People with No Border Wall testified at a government listening session in El Paso last week about some of the damage.
For one thing, the wall can act as a dam as it did in Nogales in 2008 (photo), preventing drainage and flooding one side. Customs and Border Protection say they are working on the drainage problems and that they have installed gates for animals to cross. Environmentalists say the "gates" are only big enough for cats and they are only at one spot in the Rio Grande Valley.
A list of other impacts follows. (Also, since I'm probably going to get comments about my use of "wall" instead of "fence," let me just say this. Have you seen the thing? It's a solid structure that, in many places, is not see-through. That's a wall in my book.)
On with the list of impacts:
- The government waived 36 environmental laws to be able to build it.
- Construction involves moving earth, digging, cutting trees, which is highly disruptive.
- There has been little effort at erosion control. In California, a dirt berm was built as a foundation for parts of the wall, but the dirt from this berm washes out into a nearby river estuary reserve, increasing sediment levels and threatening the fragile ecosystem.
- The wall prevents access to the river in the Rio Grande Valley.
- Environmentalists fear that the wall will push foot traffic (migrants and law enforcement) to remote areas which has a double negative effect of being more dangerous for humans, and disruptive for pristine ecosystems.
.JPG)
I just googled "Nogales flooding 2008" and saw the terrific destruction caused by the flooding. I am amazed by the lack of storm water engineering consideration by the US. I sure hope the US funded the reconstruction in Nogales.
ReplyDeleteThe Nogales flooding was made worse by the fact that the Border Patrol also built a wall in a storm drain that runs under the border without informing the International Boudary Water Commission, as they are required to by our international treaty that established the border, or anyone else. While water backed up against the wall above ground, it also built up pressure below, which resulted in the top of the tunnel heaving up and ejecting water into the street. Two people on the Mexican side died. The same storm caused flooding along the wall in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument because storm grates built into the bottom of the border wall quickly clogged with debris.
ReplyDeleteThere is a good overview of the wall's environmental impact on the No Border Wall blog:
http://notexasborderwall.blogspot.com/2010/01/border-walls-ongoing-environmental-toll.html