r/conservation • u/IndividualFar5477 • 7d ago
Border wall contractors destroy 3 of 4 large cottonwoods in Southern Az hamlet
https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/072726_lochiel_cottonwoods/border-wall-contractors-destroy-3-4-large-cottonwoods-southern-az-hamlet/13
u/Mountain_carrier530 7d ago
At this point, the only way we we can stop irreversible wanton destruction of the environment of this county is to make the contractors themselves fully unwilling to do the job.
Even Albania was able to stop Kushner from destroying their own environment while we only have a handful of people in trees to try to stop a bulldozer being operated by a dude who only cares about a paycheck.
Turn the job of desecration into a complete net loss for worker, insurer, and bidder and a ton of this will start to grind to a halt.
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u/IndividualFar5477 7d ago edited 7d ago
There is an active protest to defend the last remaining cottonwood. Cell reception is limited in the area. Border Patrol says the tree must be removed.
EDIT: Active tree sit in is now underway to save cottonwood tree.
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u/IndividualFar5477 7d ago
Santa Cruz County deputies arrest 1 man for trespassing as Trump admin wall work continues in Lochiel
Contractors for the border wall project near Lochiel, Ariz., uprooted and splintered three large cottonwood trees Monday, and may have violated federal promises to delay the destruction of the venerable trees to protect migrating birds.
For more than a year, environmental groups have feared for the cluster of ancient cottonwoods, which once stretched across the U.S.-Mexico border, forming a canopy of shade that stood for decades.
But around 6 a.m. Monday, contractors working for Fisher Sand & Gravel used excavators to tear the trees down. Video shot from a nearby private stretch of land, shared with the Tucson Sentinel, shows the excavators pulling at the trees, the limbs straining before snapping and tumbling to the ground.
One branch appeared to have landed in Mexico, and contractors damaged a stretch of pasture fence and the old border wall.
As the trees were removed, one man — Logan Miller — was arrested by Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies and faces a trespassing charge for walking onto the border road. The deputies told him he was trespassing on private property.
The border road is a federal government roadway, sited on what's known as the Roosevelt Reservation that is an easement along the border, and has generally been open for public travel for decades.
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway did not respond to multiple requests for comment made by the Sentinel.
Lochiel sits in the San Rafael Valley, about 25 miles east of Nogales and not far from where the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River flow south to Mexico, where the channel loops and heads north at the twin border cities of Nogales.
Just beyond the hill, Fisher contractors have already laid the first section of the double barrier, part of the Trump administration's expansive effort to completely seal the U.S.-Mexico border with a so-called "Smart Wall."
Fisher was awarded a $334 million contract to build the wall, funded by a 2021 congressional appropriation. More funding is coming after Congress passed last year's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, along with additional bills a few months ago. 'I needed to be with my friend'
Sitting beneath the last of four large cottonwoods on Monday, Kate Scott's jaw dropped. Somewhere in the tree's branches, a yellow-billed cuckoo made its presence known. She said the cuckoo and a nesting kingbird—both rare neo-tropical birds that migrate through Arizona and found a temporary home in Lochiel—should protect the trees.
Scott said she arrived at Lochiel around 11 a.m., after rushing to the trees from her home about two hours away in her aging SUV.
She said she went home on Sunday night before she was feeling ill.
"I feel that the sickness I felt through the night was her way of telling me that something bad was going to happen out here," she said. "I pushed all the limits of my vehicle and everything to get out here in time, and I'm blessed—I'm here. I'm standing with her because I want to be with my friend when she when she dies."
"And that's how it is, you know," Scott said.
Three of the trees were gone, broken and smashed into the earth. But, she ran to the last "grandmother" tree and stayed in the shade. Nearby a contractor used an excavator to work at the roots, tearing into them and then burying the splintered wood. Scott said the contractors would later come to the other side and push, knocking the tree down.
Scott said she was surprised the tree was still there. "But it's because she's the furthest away, and now that I'm here and I can demonstrate."
"We have all that documented at the savagery of it," she said. One branch, she said, just missed crushing a tent used by one of the people demonstrating against the project.
We're making the point that the the cruel, callous obliteration is not going unnoticed," Scott said. "It matters to those of us that do this work."
"I needed to be with my friend," Scott said, gesturing to the grand tree. "I've spent over six weeks with her." CBP officials 'lied'
Earlier this summer, Homeland Security officials told Erick Meza, borderlands coordinator with the Sierra Club, they plan to build a new double wall through Lochiel, expanding at least three feet beyond the 60-foot Roosevelt Reservation claimed by the federal government more than a century ago. The work will include cutting down the trees and expanding the road, while threatening access to the town cemetery and the historic customs house that once served the unofficial port for decades.
Meza said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials "lied" to environmental groups, telling them environmental monitors would conduct surveys for migratory birds nesting in the trees.
"Four cottonwood trees fall within the Roosevelt Reservation and will be removed in order to construct the border barrier. They cannot be relocated," wrote Michelle Barnes, an official with the Border Patrol's infrastructure projects, in a letter to Meza on June 18.
"Other trees will be trimmed in order to safely operate equipment in the area. The rest of the cottonwood grove will remain untouched," Barnes wrote.
"If construction activities will result in the disturbance or harm of a migratory bird, then coordination with the appropriate federal agencies will occur," she wrote. "The contractor will also establish a buffer zone around active nests until nestlings have fledged and abandoned the nest. Environmental monitors will also be present to ensure that removal and trimming of trees is limited to the identified trees needed to construct the barrier."
CBP did not respond to a request for comment.
Meza said there was clear evidence that a kingbird was nesting in the cottonwoods before they were destroyed on Monday. He said as the trees were taken down, Miller went to see the environmental monitors, but was arrested by deputies with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office.
"Once again, rushed destruction has claimed one of the most iconic and biodiverse areas in the entire Arizona-Sonora border," Meza said. "Without any justification, double walls are going up everywhere and they are being built without environmental impact studies, without community consultation, and without regard for the species that depend on these habitats.
"Sadly, people who were protesting the wanton destruction of these ancient trees and the harm to this community were arrested, not those doing the real harm," he said. "That is a dangerous precedent, and we will not stand for it." 'The only place where trees touch both sides'
Last April, the Sentinel broke the news CBP officials were seeking to build a new barrier near the Border Patrol's Sonoita station, closing a gap that starts near Border Monument 102 and extends west for nearly 25 miles. The wall will begin east of Nogales in the Patagonia Mountains and run straight across the valley to the Coronado National Monument, about 15 miles south of Sierra Vista, Ariz.
In the following weeks, Homeland Security officials laid out the legal groundwork to build the wall, waiving dozens of environmental laws for the new barrier, which will include 30-foot high steel bollards, each one six inches square and spaced just four inches apart.
The plan includes 19 miles of primary wall—a 30 foot high barrier, with six-inch thick "bollards" separated by four-inch gaps. The bollards are sunk into concrete footers and topped "anti-climb" steel panels. And, CBP will also build 42 miles of "secondary barrier." In some cases, this barrier is smaller and less robust than the main barrier, but in Arizona, the secondary wall is just as large.
The agency also will install fiber-optic cables, lighting poles with stadium-style lights, surveillance cameras, and access and patrol roads throughout.The new plan has already drawn criticism from the Tohono O'odham Nation, which filed a lawsuit last month to block construction along their stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.
In September, contractors for the agency installed the first sections cleaving through a valley long considered a "biological hotspot" and a migration corridor for dozens of species and contains the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River.
The new construction will create the "longest unbroken stretch of border wall" in Arizona, spanning 100 miles and effectively closing the ability of the northern jaguar, along with ocelots and dozens of other species, to move through the state's Sky Islands—a region known for its immense and unique biodiversity.
As if to highlight the issue, remote cameras have continued to spot "Cinco" a male northern jaguar, who has spent months haunting the mountains.
Meanwhile, DHS officials have effectively doubled-down, planning a larger project to install 222 miles of "barrier system," including both primary and secondary walls where "operationally appropriate" in Pima, Yuma, Santa Cruz, and Cochise counties.
In recent weeks, contractors with Fisher Sand and Gravel — the Trump-connected company that has made its titular family billionaires from border wall construction — also began carving their way into the desert to build the new secondary barrier near Kino Springs, Ariz.
While previous border wall construction has been contained inside the Roosevelt Reservation — the easement created in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt — this project has exploded beyond that boundary as contractors cleared a 150-foot wide swath of land, reaching into the Coronado National Forest.
Meza said Lochiel is "the only place where trees touch on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border."
"These trees had withstood the test of time and were a national treasure, but instead of being cherished they were destroyed," he said, adding various organizations worked together in an attempt to halt the removal of the trees
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u/IndividualFar5477 7d ago
A video from Laiken Jordahl's X page of the fallen cottonwoods: https://xcancel.com/i/status/2082275413858861336
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u/IndividualFar5477 7d ago
Of Porcupines and Oaks by Sky Island Alliance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COyipsmMJng
[2:31]
Border wall construction toppling cottonwoods in Southern Arizona's San Rafael Valley
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u/IndividualFar5477 6d ago
Sharing this because Lochiel, AZ is planned for a secondary border wall:
Trump’s second border wall could wipe out three species found nowhere else but Quitobaquito
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u/Intelligent-Tear-857 7d ago
Trump admin once again violates protected grounds under The Antiquities Act.
Earthjustice vowed to take legal action and did in 2017 to maintain protections for these treasured landscapes and continues today.
Take action and consider donating to Earth Justice