Illegal immigration creating monster trash crisis
Arizona estimates 4 million pounds contaminate deserts annually

Published: 1 hour ago


While anti-border wall activists see a coming eco-apocalypse, some border-wall proponents already see one in
place as a result of unchecked illegal immigration.

The problems linked to illegal immigrations have had much attention lately: the criminals and potential terrorists entering without permission, the young children needing huge amount of social services, workers taking jobs that Americans, in fact, would do.

Then there’s the burden on taxpayers to pay for all the social services they use, as well as the possibility that lax state voting rules let them sign up and vote.

Now a new one has begun getting attention: The millions, and millions, of pounds of garbage left in southwest America’s deserts by those traveling, illegally, through.

“Perhaps the state hardest hit by trash at the border is Arizona, which shares 370 miles of border with Mexico,” says a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies.

“Behind only the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, Tucson, Arizona, is consistently the sector of the border with the highest number of Border Patrol apprehensions,” the report explains.

The report explains, “The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality estimates that over 2,000 tons of trash are discarded at the Arizona border every year. As a consequence, the department established a website entitled ‘Arizona Border Trash’ in 2012 to coordinate and keep track of the state’s trash cleanup operations.

According to ADEQ, each ton of trash requires landfill fees of $37 to $49, which are footed by Arizona taxpayers. That does not include fees for materials, transportation, or labor. ADEQ further estimates that each border-crosser leaves an average of six to eight pounds of trash behind.”

The harm from the 4 million pounds of trash left annually add up in many ways, the report states.

“According to the ADEQ website, border trash ‘has been shown to affect human health, the environment and economic wellbeing.’ Included among the specific impacts are watershed degradation, soil erosion, damage to infrastructure, loss of vegetation and wildlife, and escaped campfires.”

Among those giving the issue some attention recently was Tucker Carlson on Fox News. He said, “I hate litter, which is one of the reasons I’m so against illegal immigration,” the report said.

“Some journalists jumped to vilify Carlson, suggesting that he was referring to the illegal aliens themselves as human ‘litter,’ These journalists are perhaps unaware of the environmental problems presented by the garbage left on our southern border,” the report said.

The report includes a chart showing the correlation between the illegal aliens arriving, and the trash left behind.

“The correlation is clear. In fiscal years 2011 and 2012, when Arizona was experiencing over 120,000 border apprehensions, over 65,000 pounds of border trash was being collected annually. In the following years, as apprehensions fell as low as 70,000, border trash collections dropped, too – reaching a low of just 19,000 pounds in fiscal year 2015 before jumping back up in 2016,” the report explained.

The federal Bureau of Land Management explains there was, for several years, a state-funded project called the southern Arizona Project that included, as one part of its mission, collecting trash.

“While the broader program has ended, trash collections have continued into 2018. Through June of this year, over 15,000 pounds of trash have been removed,” the CIS said.

“Every illegal alien prevented from crossing our southern border represents about seven pounds of garbage that will no longer be left behind to potentially damage water systems, wildlife, and soil. As such, lawmakers ought to consider that securing the border is not just a matter of national security, but environmental security too,” it said.

https://www.wnd.com/2018/09/illegal-...-trash-crisis/