News
Illegal wall causes flooding, Mexico claims
By Manuel C. Coppola, Wick News Service
It probably won’t spark the next Mexican-American War, but our southern neighbors say flooding July 12 caused about $8 million in damage to their side of the border, and they want Uncle Sam to pay up. Walls are not a new source of controversy for the Border Patrol, but this time it is a 3-foot structure causing the headaches as officials on both sides inquire who authorized its construction.
The wall runs perpendicular to a steel flood gate in the Nogales Wash tunnel and caused water to back up during the July 12 storm, according to officials of the Mexico Section of the International Water and Boundary Commission. Then, they allege, the pressure blew out a portion of the tunnel ceiling, flooding Calle Elias and Calle Internacional.
The resulting deluge was retained by a decorative border wall, and about 5 feet of water pooled in the area. It damaged several buildings and vehicles. Eventually, the water burst onto Morley Avenue in Nogales, where more than 50 stores were flooded.
The short wall was constructed in the tunnel by Border Patrol in February ostensibly to protect the floodgate.
In a telephone interview, Assistant Chief Lloyd Easterling, of the BP’s Washington, D.C., office, explained that prior to the wall’s construction, smugglers routinely cut, bent and lifted the floodgates with jacks to cross illegally into the United States.
The wall has helped protect the gate and stem the flow of drugs and persons entering the U.S. illegally.
Easterling said that his agency is not convinced yet that the structure was the sole cause of the flooding. He noted that the area in recent years has become plagued with illicit tunneling by smugglers. The digging has possibly changed the dynamics of the water flow in the wash. A sinkhole developed just west of the area at one of the northbound inspection lanes in the pre-dawn hours following the July 12 flooding.
U.S. officials also cite the fact that the channel is more than 75 years old and in poor condition. Its dilapidation may also have been a factor, they said.
Carlos Marin, commissioner of the United States Section of the IBWC, said he has received in writing a formal request for restitution from his counterpart, Arturo Herrera, in Mexico.
Marin was in Nogales on Wednesday. In an interview, he said that his staff could find no records of Border Patrol having notified or requested permission from IBWC to construct the wall. That matter, however, was still being reviewed, Marin added.
“As far as this agency (IBWC) we are not taking a stand of accepting or denying any responsibility,” he said.
He said survey teams from both sides of the border were scheduled to work jointly today to identify the international boundary line in the tunnel. If the wall is in Mexico, Mexican officials want it demolished.
Next week, engineers will assess the hydraulic affects of the wall to help pinpoint liability.
Last week on Friday, Nogales Mayor Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel and Nogales, Sonora, Mayor Marco Antonio Martinez Dabdoub met with Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to discuss the tunnel wall’s removal.
Garcia-Von Borstel said that the plan was to completely knock down the wall. After meeting with the federal officials, it was scaled back first to cutting gaps from top to bottom and finally the group settled on removing 1 and 1/2 feet from the top. Garcia-Von Borstel provided municipal equipment such as concrete-cutting machines and jackhammers, and Nogales, Sonora provided the labor.
On Wednesday, Marin also visited the area of the aging concrete-lined Nogales Wash straddling Morley Avenue. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, financed to the tune of $500,000 by the IBWC, recently completed the replacement of floor and side panels in the channel damaged by monsoon floods in 2007.
Gov. Janet Napolitano signed an emergency decree freeing up about $200,000 for the work.
Manuel C. Coppola is editor and publisher of the Nogales International, a sister newspaper of the Green Valley News with Wick Communications Co.
The wall runs perpendicular to a steel flood gate in the Nogales Wash tunnel and caused water to back up during the July 12 storm, according to officials of the Mexico Section of the International Water and Boundary Commission. Then, they allege, the pressure blew out a portion of the tunnel ceiling, flooding Calle Elias and Calle Internacional.
The resulting deluge was retained by a decorative border wall, and about 5 feet of water pooled in the area. It damaged several buildings and vehicles. Eventually, the water burst onto Morley Avenue in Nogales, where more than 50 stores were flooded.
The short wall was constructed in the tunnel by Border Patrol in February ostensibly to protect the floodgate.
In a telephone interview, Assistant Chief Lloyd Easterling, of the BP’s Washington, D.C., office, explained that prior to the wall’s construction, smugglers routinely cut, bent and lifted the floodgates with jacks to cross illegally into the United States.
The wall has helped protect the gate and stem the flow of drugs and persons entering the U.S. illegally.
Easterling said that his agency is not convinced yet that the structure was the sole cause of the flooding. He noted that the area in recent years has become plagued with illicit tunneling by smugglers. The digging has possibly changed the dynamics of the water flow in the wash. A sinkhole developed just west of the area at one of the northbound inspection lanes in the pre-dawn hours following the July 12 flooding.
U.S. officials also cite the fact that the channel is more than 75 years old and in poor condition. Its dilapidation may also have been a factor, they said.
Carlos Marin, commissioner of the United States Section of the IBWC, said he has received in writing a formal request for restitution from his counterpart, Arturo Herrera, in Mexico.
Marin was in Nogales on Wednesday. In an interview, he said that his staff could find no records of Border Patrol having notified or requested permission from IBWC to construct the wall. That matter, however, was still being reviewed, Marin added.
“As far as this agency (IBWC) we are not taking a stand of accepting or denying any responsibility,” he said.
He said survey teams from both sides of the border were scheduled to work jointly today to identify the international boundary line in the tunnel. If the wall is in Mexico, Mexican officials want it demolished.
Next week, engineers will assess the hydraulic affects of the wall to help pinpoint liability.
Last week on Friday, Nogales Mayor Octavio Garcia-Von Borstel and Nogales, Sonora, Mayor Marco Antonio Martinez Dabdoub met with Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials to discuss the tunnel wall’s removal.
Garcia-Von Borstel said that the plan was to completely knock down the wall. After meeting with the federal officials, it was scaled back first to cutting gaps from top to bottom and finally the group settled on removing 1 and 1/2 feet from the top. Garcia-Von Borstel provided municipal equipment such as concrete-cutting machines and jackhammers, and Nogales, Sonora provided the labor.
On Wednesday, Marin also visited the area of the aging concrete-lined Nogales Wash straddling Morley Avenue. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, financed to the tune of $500,000 by the IBWC, recently completed the replacement of floor and side panels in the channel damaged by monsoon floods in 2007.
Gov. Janet Napolitano signed an emergency decree freeing up about $200,000 for the work.
Manuel C. Coppola is editor and publisher of the Nogales International, a sister newspaper of the Green Valley News with Wick Communications Co.
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