Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona likely to face irreversible damage from border wall construction/NPS file
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is home to a thriving community of plants and animals. In fact, this national monument is also an International Biosphere Reserve, recognized for its conservation of the unique resources representing a pristine example of an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem. But the health and continued protection of this irreplaceable ecosystem is at risk from a man-made intrusion; the border wall.
On May 16, 2019, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced that approximately 63 miles of existing border barriers would be upgraded with vehicle and pedestrian barriers in the form of a bollard wall. The proposed design of the new bollard wall includes 18- to 30-foot, concrete-filled steel bollards that are approximately 6 inches x 6 inches in diameter. The proposed project also includes improvement or construction of roads, the installation of lighting and the installation of other detection technology. And the proposed project would impact numerous national public lands, including Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
This is an incredibly invasive and destructive project, and CBP has not indicated publicly what level of environmental analysis it would prepare for its border wall proposal. In most instances, the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act have been waived in the interest of expediting wall construction. This means that significant desert vegetation and wildlife habitat could be destroyed without taking the time to truly study the impacts and ramifications. And we know it’s happening already, as you can see in this video of a bulldozer knocking over a decades-old Saguaro.
The existing barrier at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Coronado National Monument was constructed between 2004–2006. According to the NPS documents for that project, the barrier was to be “wildlife friendly” and include mitigation measures to protect threatened and endangered species. With the new border wall, there will be little, if any, provisions to allow wildlife to access water and habitat.
In addition, the effectiveness of the new wall is also in question. There have been numerous instances where the wall has been constructed, yet illegal border crossing still occurs. We should not risk our irreplaceable cultural and natural resources until the effectiveness of the existing wall, as well as the new proposed wall, have been disclosed to the public and thoroughly analyzed by federal, state and tribal officials.
The damage being done to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument by the construction of this border wall will last for centuries; in fact, it may very well be irreversible. If the effectiveness of the existing barrier and its impacts have not been disclosed to the public, how do we know that a new border wall is necessary? What we do know is that a wall will threaten the delicate balance of a critical ecosystem. So is building a wall that may not be successful worth impacting national parks and harming threatened and endangered wildlife? It is not.
Rick Smith served the National Park Service for decades, retiring as the Associate Regional Director for Resources Management. Rick continues to stay involved in NPS issues and is an active member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks. He and his wife, Kathy, live in Tucson, AZ.
Comments
ECBuck, the north side of Puerto Blanco Scenic Drive, which looks into the monument, is wilderness. To the south is not wild - I never said otherwise - but that doesn't change my point. Mexico Hwy 2, utility poles and a few outbuildings from time-to-time, are - in terms of scenic impact - nothing compared to the 30-foot continuous rusty prison stockade we are now getting. That eyesore of a wall will not just block views to the south, it will BE the view to the south. Now, we can pooh-pooh aesthetic concerns as much as we want, but remember this is an NPS park unit, of the natural-landscape variety. Scenery (along with biological/ecological integrity, something else the wall will destroy here) is the whole point.
And no, the road did not destroy even more of the monument than this wall will. The Puerto Blanco road is a narrow unpaved route long existent in this area, the construction of which surely removed cactus and other vegetation along the way, and that's it - that's the extent of the impact its construction had. The wall, meanwhile, will also have an unpaved road - but this one will be twice as wide and freshly-constructed - so already it starts off with a worse impact than the Puerto Blanco road ever had. And then we have the giant barrier which will block the movement and migration of all land animals larger than a kangaroo rat; and add to that the all-night floodlighting they evidently plan to install, which will disrupt the night sky and the behavior of nocturnal animals. The narrow unfenced Puerto Blanco road has none of those impacts. To say they are comparable is ridiculous.
Scott, get your butt out of the car. You've got another 330,500 acres (99.9% of the monument) to explore. And yes the roads including those to Puerto Blanco have disturbed far more acreage than the wall will.
And don't forget, Scott, to be embarrassed to be corrected by the Professor. [perhaps Professor Irwin Corey?]
Good grief. Don't be so myopic, or so judgmental, toward your fellow visitors. I've been talking about the impact on all park visitors, apart from me personally. Like it or not, most park visitors spend most of their time near their cars - especially in inhospitable desert parks like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (and also Death Valley, Saguaro, Petrified Forest, etc), where scenic touring roads are the main way that people see the park. Nobody wants quasi-military-industrial prison infrastructure in their face when they've come for exactly the opposite reason. It's far more of an impact than your "tenth-of-a-percent" misdirection leads one to believe. What was it Mark Twain said about "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"?