Border Fence to Destroy a Conservation Area

Today the United States homeland security, Michael Chertoff, went against federal court ruling in order to re-instate the border fence construction. Chertoff waived various environmental laws which many environmentalists were trying to protect the construction of the border fence through a national conservation area in Arizona.

According to Chertoff, if the border fence or virtual border as it has been acknowledged is postponed further it would be an “acceptable risk to our nation’s security”. The fence would be approximately 6.9 miles along side the United States-Mexico border and would unfortunately be built through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona.

On Oct. 10, Judge Ellen Segal Huevelle of the Federal Court for the District of Columbia ruled to suspend the construction of the border fence. This decision was made because the Judge Segal Huevelle evaluated that the government did not assessed the grounds on which the fence was going to be built, the government didn’t take the environment into consideration. This environmental concern was brought to the court by the Sierra Club and the Defenders of the Wildlife.

Sean Sullivan, a spokesman for the Sierra Club in Arizona, said that “we can secure our borders while we protect our public lands” and that “bulldozing” the conservation area was not necessary to manage the border.
The Department of Homeland Security criticized the ruling made by the court and said that 19,000 illegal immigrants have been detained through the conservation area. Thus, illegal crossing of immigrants has caused more harm to the conservation area by trash and human waste left behind by the immigrants than the fence itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/us/23fence.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1193112595-aeVk0Hu1Yv63m0iSZ2Wg9Q