Saying the state can't depend on the federal government, a Senate panel on Thursday voted to let the governor start taking donations to build a border fence.
The proposal by Sen. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, allows for construction of a new barrier on private property, with the consent of the landowners. Estimates are that would cover about a third of the approximately 370 mile long border, with the balance either on the Tohono O'odham reservation or federal land.
Jaime Ferrant of the Border Action Network called the plan in SB 1406 "fiscally irresponsible.'' He said it is costing the federal government about $4 million a mile to construct the kind of fence designed to keep people and vehicles out.
Smith said he has no firm idea of what it might cost to build a suitable fence. But he said that the costs to the state could be minimal if the state is able to get private donations.
Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, said labor costs could be next to nothing if the state uses inmate labor. And Sen. Frank Antenori, R-Tucson, said if the money comes from outside sources, the price tag is irrelevant.
What's behind the plan is the argument that whatever the federal government has build is insufficient, leaving large portions of the state vulnerable.
"We have a crisis in our state and it is caused because our borders are not secure,'' said Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake.
But Allen said the failure of the federal government to build an adequate fence all along the border is more than just incompetence.
"I feel, unfortunately, if the little secret were known, for some reason, somebody's protecting the cartel,'' Allen said. "They don't want to shut the border and the flow of drugs that are coming in here because of how powerful and how wealthy these cartels are.''
Smith's plan, if enacted, would cover only a part of the border.
Antenori said about a third of the area is within the Tohono O'odham Reservation. When national forests and other federal lands are eliminated, he said that leaves private lands along only about a third of the border.
Sen. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, said an effort to build a new fence is misplaced. He said the key is fixing the immigration system, a system he said makes it virtually impossible for people to come to this system legally.
Gallardo said securing the border does need to be a part of any solution.
"If you truly want to stop illegal immigration, you have to look at reforming our immigration process, allowing people a legal method to come to this country,'' he said. Once that happens, Gallardo said, "no one's going to want to risk their lives coming through the Arizona desert in 120-degree heat.''
Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, said there is evidence that fencing works. She said there are large areas of the border around Yuma, El Paso and San Diego that have been secured by federally built fences -- fences that don't exist along other large stretches of the border in Southern Arizona.
DrunkenMonkey posted at 8:24 am on Fri, Feb 11, 2011.
I wish you luck, but I'd prefer instead of a fence. Use the money to hire private security guards to patrol and apprehend. This creates more jobs and increases security, all for probably the same money as a fence.
Wishful thinking:
Maybe Arizonians should get a Federal Tax break for living in an unsecured area (war zone) due to the Federal Governments failure to provide the services we, the taxpayers, are paying for.
Failure to provide these services amounts to fraud. The government is collecting tax dollars, some of which is earmarked for border security, and yet, they claim the border is secure, when it obviously is not...
Instead of the State of Arizona battling the Federal Government with ONE lawsuit, I wonder what would happen if a large number of Arizonians brought individual lawsuits against the Federal Government for failure to provide services paid for by American tax dollars? Can you imagine 2,000,000 (or whatever number) of individual lawsuits hitting the judicial system? It would tie it up for 20 years, forcing the Federal Government to comply or basically shut down the judicial system...
Dale Whiting posted at 11:44 am on Fri, Feb 11, 2011.
Neo-cons want to build a fence and apparently are willing to put there own money where their mouths are.. Liberals question the value of a fense but where only Neo-con money is involved, and building that fense will employ people, whose to complain? Brewer sues to force the Feds to secure the borders against all invaders foreign and domestic, both those looking for work and those coming to sell drugs. Sheer madness!
Masterrogue666 posted at 9:18 pm on Tue, Feb 15, 2011.
Sen. Steve Gallardo stated: '"If you truly want to stop illegal immigration, you have to look at reforming our immigration process, allowing people a legal method to come to this country,'' he said. Once that happens, Gallardo said, "no one's going to want to risk their lives coming through the Arizona desert in 120-degree heat.''.
Steve, you've got to stop drinking the Kool-Aid!!! Why is there water stations and cell phone stations in the middle of nowhere if not for INVADING FORIEGN NATIONALS? Let me guess, you also believe that AZ doesn't border Mexico, am I right?
brearbear posted at 11:19 am on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
Dear U.S.A.
You want cheap border security?
Use old tires which the state can get for almost free, except for the cost of transport to the wall site, and the cost of facing the walls off with adobe or cement, topped off with barbed wire, and/or broken glass embedded into the tops of the walls.
Make tire walls using convict labor.
Patriots whom may have more time than money, can also help by providing free labor, ramming earth into the tires.
Or help and assist with providing yummy community picnic/b.b.q.'s for all the helpers, etc.
Maybe have a patriot camp set up for all the workers and helpers, with festivities, bonfires etc. Make it fun!
Or they can help by hauling a load of tires/cement to the site..
People who have more money than time, can help provide money to pay for under employed citizens, to ram the earth, lend a crane, or offer use of a truck/cement mixer etc.
1 tire takes a person approximately half an hour with a sledge hammer, using earth. A rammed earth tire supposedly weighs approx. 350 pounds once rammed full.
Tire walls can be as thick as you want.
Double triple them up or more in certain areas.
The part of the tire where the "air" goes can also be filled with cement, a crane lifts the cement brick, then when the brick is laid, the "donut hole" part can either be filled in with rammed earth, or more cement.
Yup, fill the wall face in with cement or adobe, and you could have a pretty darn, long lasting wall.
Want to save more cash on this idea?
Only cement the Mexico side, so it is smooth, and extremely hard to scale it.
The U.S.A. side can be spray painted using an environmentally friendly paint, that is earth tone's, camouflage colors, so it blends in with nature as much as possible.
(And not that much of an eyesore).
I also suggest building a home with this idea, to cheaply fortify your retreat or homestead, or fallout shelter. Cement tire bricks, post and beam, and berm it.
Research Earthships.
I am Canadian. Love ya U.S.A.!
Cheers!
Brearbear
brearbear posted at 11:20 am on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
There is a major differance between a tire walls v.s. stacks of used tires in a tire dump.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
"Because the tire is full of soil, it does not burn when exposed to fire. In 1996 after a fire swept through many conventional homes in New Mexico, an Earthship discovered in the aftermath was relatively unharmed."
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http://earthship.com/Materials/The-Primary-Building-Block-of-Earthship-Biotecture-dp2
"The Primary Building Block of Earthship Biotecture
Written by Earthship Biotecture"
"Durability: the durability of tires filled with earth can not be surpassed. A buried tire (which is in effect what we have in a tire wall) will virtually last forever. The only thinf that deteriorates rubber tires is sunlight or fire. Since they are filled with earth and ultimately covered with earth, they never see sunlight when built into an earthship. Tires only burn when surrounded by air. when they are filled and coated with earth, trying to get them to burn would be like trying to light a phonebook on fire as compared to a wad of paper. The very quality of tires that makes them a problem to society (the fact that they wont go away) makes them an ideal durable building material for earthships. Earth and tires by virtue of their very nature will last forever.
Resilient: Whereas a rubber tire/rammed earth wall is amazingly strong, it is obviously not brittle. It can vibrate or move without fracture of failure. Since these walls are so wide and the loading on them is widely distributed, the entire structure would have the potential of absorbing and moving with considerable horizontal shock from an earthquake. There is probably no other matierla available at any price that has the reliance that earth rammed tires would have. They do provide a dense, rubbery, flexible wall."
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http://www.naturallifemagazine.com/9510/Canadian_earthship_tire_house.htm
from Natural Life Magazine, September/October 1995 Earthship North
Building a Home an
d a Community
by Jane Buchan
The advantages of the Earthship technology are numerous. Firstly, the use of used tires as building components means our landfills are spared tons of hazardous waste. The Hagersville, Ontario tire fire, the worst in Canadian history – 14 million tires burned in 17 days – brought the advantages of Earthship technology home to the Potters. Committed environmentalists who birthed the Now I Must Be Involved (NIMBI) tugboat which took school children out on Lake Erie to explore its beauty and vulnerability to industrial polluters, the Potters saw first-hand the fallout from a tire fire near their home. Shortly afterward, they heard of Michael Reynolds' concept – a home that takes care of its inhabitants instead of the other way around – and were intrigued by architecture using potentially dangerous raw materials both as a means of providing shelter and of neutralizing their risk to the environment.
When asked about the threat of fire in Earthship construction, Chuck Potter demonstrated the process of filling the tires with earth, pounding them into place, and then cementing them into walls that contain no oxygen. Because their high ignition temperature (500 degrees C as compared to 300 for wood) makes spontaneous combustion or fire from natural causes impossible, experts conclude that all tire fires are intentionally set. Tires used in Earthship construction are rendered harmless because the lack of oxygen renders the homes' inner cement plaster walls harmless, even faced with an arsonist.
Love from Canada!
Brearbear
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