$2M to be spent on cleanup in S. Arizona
LUKE TURF
Tucson Citizen
Photos by FRANCISCO MEDINA/Tucson Citizen
Ursula Hollis, 64, of Sierra Vista has seen one of her favorite hiking spots along Forest Trail in the Huachuca Mountains littered with trash by illegal immigrants who have crossed the border into the United States.
HUACHUCA MOUNTAINS - Stepping over bear and mountain lion dung with birds singing and snakes rattling nearby, three retiree hikers take a rocky trail a few miles into the backcountry. They go all the way to a once-beautiful ravine - now filled with a disheartening sea of trash.
A cool breeze worries one of the hikers, 69-year-old Alexa Cottingham. She knows that winds carry trash from a nearby illegal immigrant campsite over a cliff and into the ravine. There it will sit until the next breeze pushes it farther down the stream of waste.
Discarded pants and plastic bags are caught in a sotol plant. Hundreds of discarded water jugs are only the beginning of the problem. Jumex drink cans, tuna tins, Coca-Cola containers, pants, shoes, women's underwear and discarded feminine hygiene products, chips and bread bags, emptied canned fruit containers, hats and a tequila bottle blanket the landscape.
"We're used to the trash along the road and all of that," says Cottingham, who lives in Hereford near the border. "But having it this extensive, it was just as if they brought all of Mexico here. ... I didn't know how people could have that much trash."
It's been a problem as long as people have illegally crossed the deserts. It increased in southern Arizona in the late 1990s when the U.S. Border Patrol cracked down on illegal immigration into Texas and California, pushing illegal immigrants - and their trash - into Arizona's remote deserts.
To Cottingham and her fellow hikers, the problem seems overwhelming. It's just one example of pristine Sonoran Desert turned into a trash dump. Many southern Arizonans see it every day. About $2 million in newly approved federal funds should help address - though admittedly not solve - the problem in the short term, according to the Arizona congressman who helped secure the money. But some fear it's like trying to dam a river with a wine cork.
To combat the trash, Republican congressman Jim Kolbe of Tucson helped secure the money, half in this fiscal year's budget and half in the next one. At least $695,000 is already being put to use, according to Beau McClure, special assistant for international programs for the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency dispersing the funds.
It's just a fraction of the $20 million a congressional report estimates is needed to remove trash in southeastern Arizona's deserts. McClure says he's putting together a statewide estimate of how much money is needed for the border region, because the problem isn't limited to one corner of the state.
The Tohono O'odham Nation, where trash piles up as quickly as officials can measure it, is ineligible for any of the $2 million, McClure says.
An environmental specialist with the tribe, Ken Cronin, says about 1,500 immigrants sneak through the reservation daily. Each leaves an average of eight pounds of trash - totaling six tons - a day, he said.
"It's just blanketed," Cronin says of the tribal land. "It's pretty tremendous; there's a pretty severe visual impact."
Many of the trails and campsites used by illegal immigrants are in remote areas, but many of the places where they get picked up are close to residential areas. There they often drop what they're carrying, Cronin says.
Cronin estimates the O'odham need about $1.67 million to clean up their reservation.
"I didn't know how people could have that much trash," says Alexa Cottingham, 69, of Hereford. She is on the littered Forest Trail in the Huachuca Mountains of southern Arizona.
Off tribal land, McClure says, the $695,000 he received in March has been put to such uses as an Earth Day cleanup in which about 40 volunteers from 20 agencies picked up garbage in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Hereford. He says "considerably more than half" of the money will go to other city, county and private organizations as compensation for cleaning the terrain. Most of the rest will be used for supplies such as gloves and trash bags.
"It's certainly not a solution to the problem; it's just a means to take care of some of the damage that's occurring," McClure says. "And it's going to be trashed again as the thousands of people come through the border - each day, actually."
That worries one of Kolbe's counterparts.
Democratic congressman Ra?l Grijalva of Tucson applauds Kolbe for bringing the funds to the area. Yet he is disappointed Congress hasn't made any progress on illegal immigration.
"It's a surface issue. The problem is much more fundamentally deep than that," Grijalva says. "The irony is that we continue to deal with the surface problem."
McClure says the wildlife disturbance, habitat destruction and degradation of wildlife health caused by the human waste will continue to destroy the ecosystem.
Beyond the dangers the trash poses to wildlife lies one of the biggest fears of Cottingham's fellow hikers.
Bill Clark, 74, pauses on the trail. He shifts his wooden hiking stick between his hands and bends to pick up a remnant of one of wildlife's biggest threats - fire. Between his fingers Clark holds a cigarette butt. He is also quick to point out nearby abandoned campfires, just three feet below the dry limbs of a tree.
This year's Eureka fire, in the foothills of the Huachucas, not far from here, burned about 40 acres. Officials believe illegal immigrants started a signal or cooking fire that got out of control.
"This is what scares the hell out of me. You see that fireplace there," Clark says. "See, it's hidden so nobody could see it, but it could get away ... and down that canyon real fast."
More trashed sites are likely until illegal immigrants stop coming over the border or start cleaning up after themselves. In the meantime, several groups addressing other border issues also take to the desert to pick up their trash.
Humane Borders, which maintains water stations in the desert for illegal immigrants, heads trash pickups once a month. Groups opposed to illegal immigration - such as Ranch Rescue, an armed group based in Texas that patrols private ranches, and Civil Homeland Defense, a sometimes-armed citizens patrol based in Tombstone - also regularly organize clean-ups.
And U.S. Border Patrol agents in each of the agency's stations organize periodic cleanups.
Until a more concrete solution is found, the federal money will be the biggest funding effort.
Over on tribal land, Jim Fletcher, the federal Environmental Protection Agency's tribal specialist on the border, is trying to get about $50,000 in grants to combat the problem.
The money would go toward cleanups, recycling, warning signs and even trash cans.
"We're about ready to try anything at this point in time," Fletcher says.
LUKE TURF
Tucson Citizen
Photos by FRANCISCO MEDINA/Tucson Citizen
Ursula Hollis, 64, of Sierra Vista has seen one of her favorite hiking spots along Forest Trail in the Huachuca Mountains littered with trash by illegal immigrants who have crossed the border into the United States.
HUACHUCA MOUNTAINS - Stepping over bear and mountain lion dung with birds singing and snakes rattling nearby, three retiree hikers take a rocky trail a few miles into the backcountry. They go all the way to a once-beautiful ravine - now filled with a disheartening sea of trash.
A cool breeze worries one of the hikers, 69-year-old Alexa Cottingham. She knows that winds carry trash from a nearby illegal immigrant campsite over a cliff and into the ravine. There it will sit until the next breeze pushes it farther down the stream of waste.
Discarded pants and plastic bags are caught in a sotol plant. Hundreds of discarded water jugs are only the beginning of the problem. Jumex drink cans, tuna tins, Coca-Cola containers, pants, shoes, women's underwear and discarded feminine hygiene products, chips and bread bags, emptied canned fruit containers, hats and a tequila bottle blanket the landscape.
"We're used to the trash along the road and all of that," says Cottingham, who lives in Hereford near the border. "But having it this extensive, it was just as if they brought all of Mexico here. ... I didn't know how people could have that much trash."
It's been a problem as long as people have illegally crossed the deserts. It increased in southern Arizona in the late 1990s when the U.S. Border Patrol cracked down on illegal immigration into Texas and California, pushing illegal immigrants - and their trash - into Arizona's remote deserts.
To Cottingham and her fellow hikers, the problem seems overwhelming. It's just one example of pristine Sonoran Desert turned into a trash dump. Many southern Arizonans see it every day. About $2 million in newly approved federal funds should help address - though admittedly not solve - the problem in the short term, according to the Arizona congressman who helped secure the money. But some fear it's like trying to dam a river with a wine cork.
To combat the trash, Republican congressman Jim Kolbe of Tucson helped secure the money, half in this fiscal year's budget and half in the next one. At least $695,000 is already being put to use, according to Beau McClure, special assistant for international programs for the Bureau of Land Management, the federal agency dispersing the funds.
It's just a fraction of the $20 million a congressional report estimates is needed to remove trash in southeastern Arizona's deserts. McClure says he's putting together a statewide estimate of how much money is needed for the border region, because the problem isn't limited to one corner of the state.
The Tohono O'odham Nation, where trash piles up as quickly as officials can measure it, is ineligible for any of the $2 million, McClure says.
An environmental specialist with the tribe, Ken Cronin, says about 1,500 immigrants sneak through the reservation daily. Each leaves an average of eight pounds of trash - totaling six tons - a day, he said.
"It's just blanketed," Cronin says of the tribal land. "It's pretty tremendous; there's a pretty severe visual impact."
Many of the trails and campsites used by illegal immigrants are in remote areas, but many of the places where they get picked up are close to residential areas. There they often drop what they're carrying, Cronin says.
Cronin estimates the O'odham need about $1.67 million to clean up their reservation.
"I didn't know how people could have that much trash," says Alexa Cottingham, 69, of Hereford. She is on the littered Forest Trail in the Huachuca Mountains of southern Arizona.
Off tribal land, McClure says, the $695,000 he received in March has been put to such uses as an Earth Day cleanup in which about 40 volunteers from 20 agencies picked up garbage in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Hereford. He says "considerably more than half" of the money will go to other city, county and private organizations as compensation for cleaning the terrain. Most of the rest will be used for supplies such as gloves and trash bags.
"It's certainly not a solution to the problem; it's just a means to take care of some of the damage that's occurring," McClure says. "And it's going to be trashed again as the thousands of people come through the border - each day, actually."
That worries one of Kolbe's counterparts.
Democratic congressman Ra?l Grijalva of Tucson applauds Kolbe for bringing the funds to the area. Yet he is disappointed Congress hasn't made any progress on illegal immigration.
"It's a surface issue. The problem is much more fundamentally deep than that," Grijalva says. "The irony is that we continue to deal with the surface problem."
McClure says the wildlife disturbance, habitat destruction and degradation of wildlife health caused by the human waste will continue to destroy the ecosystem.
Beyond the dangers the trash poses to wildlife lies one of the biggest fears of Cottingham's fellow hikers.
Bill Clark, 74, pauses on the trail. He shifts his wooden hiking stick between his hands and bends to pick up a remnant of one of wildlife's biggest threats - fire. Between his fingers Clark holds a cigarette butt. He is also quick to point out nearby abandoned campfires, just three feet below the dry limbs of a tree.
This year's Eureka fire, in the foothills of the Huachucas, not far from here, burned about 40 acres. Officials believe illegal immigrants started a signal or cooking fire that got out of control.
"This is what scares the hell out of me. You see that fireplace there," Clark says. "See, it's hidden so nobody could see it, but it could get away ... and down that canyon real fast."
More trashed sites are likely until illegal immigrants stop coming over the border or start cleaning up after themselves. In the meantime, several groups addressing other border issues also take to the desert to pick up their trash.
Humane Borders, which maintains water stations in the desert for illegal immigrants, heads trash pickups once a month. Groups opposed to illegal immigration - such as Ranch Rescue, an armed group based in Texas that patrols private ranches, and Civil Homeland Defense, a sometimes-armed citizens patrol based in Tombstone - also regularly organize clean-ups.
And U.S. Border Patrol agents in each of the agency's stations organize periodic cleanups.
Until a more concrete solution is found, the federal money will be the biggest funding effort.
Over on tribal land, Jim Fletcher, the federal Environmental Protection Agency's tribal specialist on the border, is trying to get about $50,000 in grants to combat the problem.
The money would go toward cleanups, recycling, warning signs and even trash cans.
"We're about ready to try anything at this point in time," Fletcher says.
