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Home Front: WoT
Federal judge clears way for construction of border fence
2005-12-13
A federal judge on Monday lifted the final legal barrier to building a triple fence in the southwestern corner of the United States. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups argued that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff lacked authority to waive environmental and other laws that have delayed completion of 14 miles of additional fencing in San Diego.
The opponents were desirous of an open border and used the environmental groups as cover
In September, Chertoff waived all laws and legal challenges to building the final 3œ-mile leg through coastal wetlands to the Pacific Ocean.
wetlands? The dry hills are "Coastal Sage Scrub" a distinct habitat (I have to deal with this stuff all the time...)
U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said Congress clearly delegated the authority to Chertoff in June. He noted that the executive branch already had significant jurisdiction over national security and immigration policy.

Cory Briggs, an attorney representing the environmental groups, said he was undecided whether to appeal. "I'm not surprised," Briggs said. "If I were a judge, I would have great problems declaring a law unconstitutional." Litigation has stalled the project since it was approved by Congress in 1996. Last year, the California Coastal Commission refused to grant permits, saying damage to sensitive habitats outweighed security benefits.
so sad....you're authority's no good here
The Sierra Club lawsuit, filed in February 2004, said the project threatened the Tijuana River estuary, home to more than 370 migratory and native birds, six of them endangered.
half a mile or more away
The final leg of the fence would cross steep, rugged canyons including "Smuggler's Gulch," a maze of trails long overrun by illegal border crossers. The federal government launched a crackdown in 1994, erecting a steel wall made of surplus Navy landing mats, adding patrols and installing lights and motion sensors.

Known as Operation Gatekeeper, the effort forced smugglers and migrants inland to sparsely populated highlands and deserts. The 2006 Homeland Security budget includes $35 million to cover most of the work.
Gatekeeper's done wonders
The project would require crews to move 2.1 million cubic yards of dirt in Smuggler's Gulch alone, or enough to fill about 300,000 dump trucks.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, introduced legislation last month that calls for a 2,000-mile fence from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
The usual naysayers will say that can't be done as well
Posted by:Frank G

#10  No doubt Town Lake and the attendant development was a poorly conceived project from the beginning but that doesn't excuse the abusive environmental litigation employed in the various attempts to derail development in the area.
Posted by: AzCat   2005-12-13 19:31  

#9  Not too many realize how serious a problem dengue is. It's spreading in its range and frequency every year. Get infected by one strain and you get a nasty flu like disease. Get a infected by a second strain and you have a 5% chance of dying from dengue hemorraghic fever.

Vaccines exist, but to use them would kill large numbers because of the second strain infection problem causing DHF.

The only way to control dengue is to control the mosquito vector that spreads it, but they are becoming highly adapted to urban environments. Recent research indicates the mosquitos eggs can survive for 3 months without water and still remain capable of transmitting dengue (from the adult that laid them).

Even large scale and frequent use of insecticides has a limited effect. Anything that encourages mosquitos in an urban environment is sheer lunacy.
Posted by: phil_b   2005-12-13 15:13  

#8  Last year, the California Coastal Commission refused to grant permits, saying damage to sensitive habitats outweighed security benefits.

Talk about skewed priorities....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama   2005-12-13 12:46  

#7  This is where some good Operations Research would be useful: You don't need to build the entire fence, just where the traffic is and where THAT traffic would flow to as a second level effect. Employ the 80/20 rule: you don't have to cut the traffic to zero, but just by a large fraction.

People insisted that SDI HAD to be 100% effective until someone realized, and pointed out, that an SDI that was 80% effective had the SAME effect as imposing an 80% cut in the Soviet missile arsenal. Cutting the missile arsenals by 10%, much less 80% would have been hailed as a MIGHTY STEP FORWARD, so the ensuing silence was profound.
Posted by: Ptah   2005-12-13 10:51  

#6  Anonymoose, they've known that the Tempe Town Lake was going to be a cesspool even before they built it. I remember reading articles stating that it was going to be too toxic to allow anyone to swim in it.

And then last year, they decided to have a triathlon around there. I hate to think how many Valley noobs got sick paddling around in that chemical soup. Ick.

Didn't know about the dengue fever, though. Guess I escaped just in time.
Posted by: Desert Blondie   2005-12-13 10:35  

#5  AZCat: that cesspit known as "town lake" was and is a nightmare created by people who knew nothing of the history of the place. First of all, they filled it, and continue to fill it with expensive "fresh" water, not the recycled effluent that is city water. 1 billion wasted gallons worth. In a damn desert!

Then, because it is very prone to algae, duckweed, and coliform bacteria, they initially dumped in an s-load of some hyper-poisonous algaecide and sanitizer. But after that wore off, the algae returned with a vengeance. The lake puts off a huge, invisible cloud of spores that means every swimming pool within 10 miles has to hyper-chlorinate all summer to keep from turning green and brown. Ask the local pool supply store guys.

Upriver from the lake is a second lake, caused by rain runoff and a flood last winter. This has bred profligate numbers of mosquitos resulting in the introduction of two different forms of encephalitis, west nile virus, and projected soon to be rampant dengue fever to the area. Hundreds have already been diagnosed with west nile, especially (although there are other big clusters around the other artificial lakes in the area).

Last summer was fairly disease-free, because they shelled out and bought huge numbers of dragonflies to eat the mosquitos.

Finally, the dumbasses are building high-rises in the flood plain next to the riverbed. Having seen the Salt River at flood stage about four times, I look forward to seeing those buildings collapse.

Had they done a little historical research, they would have discovered that the Phoenix area, before the dam lakes were built, was a swampy, diseased area in summer due to the Salt River at low tide. Any family that could would send their children north to get them away from the half-dozen endemic "fevers".

Pfui.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-12-13 08:54  

#4  Stand by Sears, we're gonna need a lot of chain link fense real soon.
Posted by: Besoeker   2005-12-13 08:00  

#3  well it's about damn time.
While I do believe there are instances that environmental concerns are valid, not here in this arrid dry desert. (While a little bit of sage is kind of okay, alot is downright obnoxious).
Posted by: Jan   2005-12-13 01:51  

#2  You'd be surprised what qualifies as "wetlands" from an environmental law perspective. For those who've been to the Phoenix area you'll recall the permanently dry Salt River bed just north of Arizona State University. An environmental law prof at ASU assisted several groups in their attempts to derail development along the dry river bed because the construction would, in the legal meaning of the phrase, constitute an impermissible "...placing of material in the waters of the United States," an act which is apparently verboten or at least subject to judicial review even when said "waters" consist of a permantenly dry river bed.

Those who've been to the area will also recall that the university blasted away the central portion of a butte adjacent to the dry Salt River bed and inserted a football stadium. After the city of Tempe decided to erect an inflatable dam and turn the river bed into a small lake, a hotel attempted to initiate a development on the off-campus side of the butte but was blocked when an ASU biologist and his environmental law prof buddy discovered a "new species of lizard" that they claimed lived only on the butte, a discovery that automatically qualified the lizard's habitat as that of an endangered species. Odd that a lizard living on a university campus in the middle of a major metro area had gone unnoticed for 100 years until the very week that a hotel announced a multimillion dollar development. Not quite as creative as the infamous California toad that was claimed to engage in interstate commerce but more effective in driving up the cost of development (the real goal of most environmental litigation these days).

Your tax dollars at work folks.
Posted by: AzCat   2005-12-13 01:00  

#1  wetlands? The dry hills are "Coastal Sage Scrub" a distinct habitat (I have to deal with this stuff all the time...)

hey frank, we gotta protect the mexican desert darters.
Posted by: Sierra Flub   2005-12-13 00:32  

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