My thoughts exactly!
Border wall between U.S. and Mexico will have terrible effects for wildlife
- Thread starter carlos55
- Start date
Luckily it seems to matter who wins the election the wall construction will be over soon.
So despite the federal court ruling, unfortunately Donald Trump is still building his wall despite being in a lame duck session. Here is a relevant video from Farron Cousins, the Executive Editor of Trial Lawyer Magazine. I am glad he is bringing up the environmental impact of this wall.
If and when the incoming president stops the wall, it will not just be a victory for wildlife. It will also save taxpayer money.
Biden order to halt border wall project would save U.S. $2.6 billion, Pentagon estimates show (msn.com)
Biden order to halt border wall project would save U.S. $2.6 billion, Pentagon estimates show (msn.com)
This is good news to hear from an environmental and fiscal standpoint. For those that claim to be fiscally conservative, they shouldn't have advocated for the construction of that wall...
I hope that Biden tear down some of the more destructive sections of the wall, otherwise we gain very little from its halted construction.
Me too! I want to see Biden or some president in the future to tear down that whole wall! Even with the barriers that George W. Bush built when he signed the Secure Fence Act into law in 2006, those have been conclusively linked to hindering cross-border migrations for pronghorn (Antilocapra americana sonoriensis and Antilocapra americana mexicana). A wildlife biologist I knew said that he had to transport certain animals over the border fence by helicopter. He shouldn't have to have been doing that...
How the Trump border wall sapped a desert oasis dry
Ancient springs might not survive unchecked construction during the pandemic.
After heavy construction last summer and fall, during which wildlife were cleared and a natural pond was diverted, the US-Mexico border wall now covers the entire southern edge of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.
Amidst the towering saguaro and pronged organ pipe cacti of southern Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, a 30-foot-tall fence snakes through the vegetation, shadowed by a barren strip of land that’s been carved into the mountainsides. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a flurry of activity in these borderlands, particularly in the area’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. In the last months of the Trump administration, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) construction crew has been dynamiting and drilling their way through nature refuges and cultural relics to make room for the new border wall. A 30-mile-long spine of steel poles filled with concrete now chokes the monument’s southern edge. Mixing the raw materials for this structure requires a lot of water—some 84,000 gallons a day, by CBP’s own estimates—a dwindling resource that’s being siphoned from the already arid landscape.
The 450 miles of border wall in sections of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas have already required more than 971,000 tons of concrete, according to CBP. (About 10 percent of that called for new construction; the rest replaced existing structures.) The demand for water, alongside historic droughts in the West, has had a colossal impact on the surrounding ecology of largely public and tribal lands across the Southwest, which scientists and Indigenous communities fear may take years, if not decades, to reverse.
How the Trump border wall sapped a desert oasis dry
Ancient springs might not survive unchecked construction during the pandemic.
After heavy construction last summer and fall, during which wildlife were cleared and a natural pond was diverted, the US-Mexico border wall now covers the entire southern edge of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona.
Amidst the towering saguaro and pronged organ pipe cacti of southern Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, a 30-foot-tall fence snakes through the vegetation, shadowed by a barren strip of land that’s been carved into the mountainsides. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a flurry of activity in these borderlands, particularly in the area’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. In the last months of the Trump administration, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) construction crew has been dynamiting and drilling their way through nature refuges and cultural relics to make room for the new border wall. A 30-mile-long spine of steel poles filled with concrete now chokes the monument’s southern edge. Mixing the raw materials for this structure requires a lot of water—some 84,000 gallons a day, by CBP’s own estimates—a dwindling resource that’s being siphoned from the already arid landscape.
The 450 miles of border wall in sections of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas have already required more than 971,000 tons of concrete, according to CBP. (About 10 percent of that called for new construction; the rest replaced existing structures.) The demand for water, alongside historic droughts in the West, has had a colossal impact on the surrounding ecology of largely public and tribal lands across the Southwest, which scientists and Indigenous communities fear may take years, if not decades, to reverse.
How the Trump border wall sapped a desert oasis dry
This wall needs to be knocked down ASAP. I know Biden has promised he would halt construction, but he needs to tear it down as well. If not all of it, at least some of the more damaging sections, such as the part at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I worry for the endangered Ferruginous Pygmy-Owls that live there, among others.
Me too! I want to see the whole wall including parts George W. Bush built knocked down/demolished!
True to his word, President Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office ordering an immediate halt on border wall construction.
No plans to tear any sections down, though?
I doubt it.
This is great news and a good explanation regarding the details of the wall's construction and the contracts involved. This is a good move by President Biden.
Onychorhynchus coronatus
Well-Known Member
I do think of him as a career politician , I mean I don't romanticise Biden at all, but even so I think he has done an amazing job within just a day or two of beginning to reverse the damage that Trump did and it certainly is uplifting.
Here is another relevant article.
First-ever Map and Priority Restoration Areas of Border Wall through Arizona and New Mexico Released
The first publicly available map documenting the U.S.-Mexico border wall through New Mexico and Arizona was released Tuesday. The map depicts completed sections of border wall as well as other related construction activities and is the most accurate, detailed and up-to-date documentation of new sections of border wall completed during the Trump Administration.
The map, produced by the nonprofit Wildlands Network, was developed through remote sensing and extensive on-the-ground fieldwork to assess what was completed and the progress of sections that were not completed. The Great Old Broads for Wilderness assisted in on-the-ground surveys through portions of Arizona.
First-ever Map and Priority Restoration Areas of Border Wall through Arizona and New Mexico Released - Wildlands Network
First-ever Map and Priority Restoration Areas of Border Wall through Arizona and New Mexico Released
The first publicly available map documenting the U.S.-Mexico border wall through New Mexico and Arizona was released Tuesday. The map depicts completed sections of border wall as well as other related construction activities and is the most accurate, detailed and up-to-date documentation of new sections of border wall completed during the Trump Administration.
The map, produced by the nonprofit Wildlands Network, was developed through remote sensing and extensive on-the-ground fieldwork to assess what was completed and the progress of sections that were not completed. The Great Old Broads for Wilderness assisted in on-the-ground surveys through portions of Arizona.
First-ever Map and Priority Restoration Areas of Border Wall through Arizona and New Mexico Released - Wildlands Network
I know that this article is from 2018, but I still that it is relevant and worthy of sharing here.
Back from the brink, the Sonoran pronghorn now roam an increasingly political landscape
Through the summer of 2002, John Hervert cut open the stomachs of rotting or mummified Sonoran pronghorn corpses in the desert.
They were full of cholla fruit, one of the few foods left for the pronghorn after months of drought, then worst on record in Southern Arizona.
The plants they usually ate had dropped their leaves, said Hervert, a biologist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The cholla fruit had some semblance of moisture, but lacked the leaves’ nutrients.
He watched the animals “slowly starve to death.” They would lose weight, their muscles eroding away and bones protruding everywhere underneath their skin, until they’d lie down and die.
Back from the brink, the Sonoran pronghorn now roam an increasingly political landscape
Back from the brink, the Sonoran pronghorn now roam an increasingly political landscape
Through the summer of 2002, John Hervert cut open the stomachs of rotting or mummified Sonoran pronghorn corpses in the desert.
They were full of cholla fruit, one of the few foods left for the pronghorn after months of drought, then worst on record in Southern Arizona.
The plants they usually ate had dropped their leaves, said Hervert, a biologist for the Arizona Game and Fish Department. The cholla fruit had some semblance of moisture, but lacked the leaves’ nutrients.
He watched the animals “slowly starve to death.” They would lose weight, their muscles eroding away and bones protruding everywhere underneath their skin, until they’d lie down and die.
Back from the brink, the Sonoran pronghorn now roam an increasingly political landscape