Chertoff: Entrants harm environment more than fence

"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."

To curb illegal immigration, the U.S. government plans to complete 670 miles of barriers — 370 of primary fencing and 300 of vehicle barriers — on the Southwest border by the end of 2008.

But this has drawn complaints about damaging the cross-border economy and hurting the environment. Wildlife enthusiasts fear the natural wonders of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas could be spoiled by fences and barriers, and that some animals could be harmed by cutting them off from the only source of fresh water.

Wild cats, reptiles and at least 500 species of birds attract visitors from around the world who bring the impoverished region $150 million a year.

In Arizona, jaguar conservationists say the fencing will destroy any hope of the majestic cat permanently returning to the United States. Wildlife advocates are also worried about negative impacts on the endangered lesser long-nosed bat.

Environmentalists in Southern Arizona don't concur with Chertoff's opinion. Illegal border crossers inflict damage by leaving trails and trash, but it pales in comparison to what walls do, said Sean Sullivan, executive committee member of the Sierra Club Rincon Group, which covers Southeastern Arizona.

"That issue (trash) can be remediated somewhat easily," Sullivan said. "The construction of a border wall, however, cannot be remediated. The cutting off of ecosystems and stopping wildlife migration is far more damaging than the issues such as garbage and trails related with migrants crossing."

Chertoff said the department has been able to satisfy most environmental concerns and will continue to address them. But if someone goes to court to slow construction, he said, the department will use the environmental waiver authority Congress authorized.

Homeland Security has invoked that waiver to construct fences in San Diego and on the Barry M. Goldwater Range in Arizona.

For now, he said, everything is on track and the department exceeded its goal to complete 150 miles of fencing along the Mexican border by the end of the 2007 fiscal year, which was Sunday.

Officials have already doubled the miles of fencing along Arizona's stretch of border to more than 50 miles; they hope to have more than 80 miles erected by the end of the year. By the end of the next fiscal year, they plan to build at least 20 additional miles, bringing the total miles of fencing to nearly 100 miles along the state's 350-mile border.

Chertoff also said apprehensions of illegal migrants at the border have gone down about 20 percent in the past year. They haven't slowed down nearly as much in the busiest stretch of border in Arizona.

In the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, which stretches from the western edge of New Mexico to the eastern edge of Yuma County, apprehensions were down 3 percent from last year.

"I was really driving these guys hard to make sure that we were getting this done," Cher-toff said of the fence. "This is one of those deals where we made a promise, and we've lived up to that promise."

Last month, Chertoff said, there was a glitch in a "virtual fence" — a 28-mile stretch of surveillance technologies near the border southwest of Tucson — and he would not pay the contractor, Boeing Co., until that was resolved. The glitch was that the technologies were not all working together so that images caught on radar could be sent to a Border Patrol agent monitoring the system, Chertoff said Monday.

But he also said the problem "appears to be getting fixed," and he said the program will undergo its final testing phase this month.

"I've seen this kind of system work in other settings, so it's not a novel or a technologically difficult task," he said. "But because it is complicated, and because it's a demanding environment, we just weren't comfortable that we were happy with the way it was working."

The Star's 4-part series looking at border security, whether it can be done and what it will take can be found at azstarnet.com/border.

LOCAL ANGLE

A pair of environmental organizations are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security hold off on plans for border fences on the banks of the San Pedro River in Cochise County until it presents a comprehensive plan for fencing along state's entire border.

The formal appeal submitted Monday by the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife specifically challenges a Bureau of Land Management decision to allow construction of fencing inside the limits of the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area.

They say that fencing across desert arroyos that feed the San Pedro River would cause erosion, sediment buildup and possibly even shift the riverbed, said Sean Sullivan, executive committee member of the Sierra Club Rincon Group, which covers Southeastern Arizona.

Those changes could harm cottonwood-willow woodlands and wildlife such as jaguar, ocelot and coati that have populations in Mexico, he said.

The appeal, though, is about more than specific concerns on the San Pedro, Sullivan said. The organizations hope the appeal forces Homeland Security officials to complete an environmental impact statement about the cumulative impacts of planned fencing along Arizona's border before moving forward. The agency issued such a report for planned fencing in Texas.

"All these environmental assessments are taking a piecemeal approach to the situation instead of taking a step back and looking at the cumulative effects of all the proposed projects and the walls that are mandated by the Secure Fence Act," Sullivan said.

— Brady McCombs