Construction of 27 miles of new border wall across the San Rafael Valley is set to begin sometime in September, according to local government officials briefed on the project during a conference call on August 12 with representatives of Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and Fisher Sand & Gravel, the North Dakota-based construction company awarded the $309 million, 900-day contract by the Trump Administration earlier this year.
On the call, Fisher representative Ben Schoonover said the company would be establishing a military-style camp east of Lochiel to house between 100 and 150 workers for the duration of the project. He said earth-moving equipment will be transported to the border by a total of 30 to 40 oversized trucks, with an additional 15-20 18-wheelers per day delivering materials to the site, including bollard fencing, concrete powder and chemicals.
The trucks will travel down Rt 82 and over the newly built Cross Creek Connector (CCC) to Harshaw Rd. From Harshaw Rd, they will continue on the Patagonia San Rafael Rd into the valley, and then head south on FS 799 towards Lochiel.
(Although earlier reports said that these border-bound trucks would be originating from Benson and traveling down Rt 90 to Rt 82, CBP Public Affairs Specialist John Mennell would not confirm or deny this today. “Access for the project is the subject of ongoing litigation,” he told the PRT. “CBP will not comment on active or pending litigation, or specifics of this project, at this time.”)
Much of the construction trucks’ route will be on unpaved dirt roads crossing Santa Cruz County County and Coronado National Forest land. Schoonover suggested that Fisher would maintain the roads rather than compensate the County for repairing the roads. “I don’t think the County’s going to foot that bill,” Santa Cruz County Manager Jesus Valdez, who was on the call, told the PRT.
Schoonover said that Fisher will be making concrete on-site, requiring an as-yet-undisclosed amount of water, which will also be needed to support the camp. A valley resident told the PRT that Fisher plans to drill wells on private property near the border.
The August 12 conference call, just weeks before the $309 million project’s start, was apparently the first formal contact between the company and the County.
“There has been little or no communication,” Santa Cruz County District 3 Supervisor John Fanning told the PRT. “[This meeting] was a long time coming.”
Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway, Deputy County Manager Chris Young, Undersheriff Gerardo Castillo and CBP spokesperson Christopher Toms were also on the call, in addition to Fanning, Valdez and Schoonover.
Left out of the call altogether was the Town of Patagonia. Patagonia Town Manager Ron Robinson said Young had briefed him and Patagonia Mayor Andy Wood on Aug. 13. Valdez said that the Town should be included going forward. “I think they need to be there,” he said.
Young stressed that the Aug. 12 call was an initial meeting and that a second meeting has been scheduled for August 28. “The most important thing is that everyone involved has as much information as possible,” Young said, “so everybody stays safe.”
Both Fanning and Hathaway expressed concerns to the PRT about public safety around the three-year border wall construction project. “Will we need extra medical services and law enforcement?” Fanning asked.
Fanning hopes several areas of concern not addressed in the conference call will be addressed in future meetings with the company. Eastern Santa Cruz County, which is already dealing with the presence of South32’s $2.16-billion Hermosa Project, will be impacted by the border wall project’s increased truck traffic, damage to local roads, presence of a large number of workers camping nearby, and the loss of a potentially large amount of groundwater.
Linda Shore, the president of the Red Rock Acres Homeowners Assn., registered alarm at the increase in heavy truck traffic that the project will bring to the CCC, particularly at the intersection with Harshaw Rd.
“It’s not a question of if there’s an accident,” she said, “it’s a question of when.”
But for Shore the bigger issue is the damage the wall will cause to the ecosystem of the San Rafael Valley. “As far as Red Rock Acres is concerned, the traffic will end at some point in time. The border wall and what it will do to the environment will never end.”
As for Patagonia? “I don’t really know how this [construction] will affect us in either a negative or positive way,” Town Manager Robinson said, adding, “I don’t have any angst over this situation.”
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