Historic border canyon near San Diego is filled in (Bush answer to illegal immigration)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Historic border canyon near San Diego is filled in
Jan 3, 2009 8:36 PM (3 hrs ago) AP

SAN DIEGO (Map, News) - An historic canyon, used in years past by cattle rustlers and bandits as an illegal border crossing between Mexico and the United States and more recently by illegal immigrants, is slated to be wiped off the map.

The federal government's project to fill in Smuggler's Gulch with dirt is scheduled to be completed by May. The government has lopped off the top of nearby hills and shoved some 1.7 million cubic yards of earth into the pass and neighboring Goat Canyon.

Environmentalists fear that the project will harm endangered fauna, the Tijuana Estuary and Native American sites.

"We've lost sensitive habitat and the estuary is now threatened," Jim Peugh, conservation chairman of the San Diego Audubon Society, told the Los Angeles Times.




Read more: http://www.examiner.com/a-1774868~Historic_border_canyon_near_San_Diego_is_filled_in.html

[Cleita]

1. The stupidity of this administration just doesn't stop, does it.

The California canyons affect the weather, the fire season and flooding throughout California. I wonder what this will bring?

[file83]

26. How does converting a canyon to a FLAT piece of ground make it IMPASSABLE?

This makes absolutely no sense to me and I agree this Bush Admin's stupidity never stops!

My only conclusion is that doing this accomplished 2 objectives for the Bush Admin:
1) Environmental Destruction
2) Large Corporate Contract (Pork) for Supporters

[slackmaster]

29. They are constructing a road parallel to the border

With double fences and lights, so it can be patrolled and monitored constantly.

The objective is to drive illegal immigrants east to the mountains and deserts, where crossing carries a higher risk of death from exposure and bandits.

[Dover]

2. So who got the lucrative contract to do the work?...n/t

[Auggie]

24. Bingo. It's not an act stupidity. Most every time this administration does

anything it has a profit motive, favor or payoff behind it.

[Joe Bacon]

43. Oh, I bet it start with an "H"

and ends with Burton, don't you think so?

[Dover]

49. From the picture provided below it looks like the company is Kiewit, and the CEO is a Bushbot.

if this list/info is any indication:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2008/snapshots/10679.html
http://www.nndb.com/org/175/000167671/

Kiewit is an enormous U.S.-based international company on a par with Fluor/Halliburton and others, that does huge construction projects and also does mining work. They've got their hands in so many
projects (for Homeland Security, Toll Road construction, large civil and mining projects), that it
would be difficult to summarize here without a lot of research/google time. But I'm sure you get
the picture.

[Lorien]

58. See post #52

they really ARE that predicable!

[Ian David]

3. What, Bush doesn't have any giant Buddah's to blow-up? n/t

[sandnsea]

8. Good comparison

I am so fucking pissed I am damn near shaking. How can this be happening. :grr:

[blaze]

17. That was my first thought as well. n/t

[aquart]

4. "Dirt"? From where? What's in it?

What will it do to the water table?

[Gregorian]

38. Let me guess. Someone has a huge excavation project.

This could be like the movie Chinatown.

I guarantee this dirt is coming from "somewhere".

[Lorien]

57. The article says that they've already leveled hills for the "dirt'

the stupidity and immorality of these subhuman creatures never ceases to amaze (and disgust) me.

[Bette Noir]

5. Canyons are there for a reason.

Usually, in southern California, seasonal streams and flash floods. Bush won't be around, next rainy season,to make amends for the flooding and attendant destruction. Earthen dams have a poor record, here.

[MilesColtrane]

6. Bush to announce that Global Warming isn't an accidental byproduct of government policy.

It's a Homeland Security initiative to melt polar ice in order to keep the Russkies from walking into Alaska.

[sandnsea]

7. How the hell did this happen?

I haven't heard a word about this until now. This is the damn dumbest thing I've ever heard. How can anybody approve of this.

Further, if they know exactly where people are coming in - and they can't station patrols there, then that tells me they weren't serious about stopping them anyway. And this sure isn't going to do anything, they'll just find another route.

Just when I think they can't outrage me any further...

:argh:

[Judi Lynn]

9. U.S. smooths away an illegal border crossing wrinkle

U.S. smooths away an illegal border crossing wrinkle
Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

A massive earth-moving project is transforming Smuggler's Gulch near San Diego from a narrow canyon used by cattle thieves, bandits and illegal immigrants into a plugged breach.
By Richard Marosi
January 4, 2009

http://www.latimes.com.nyud.net:8090/media/photo/2009-01/44339822.jpg

Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

LIKE A DAM: Posts are installed for the 15-
foot-high fencing that will run along the
filled-in canyon on theƒoU.S.-Mexico border
famously known as Smuggler¡s Gulch.


Reporting from San Diego -- Smuggler's Gulch lived up to its infamous name.

For a century, the narrow canyon leading into California from Mexico provided cover for cattle thieves and opium dealers, bandits and booze runners. More recently, it has hidden thousands of illegal immigrants on their journey north, sealing its place in border lore.

Now, it's a fading memory.

The canyon has been all but wiped off the landscape, its steep walls carved into gentle slopes, its depths filled with 35,000 truckloads of dirt as the federal government nears completion of an extensive border reinforcement project at the southwesternmost point of the United States.

In 2005, the Bush administration waived state and federal environmental laws to overcome stiff opposition to the massive earth-moving effort, which entails cutting the tops off nearby hills and pushing about 1.7 million cubic yards of dirt into the gulch and neighboring Goat Canyon.

More:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-gulch4-2009jan04,0,5108507.story

[Joanie Baloney]

10. The destruction continues

From the same article:

Environmentalists for years stalled the $60-million plan to double-fence the three miles of border canyons and mesas. They pushed for projects that would improve border enforcement without harming the environment. In 2004, the California Coastal Commission refused to grant permits to complete the fence, saying the harm to sensitive habitats outweighed the security benefits.

But the Department of Homeland Security in 2005 waived all environment laws, the first time it had done so since Congress granted it the authority. Border Patrol officials argued that thousands of people every year still tried crossing through that stretch of the border, and that the rugged terrain prevented agents from accessing the area.

I live in San Diego and this is the first I've heard about this. We will be reaping the diseased harvest from W's blind sowing of incompetence for decades.

-JB

[AlbertCat]

44. Wait a minute.....

Border Patrol officials argued that thousands of people every year still tried crossing through that stretch of the border, and that the rugged terrain prevented agents from accessing the area.

So let's see....

It too rough a terrain to patrol but not too rough for Juan and Manuel to cross? Thousands of Mexican can access it but not our patrols? Thousands TRIED to cross? Did they succeed or not? How do we know if it's so inaccessable?

This means patrols can't just drive their hummers though it. Wimps.

[HopeHoops]

11. What's the big deal - it has only existed since Noah's flood ;}

Or so they have said...

[LynneSin]

12. after this perhaps we can just fill in the Grand Canyon

I mean those nasty gaps in the earth - what a waste

:eyes:

[DemoTex]

15. The Grand Canyon makes fundies nervous, too.

Know what I mean?

[AwakeAtLast]

13. Isn't this going to make it easier to cross?

Am I missing something here? :shrug:

[Orrex]

14. I would guess that the plan is to take away concealment, rather than removing an obstacle

But whatever the justification, it's an arrogant and short-sighted solution.


Still, I'm sure that this will stop all illegal immigration. You're doing a heck of a job, Bushie!

[underpants]

19. You are probably right but let's not forget the track record of the brain trust behind this

Loyalty over competence is their paradigm

[Orrex]

21. Well, as long as a Bush crony makes a profit out of it, it's all good...

:sarcasm:

[MadMaddie]

50. ALL of the Repug solutions are short sighted

Never fails and when disaster happens they claim, "No one could have seen this outcome"!

:banghead:

[Orrex]

51. True--or else they blame Democrats!

"It would have worked if the Democrats hadn't stonewalled/filibustered/been-soft-on-defense/etc."

[slackmaster]

32. No, it will shift illegal immigration to the east to the mountains and deserts

Where it's very easy to cross, but extremely dangerous much of the year due to harsh weather.

[Dangerously Amused]

16. F'ing outRAgeous!

Stupid, pointless, ineffective; total waste of time and resources. Good point upthread, though: follow the money. Who got the lucrative, (likely) no-bid contract?

"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." ~ George W. Bush


Good Christ I despise this administration with every fiber of my being.

[lonestarnot]

18. Motherfuckers! How much has this thing cost us? Can Janet do anything about this idiocy?

[mnhtnbb]

20. Follow the money. Some SD contractor made a bundle doing this.

[namvet73]

22. It's going to be a loooong 16 days! n/t

[asjr]

23. Stupidity--the gift that keeps on giving to

George Bush!

[quidam56]

25. America The Beautiful . Until Bush/Cheney got hold of it.

Bush is a toxic terrorist. http://www.wisecountyissues.com Appalachia can't stand anymore of The Bush Legacy, we have been bombed, blasted, bulldozed right into Third World America.

[slackmaster]

27. I'm a staunch preservationist, and I have no problem with Smuggler's Gulch being filled in

It was already environmentally destroyed by human traffic and trash.

Environmentalists fear that the project will harm endangered fauna, the Tijuana Estuary and Native American sites.

That's bullshit. The fauna were driven out decades ago by people, and their sewage and litter.

[AlbertCat]

45. The fauna were driven out decades ago by people, and their sewage and litter.

THAT'S why it's inaccessible?

[slackmaster]

54. Obviously it's not inaccessible.

:dunce:

BTW, who said it was inaccessible?

[crickets]

28. This should never have happened.

Something of this magnitude should have been big news nationally, rather than just locally, long before it was a fait accompli. How nice to find out about it once it's too late to at least try to stop it. Thank you, national news media. I guess you learned your lesson with that Yucca Mountain thing. Tsk.

As someone else pointed out, there was a gulch there for a reason. Nature will likely restore it over time, but the hilltops and hilltop habitats are gone for good. In the meanwhile, the water that normally ran off through the bottom of the canyon has to go somewhere, and it's going to carry a lot of dirt with it.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20080507-9999-1n7gulch.html

The terrain is what concerns the critics, who fear that sediment from the project will harm the Tijuana River estuary, where millions in state and federal tax dollars have been spent to restore wetlands. (emphasis added)

It's illegal and environmentally unsound, but Homeland Security has got to have it, so everybody just get out of the way. Lovely.

Filling in the landscape is not going to stop illegal border crossings and drug smuggling. Dealing with the causes of illegal border crossings and drug smuggling would be the way to go. So, what gets done? Some contractor is given buttloads of money to recklessly shove around tons of dirt.

All this administration can do is destroy things. It's all they know how to do. It's so sick and sad. Bush's legacy: pathetic loser idiot who destroyed everything he ever touched.

[slackmaster]

31. I'm very familiar with the area - IT'S ALREADY TRASHED!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=san+diego,+ca&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=45.063105,68.818359&ie=UTF8&ll=32.538691,-117.086341&spn=0.011342,0.016801&t=h&z=16

[crickets]

35. It's not just about that area.

The dirt piles aren't necessarily going to stay where they are put, especially during heavy rainfall. Sediment wash will have a detrimental impact on other surrounding areas, and not only the Tijuana River estuary. Just because it was "already trashed" doesn't make it acceptable to trash it further. Cleaning it up might have been a better way to spend that money. As I said before, regardless of the environmental impact, this tactic does nothing constructive to combat border crossings or smuggling. It's impossible to completely block every crossing point along thousands of miles of border. It's ludicrous to try. Addressing the reasons for those illegal crossings, and going for the origin of the smugglers' operations would make much more sense and produce much better results over the long run.

This is a band-aid, and a destructive and poorly applied one at that.

[slackmaster]

55. Even if it was restored to pristine, natural condition the flow of people and trash would continue

The water flowing in from the south brings a constant flow of untreated sewage and trash including used tires.

The only real fix would be a rational immigration policy that allows people to enter the country as guest workers, who get screened to ensure that they have gotten the required vaccinations and don't have serious criminal records. The border also needs to be secured. But that won't even begin to happen until we admit that those people are a fundamental part of our economy.

As I mentioned in two other replies in this thread, the only thing that will change with the border fortified between the beach and the back country is that more immigrants will be shunted to the east, where the are more vulnerable to dangerous weather and bandits. It won't change the number of people coming over.

[DeepModem Mom]

30. K&R

[bertman]

33. The best and only reason that President Obama should ALLOW torture is so we can

round up these Bush criminals and torture them until their dying days. These people are beyond comprehension.

Wait. Forget torture. Let's use capital punishment and just fucking be done with them. There is no justification whatsoever for allowing these fascist pigs to continue to breathe.

[underpants]

34. Pics and Video

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-gulch4-2009jan04,0,5108507.story


A U.S. construction crew fills the Smuggler's Gulch canyon near the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego, Calif., Friday, Aug. 15, 2008. Scrapers and bulldozers began filling a deep canyon Friday to make way for a border fence in the southwestern corner of the continental United States after 12 years of planning, environmental reviews and legal challenges (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/463/gallery/131016.html

The border fence runs parallel the white line here on the left. They filled it in so the fence makes it "impassable" (we'll see)




Fence descends into the sea, Playas de Tijuana. 3 July 2008. Photo by: Jill Holslin

Duncan Hunter seems to like it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvHdL7gjfwU

[Judi Lynn]

46. Wonderful photos. Tremendous help. Duncan Hunter, good grief.

Right in the middle of it all. Well, I hope it's more than a lifetime before he gets another chance at seizing so much power to abuse again.

Your images really put the truth of this catastrophe in plain view. Thank you.

[WriteDown]

47. Catastophe?

Looks like a barren, desolate piece of land to me. Doubt even the rattlesnakes want to be there.

[slackmaster]

62. It's a waste of money and won't fix any problems, but as local environmental disasters go it's small

Potatoes.

Here's a much bigger area of destruction that I have to look at on the way to work every morning. Behold the future site of the "Quarry Falls" development, a former quarry on the northern bank of Mission Valley:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=san+diego,+california&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.578161,50.273438&ie=UTF8&ll=32.780167,-117.146294&spn=0.008569,0.021887&t=h&z=16

[Pharaoh]

36. Hey! why don't we just make it

A huge landfill and save all that dirt? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[underpants]

37. *------------ $48.6.... MILLION ---------------*

The federal government is spending $60 million to complete approximately 3½ miles of secondary fencing that had yet to be built across the canyon, in Border Field State Park and in surrounding areas.

At a cost of $48.6 million, Smuggler's Gulch is by far the most expensive, and controversial, part of the project. Plans for the massive fill-in led to a February 2004 lawsuit against the federal government by environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and the San Diego Audubon Society.

That same month, the California Coastal Commission stalled construction after concluding it would cause environmental damage to the estuary, which had cost millions in state and federal tax dollars to restore.

The next year, however, Congress passed legislation that enabled the Department of Homeland Security to waive all laws standing in the way of building the fence. The environmental lawsuit was dismissed in December 2005.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20081127-9999-1m27gulch.html

[Lorien]

59. Any Dem who voted for that needs to be given a pink slip

morons.

[peace13]

39. I'm glad they didn't think to fill in Lake Erie to stop the illegals.

Thees people are really nuts!

[TWiley]

41. Canadiens are "Frost Backs, and Mexicans are "Wet Backs" ... There is a difference

[TWiley]

40. All Hail Lou Dobbs and CNN News.

It is the bigotry of Lou Dobbs and CNN News that created this whole Immigration Problem bullshit in the first place. It is the racist agenda, they even tried to take over the Seirra Club; making illegal immigration some kind of environmental issue. They almost succeeded.

I send a comment to CNN news from time to time. The only way to get through is to report an "error" in one of their stories. I simply say that Lou Dobbs IS the error.

[AlbertCat]

42. We have money for THIS crap?????

[underpants]

48. Aside from the enviromental part that was my question

the gap is only 300 yards wide or so, $48.6 MILLION??? (see post above)
Couldn't they have set up a ICE post there....something???

[EFerrari]

52. The company is Kiewit Corp out of Omaha

"The agency said a $48.6 million contract was awarded this year to the Keiwit Corp., a construction and mining firm based in Omaha, Neb."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20080507-9999-1n7gulch.html

Looks like it was misspelled in the article.

Kiewit -- omg! They built the Road to Nowhere.

June 15, 2007
Friday PM

I live in Ketchikan Alaska where the "bridge to nowhere" project is currently under construction using federal transportation money. The contractor is Kiewit Pacific and the contract was awarded by former U.S. Senator and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski after he lost his bid for reelection as governor in the primary of 2006. Richard Geary is on the Board of Directors of Kiewit Pacific. Geary and his wife Janet have donated more than $700,000.00 since 1993 to Republican candidates and the RNC and its committees; especially the Republican National State Elections Committee which received $155,000.00 from the them in 2000. Geary has also given individual donations to Ted Stevens and Don Young.

http://www.sitnews.us/0607Viewpoints/061507_carol_cairnes.html

And, they seem to be a big operation.

http://www.kiewit.com/about/history.html

[Judi Lynn]

53. It's all so simply Republican, isn't it? Good lord. So glad you posted this.

Started to go look up their campaign contributions, but got caught up in this news, which shows the Kiewit Foundation buying up some of the Nebraska newspaper, offering stock to their own non-union employees, and dragged into these articles are running for the Senate against Hagel, his ownership of voting machines, vote counting, the same newspaper being one of two entities in Nebraska handling vote counting, and Christian domionists! What the hell else could you ask for, after you opened the door with the Road to Nowhere Bridge?

PUBLISHER JOHN GOTTSCHALK knows the territory. His first job was
sweeping floors for the weekly paper his grandfather founded in
Rushville, Nebraska, a few miles down U.S. Highway 20 from Wessling's
house. In 1966, after graduating from the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, Gottschalk took a job selling ads for the weekly
Sidney, Nebraska, Telegraph. Two years later, he bought the paper. In
Sidney, Gottschalk acquired a taste for public service and served a
term as mayor.

He joined the World-Herald as assistant to the president in 1975,
after selling the Sidney paper. Five years later, he was elected vice
president. He moved up to president and chief operating officer of the
Omaha World-Herald Co. in 1985, and to CEO in 1989.

Gottschalk, 55, is only the fifth publisher in the 109-year history of
the World-Herald. That averages out to better than 20 years a
publisher. "I have the luxury of thinking not in terms of months or
quarters or years, but of generations," he says...

...The World-Herald once came close to losing its independent status.
In 1962 the paper was about to be sold to the Newhouse chain. Then
Omaha construction contractor Peter Kiewit stepped in, as a company
brochure says, "literally at the 11th hour."

Kiewit had no interest in running the World-Herald, Gottschalk says,
"but he didn't want his hometown paper owned by someone else." The
next year, he bought out the heirs of the founding Hitchcock family,
then set about creating an ownership structure Gottschalk calls "as
bulletproof as any in the industry."

Under the Kiewit formula, nonunion employees became eligible after his
death to buy stock. They now own 82 percent of the company; a Kiewit
foundation owns the rest. This makes the World-Herald one of only two
large employee-owned papers in the country. The other is the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel.


From another article at the site:

The feisty construction worker is running for
Nebraska's U.S. Senate seat against incumbent Republican Senator Chuck
Hagel. Matulka's "war chest" is less than $5000. But campaign
financing isn't his biggest concern. Who owns the voting machines and
how easily they can be rigged or "malfunction" is what's got him all
riled up. He's calling press conferences... demanding to be heard.

That might be difficult. Omaha's largest newspaper is part of the only
company in Nebraska certified to count votes on election day. And
Chuck Hagel has been an intrinsic part of that company for a long
time.

According to his press office, in 1995 Chuck Hagel resigned as CEO of
American Information Systems (AIS), the voting machine company that
counted the votes in his first Senatorial election in 1996. In January
1996 Hagel resigned as president of McCarthy & Company, part of the
McCarthy Group that are one of the current owners of Election Systems
and Software (ES&S), which itself resulted from the merger of AIS and
Business Records Corporation. According to publicist/writer Bev
Harris, Hagel is still an investor in the McCarthy Group. ES&S is now
the largest voting machine company in America. One of its largest
owners is the ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald Company...

...ES&S, the largest voting machine company in America, claims to have
counted 56% of the vote in the last four presidential elections.
Again, it's owned by the ultra-conservative Omaha World-Herald
Company, the McCarthy Group, and former owners of Business Records
Corporation. ES&S was created from a merger between American
Information Systems (AIS) and Business Records Corporation. Bob and
Todd Urosevich founded AIS in the 1980's. Bob is now president of
Diebold-Global, while brother Todd is a vice president at ES&S.
Business Records Corp. was partially owned by Cronus, a company that
seems to have a lot of connections to the notorious Hunt brothers from
Texas, as well as other individuals and entities, including
Rothschild, Inc.. Right wing Republicans Howard Ahmanson (who financed
AIS) and Nelson Bunker Hunt have both heavily contributed to The
Chalcedon Institute, an organization that mandates Christian
"dominion" over the world..."

More:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/590896.html

Thank you for this big, BIG information. It really does seem 100% Republican.

[Aristus]

56. I'm sure this will be an effective measure. After all, in the history of building barriers,

there's no record of anyone trying to circumvent those barriers. They just gave up... :sarcasm:

Is that pork I smell?...

[WriteDown]

61. The Berlin Wall was pretty effective....

Just slightly under 100%.

[Veruca Salt]

60. WTF!!!

:argh:

I swear to god every time I turn around * is allowing something else completely despicable in these waning days!