http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/border/96401.php

Published: 10.05.2005

Border Patrol to build a pair of new stations
By Michael Marizco
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

The U.S. Border Patrol is spreading out in the Tucson Sector, getting new stations in Willcox and Sonoita, officials said.

The two stations are part of $21 million in planned projects the sector has budgeted for the fiscal year that began Saturday.

On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe also presented an additional $35 million to the Tucson Sector. The funding is part of the fiscal year 2006 Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that the House and Senate are expected to pass this week.

The Tucson Sector can use the $35 million at its discretion for construction projects.

Kolbe, a Tucson Republican who sits on the Appropriations Homeland Security subcommittee, said the projects are needed, particularly new stations in the outlying areas of Southern Arizona.

"They are literally standing on top of each other in the space that they have right now," Kolbe said. He called the current Willcox station "totally inadequate."

Nearly $13 million of the $21 million requested by the Border Patrol will be used to construct a $10 million station for about 120 agents in Willcox and nearly $3 million for a 150-agent station in Sonoita.

Acting Tucson Sector Chief Ronald Colburn said an additional $5 million will be used for vehicle barriers across parts of the Barry M. Goldwater Range west of Tucson. Vehicle barriers already exist through some parts of the Coronado National Memorial and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Other projects to be paid for with the $21 million include a $2 million ditch reconstruction in Douglas, where an eroding ditch is knocking over the border wall, and $543,000 to build an all-weather road along the border on either side of the Naco port of entry.

Colburn did not know how much of the Border Patrol's $1.41 billion budget is spent in the Tucson Sector each year but said it was the most-funded sector in the agency last fiscal year.