sad day and we'll have to live with this wall of shame for the rest of our lives," he said.
The Border Patrol said it would take steps to reduce environmental harm. The slopes of Smuggler's Gulch will be stair-stepped to reduce erosion and
culverts under the slopes will slow and capture runoff before it entered the estuary. The Border Patrol said cutting off illegal border crossings will
also stop foot traffic in the wetlands.
Serge Dedina, executive director of Wildcoast, a San Diego based coastal conservation group, said the fencing would do nothing to deter illegal
immigration and would only worsen the fragile Tijuana Estuary.
"This project is just basically pork barrel and national security hysteria at its worst," Dedina said.
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