The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $1.54 million contract to a Phoenix company to build an interim Border Patrol checkpoint facility on Interstate 19 north of Tubac - but nobody knows when work will begin.
MRM Construction Services Inc. can't begin work until it gets Arizona Department of Transportation approval. ADOT is still reviewing the request and waiting on several items from the Border Patrol, including environmental-certification documents, said ADOT spokeswoman Linda Ritter. ADOT's job is to ensure roadway safety, she said.
Once work begins - the Border Patrol has no idea when that will be - MRM Construction Services will have 90 days to complete the project, said Patrol spokesman Omar Candelaria. In July, agency officials said they expected the facility to be up by May 2010.
The project will include a new pre-engineered, lighted canopy structure, paving for a construction detour and widening the existing interstate, according to a permit application that the Border Patrol submitted to ADOT. The facility also will have a modular building, lighting, latrines, a portable supply of water and portable electrical supplies, the permit shows.
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The facility will be 25 1/2 miles north of the border between the Agua Linda and Chavez Siding exits. That's about one-third of a mile south of an overpass where the Border Patrol has been operating a makeshift, fixed checkpoint since November 2006.
During at least part of the construction, I-19 will be reduced to one lane both ways, Candelaria said.
Tubac business owners have asked the Border Patrol to wait until April or May to begin construction over concerns this will create a traffic bottleneck and harm the town during its peak sales season. In addition to holiday shoppers, Tubac will host the 51st annual Festival of the Arts Feb. 10-14.
"It would be disastrous to have construction traffic going on during all of that," said Carol Cullen, outgoing executive director of the Tubac Chamber of Commerce. "Folks will avoid this area and make plans to go elsewhere."
Officials in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector have passed those concerns on to headquarters and plan to meet with Tubac business owners next week in Tucson, Candelaria said.
The Tucson Sector - the busiest on the Southwest border for apprehensions and marijuana seizures - is the only one of nine sectors without a permanent checkpoint. Border Patrol officials say they need the facility to slow the flow of people and drugs.
There has been staunch opposition to a permanent checkpoint among residents in the I-19 corridor. Opponents question the effectiveness of the stationary checkpoints, since there is no element of surprise, and they also worry that the strategy pushes smuggling activity into their neighborhoods.
A one-year evaluation of checkpoints by the investigative arm of Congress found that the agency's self-reported data are insufficient to determine if the inspection stations are efficient or effective. The Government Accountability Office report, released in September, also found that the agency overstated checkpoint results in the last two years for lack of management oversight, and inconsistent data-gathering and analysis.
But the report backed the importance of permanent checkpoints and vouched for the Border Patrol's review of potential sites for a $25 million permanent facility, which the agency wants to put at Kilometer Post 41 north of Tubac.
