US border battle takes toll on parks

AJO, Ariz. -- Mountains of trash, recurring fires, despoiled natural springs, vandalized historic sites, and disappearing wildlife are part of the toll that the government's battle with smugglers and migrants is taking on national parks and wildlife refuges along the US border with Mexico.

In southern Arizona, the damage extends to American Indian and private land, jeopardizing a broad expanse of the Sonoran Desert, which boasts a greater diversity of plant and animal life than any other North American desert.

At Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Ajo, Ariz., 2.5 million pounds of garbage is scattered through broad valleys and desert arroyos every year, according to Roger DiRosa, the refuge manager.

Officials with the US Border Patrol say the refuge's seven mountain ranges -- home to bighorn sheep and a prized destination for wilderness hikers -- now serve as posts for lookouts who use night-vision equipment to track Border Patrol movements.

Mountain peaks conceal clandestine radio repeating stations. Illegal ''ghost roads" carved by smugglers and pursuing federal agents crisscross Cabeza Prieta and nearby Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Officials at the US Department of the Interior say they are considering giving the Border Patrol control of the hard-hit areas of the refuge and park nearest the border.

''We've talked about what kind of swath they would need, how much we would let them control, recognizing that you would be sacrificing a small area for the greater good," said Larry Parkinson, Interior's deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement and security.

On a recent tour of the damage, DiRosa, who manages Cabeza Prieta for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, steered his truck toward the Growler Mountains, making slow headway through what used to be fertile desert topsoil. A constant stream of vehicles has pulverized the sand into a fine powder that DiRosa and other federal land managers call moon dust.

There is only one official road in Cabeza Prieta's 860,000 acres, and this wasn't it. The nameless routes, stretching north from the Mexican border, are the result of an estimated 1,000 illegal foot crossings a day and countless vehicles transporting undocumented migrants, drug runners, and Border Patrol.

The constant human pressure is threatening to eliminate the area's wildlife. The refuge's population of the endangered Sonoran pronghorn, a deer-like creature, had fallen to 21 -- down from 179 in 1992 -- and the species was headed for extinction before a captive-breeding program was established in 2004.

Cabeza Prieta has 400 plant species and 300 types of wildlife, including ringtail cats, kit foxes, bighorn sheep, javelina, badgers, bobcats, mule deer, desert tortoises, 24 snake species, 11 bat species, and 212 bird species.

It's only a matter of time, officials say, before these animals' home is rendered uninhabitable.

''We're getting hammered," DiRosa said, calling Cabeza Prieta the most embattled wildlife refuge in the United States. At Organ Pipe, Superintendent Kathy Billings said she couldn't argue with a conservation group's 2004 assessment that the national monument was one of the nation's most imperiled.

East of Organ Pipe, residents of the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation recently removed more than 7,000 abandoned vehicles.

Wendy Glenn, whose family runs a cattle ranch near Douglas, described the harm done to livestock and wildlife.

''There are at least two semi [trailer truck] loads of trash in the canyon behind us, and there are probably seven canyons like that," she said. ''Our cattle eat the trash. Little animals stick their heads in bean cans and walk around with the cans on their muzzle until they die."

Arizona's border with Mexico, more than 350 miles long, includes six national parks, three wildlife refuges, three national monuments, two national conservation areas, and a national forest. Government scientists have documented the most serious damage at Cabeza Prieta and Organ Pipe.

Soil compaction across hundreds of miles of roads and trails has killed cactuses' shallow root systems, causing towering saguaro and organ pipe cactuses to topple, taking with them animal food sources and bird nests. American Indian relics and pioneer ranch buildings have been damaged or destroyed, Billings said.

Border Patrol agents pursue illegal immigrants in cars across fragile desert lands. Driving in the area normally would be prohibited by the Wilderness Act.

The agency has established camps in wilderness areas, obliterating plants to make way for helicopter pads, trailers, fencing, generators, and high-intensity lights. Since much desert wildlife is nocturnal, the noise and lights have driven animals out of their natural habitat.

The Border Patrol says it now requires environmental sensitivity training and mandates that agents who drive through wilderness areas report incidents to refuge or park managers.