New pedestrian and vehicle barriers are being proposed for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument's border with Mexico/U.S. Customs and Border Protection

New pedestrian and vehicle barriers are being proposed to run nearly the entire length of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument's border with Mexico, a project the Sierra Club claims will harm the ecosystem and be visually unappealing to park visitors.

Southern border parks such as Organ Pipe Cactus, Big Bend, and Coronado National Memorial long have been thrust into the news by threats posed by drug runners and undocumented immigrants. Though Organ Pipe Cactus is one of the park system’s oldest national monuments, for more than a decade earlier in this century it was forbidden for backcountry travel due to the 2002 murder of Ranger Kris Eggle, who was shot while chasing a Mexican gunman said to be trying to execute a $15,000 murder contract on a rival drug lord.

In the wake of the ranger’s death, heavy lobbying convinced Congress to provide $18 million to build a vehicle barrier along the US-Mexico border. Officials say it succeeded in ending illegal vehicular border crossings while allowing wildlife to pass through.

The travel of upwards of 1,000 undocumented immigrants a day led the Fraternal Order of Police to declare Organ Pipe the country's most dangerous park for a time early in this century. Indeed, at one point 95 percent of the park was closed to the traveling public because of the danger posed by this traffic.

But in 2014, the entire park was reopened after the National Park Service and Border Patrol conceived a plan to allow continued surveillance by the Patrol while Park Service crews erased hundreds of miles of illegal roads and road traces that had been woven through Organ Pipe Cactus.

Now the U.S. Customs and Border Protection is proposing to construct a total of 63 miles of new bollard wall in place of dilapidated and outdated designs in Pima and Cochise counties. The project also includes road construction and improvement and lighting installation. The proposed design of the new bollard wall includes 18-to-30 foot, concrete-filled steel bollards that are approximately 6” x 6” in diameter.

The proposal, open for public comment through July 5, quickly drew criticism from Dan Mills, with Sierra Club's Grand Canyon Chapter Borderlands Program.

“The communities, landscapes and waterways of the borderlands region drive local recreation economies, sustain natural systems, and support millions of people in the Southwest and beyond. There is overwhelming proof that border walls do not protect these resources - they only do them harm," he said. “Destroying land and constructing more walls through these delicate landscapes and waters will further harm endangered species like the Sonoran pronghorn and Mexican gray wolf, at a time when the world faces mass extinctions. Building blockages through wildlife corridors means the jaguar could again disappear from the United States."

Comments and information will be accepted until Friday, July 5, by email at [email protected] or mailed to:
 
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
U.S. Border Patrol Headquarters
1300 Pennsylvania Ave. 6.5E Mail Stop 1039
Washington, DC 20229-1100