In a move that has environmentalists on both sides of the border up in arms, the U.S. Border Patrol plans to destroy all the vegetation along a more than one mile section of the Rio Grande riverbank beginning March 24 to prevent illegal immigrants using the overgrown terrain as a potential crossing-point from Mexico to the United States.
The project, using the herbicide Imazapyr, will cost over $2 million dollars, and - if successful - will be continued along 130 more miles of the river in various border locations including the Border Patrol's Laredo Sector.
This initial sector stretches, on the Texas side, from the Laredo Railroad Bridge and Laredo Community College (due west of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico). Mexican officials are concerned the herbicide could impact the water supply for Nuevo Laredo, and Laredo City Council members have asked for cross-border help, in the form Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, who they hope will intervene.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says the chemical is safe for animals. Opponents say the proposed project is eerily similar to the Agent Orange sweep in Vietnam during that war, which left several generations of Vietnamese sick, suffering and even deformed. Given the record of the EPA in protecting American's health, this writer is inclined to side with the environmentalists.
The problem is carrizo cane, which grows 30 feet tall and thickly along both sides of the Rio Grande and allows immigrants to create narrow trails that are all but invisible to Border Patrol agents standing on the high banks of the river, especially after dark.
The solution, Imazapyr, will either be painted on the stumped cane stalks or aerially sprayed over and over until all the vegetation dies. The first method requires a lot of man hours - as does a proposal to bulldozer the banks. The second is quick and dirty; in other words, it has all the hallmarks of a U.S. government solution to the unwanted hordes of unwashed south of the border.
The most vocal opponent is Jay Johnson-Castro Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, which is located at Laredo Community College. Johnson-Castro has suggested the program, in addition to being potentially illegal, may also be immoral.
"It is unprecedented that they'd do it in a populated area," he noted.
The combined cities of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo house about 860,000 people. That's a lot of risk, some of which may not become apparent for decades, and a dreadful legacy for the U.S. government to pass on not only to its own citizens but an ally nation like Mexico.
Border Patrol agent Roque Sarinana says the project is no big deal, and describes it as a way to improve Border Patrol mobility along the river. Johnson-Castro says he has no objection to removing the cane. The problem is the method, which he calls, "...one hell of a big deal".
The EPA's assessment of Imazapyr states that laboratory and field studies show that the chemical is "practically non-toxic" to fish, birds and bees on a short-term (acute) basis, but recommends that humans not walk through freshly sprayed areas, eat food grown in such areas, or drink the water. Imazpyr's half-life, in soils, ranges from 14 days to 17 months, depending on soil's pH; persistence is higher in lower pH soils. The chemical is made by German agribusiness giant BASF in 2003.
A more comprehensive but already outdated study from 1998 by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shows that imidazolinone herbicides (or IMI herbicides, of which Imazapyr is one) sampled in Midwestern U.S. waters were larger in post-emergence samples (i.e., after spraying) and were larger in stream and reservoirs than in groundwater. In at least one out of every 16 samples, the level was at, or above, the method reporting limit of 0.01 ug/L (micrograms per liter).
In another study, rodents fed Imazapyr-laced grain for two years developed fluid accumulation in the lungs, an increased incidence of kidney cysts, abnormal blood formations in the spleen, increased blood pooling in the liver, an increase in thyroid cysts, and a decrease in food efficiency. None of this was considered significant by the EPA.
Things may have changed under incoming EPA Director Lisa Jackson, but in the immediate past asking the EPA to evaluate a chemical was like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. The EPA's usual oversight consists in asking chemical companies to evaluate their own formulations and hide what might offend or inform the American people.
Related Reading:
Climate Change and Displacement: Leaving Home for Nowhere
Failing Environment, Tanking Economy? Blame the Immigrants!
