Thread: Migrants leaving ugly mark on land

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ARIVACA, Ariz. – Empty water jugs and scraps of clothing are as common as saguaro and mesquite in this part of the Sonoran Desert, 12 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.



DANNY GAWLOWSKI/DMN
No More Deaths volunteer Jeff Weeks hikes along a littered trail outside Arivaca, Ariz. Trash along migrant trails is particularly concentrated in encampment areas. There are places along the Mexico border in Arizona where the desert floor is hidden by discarded backpacks, shoes and other refuse left behind by people crossing the border.

These are the signs of illegal immigration, found in heaps at camps, along well-worn paths that run through the dry desert creek beds and ever closer to Tucson, 50 miles northeast.

"It would be an understatement to say parts of the desert have been trashed," said Gail Aschenbrenner, spokeswoman for the 1.7 million-acre Coronado National Forest, which shares 60 miles of border with Sonora, Mexico.

"It's like collateral damage," said Gary Nabhan, director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, who has studied southern Arizona desert ecology.


4,000 tons of trash

Illegal immigrants drop an average of 6 to 8 pounds of waste during their journey, according to government estimates. With an estimated 1 million people crossing into Arizona each year, that amounts to 4,000 tons of garbage.

The worst areas are at smugglers' "lay-up" sites, where travelers wait to be transported to areas such as Tucson and Phoenix. Backpacks and clothes practically pave the ground, left behind so that more people can be packed into vehicles, or when the immigrants try to change their appearance from dusty hikers to indistinguishable citizens.

Federal and state money to address the problem has trickled down, but it's not enough, resource managers say. Citizen cleanup efforts exist, but volunteers can't keep up.

Neither can landowners. Ranchers Tom and Dena Kay, whose property touches five miles of border, said they haul out a pickup load of garbage a week.

"It makes you very, very angry because there's such lack of respect of the land and the people living here," said Mrs. Kay, 62.


Lasting impact

The environmental impacts will long outlive those dropping the trash, Mr. Nabhan said. He pointed to remnants from the California gold rush still evident on the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

"You can still see tracks and garbage from a much smaller group of people ... 150 years later," he said. "This last decade of increase in illegal border crossings will inevitably be seen on the ground well into the 22nd century."

The problem on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation to the east is even worse. The 2.8 million-acre tribal land – nearly the size of Connecticut – fronts about 70 miles of remote border.

As many as 1,500 illegal immigrants cross the reservation each day, leaving more than 4 million pounds of trash a year, according to a June 2004 Government Accountability Office report.

Gary Olson, administrator for the reservation's solid waste program, said more than 40 tons of garbage have been collected in the past year. Much of that garbage is up to 10 years old, which he calls "easy pickings," compared with waste in more remote places.

The nation has been among the most aggressive in addressing the issue, using global positioning systems to map and monitor the dumping grounds. The nation has also received grants totaling $100,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency and Bureau of Land Management to help fund cleanup projects. But, Mr. Olson says, that won't wipe out the trash.


Little coordination

Mr. Nabhan said there is little cleanup coordination.

"With homeland security issues trumping everything else along the borders, there's no agency with the power to make sure ecological impacts are minimized by either illegal border crossers or the government agencies themselves," he said. The Border Patrol responded last September by creating a position to help communicate with different agencies and to focus on environmental issues.

Harv Forsgren, U.S. Forest Service regional forester for the Southwestern region, said he's still concerned about the environmental impacts of the Border Patrol, but he has seen improvements.

For instance, when agents apprehend apparently illegal immigrants, they sometimes make them clean up their trash. Immigration law prohibits them from cleaning up more, officials said.

"It's the saddest thing to see its effects," Mr. Nabhan said. "It's much more dramatic than anything we've seen in the past."

E-mail abecker@dallasnews.com

no respect for our laws our land or our people.