8/31/23

Arizona scrambling to undo Republican damage to public land on southern border



Etched into the rhyolite on Signal Hill in Saguaro National Park about 800 years ago by the ancestors of the modern-day Tohono O'odham are their petroglyphs and rock art which are probably directions to water sources and hunting. Their Nation straddles the US/Mexico border. 

A Santa Fe County, New Mexico couple touring the area in 2019 was shocked at the level of Trump era paranoia and was forced to endure multitudinous Border Patrol checkpoints. 

Just hours after taking the oath of office, President Joe Biden issued the Proclamation on the Termination Of Emergency With Respect To The Southern Border Of The United States And Redirection Of Funds Diverted To Border Wall Construction. 

Half of all migratory birds in North America move through the Sky Islands in the Patagonia, Arizona flyway on Sonoita Creek and along the San Pedro River. Now, efforts to undo the damage to jaguar and ocelot habitats including on the Coronado National Forest is happening while courts sort the fraudsters. Even North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel conspired with the Trump Organization and its henchman, Steve Bannon to defraud the United States. Fisher Industries is a major campaign contributor to Earth hating Republicans like Arizona's former governor and is being investigated for substandard work on the US/Mexico border. 

Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs called her predecessor's actions a political stunt.
The federal government is finally ready to drop its lawsuit against the state over the storage containers it contends were erected illegally last year on Forest Service land by then-Gov. Doug Ducey. But it's going to cost Arizona taxpayers another $2.1 million to put this all behind them. That's on top of the $95 million the state paid to AshBritt Management & Logistics to install the ersatz border barrier in the first place. And it doesn't include another nearly $66.6 million, also of taxpayer dollars, to tear it down, transport the containers to Tucson and start restoring the site to the way it was before the controversial barrier went up. The deal marks the end of what had been a highly publicized move by Ducey to close gaps in the reinforced barrier that was started by Donald Trump and canceled by Joe Biden his first day in office. [High costs for shipping container wall at Arizona's southern border almost over]
In southeastern Arizona operations owned by Freeport-McMoRan Inc, Morenci and Miami are ravaging water supplies and reducing entire mountain ranges to piles of waste rock in Tonto Apache lands.
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