In Fence-Building, United States Border Security Trumps Conservation Jill Replogle - KPBS.org
go to original August 8, 2013

Congress is considering building hundreds of miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of immigration reform. From the Fronteras Desk, Jill Replogle reminds us of the last big fence-building push, and the fight that centered on the fence's potential effects on San Diego's fragile border ecosystems. (KPBSSanDiego)

SAN DIEGO - It’s a clear, breezy morning on the scrubby hills overlooking the Tijuana River Valley.

U.S. Border Patrol jeeps cruise the dirt roads that switchback up and down the hills along the border fence. One drags a contraption made of tires that combs the road, so agents can later detect fresh footprints.

Mike McCoy, a 71-year old veterinarian and long-time San Diego resident, looks out toward the coastline a few miles to the west. McCoy has spent more than half his life working to protect the estuary formed where the Tijuana River’s fresh water meets the salty Pacific Ocean.

“We’re going down toward Smuggler’s Gulch,” he said, walking west along the border fence. “This was probably the most difficult cut for them, and the most problematic cut for us.”

By “us” he means the environmentalists and local land managers who vigorously fought against the massive earth-moving project that filled in the deep gulch in 2009 and built a road across it - in the name of border security.

Read the rest at KPBS.org

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