Note: answer is always to punish the public, also no mention of
people not wanting to go out
where they could come into contact with drug runners et al.
thx
Refuges 'only guess' on border woes
Illegal entrants' habitat damage now a mystery
By Tony Davis
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.26.2007
In 2003, a study found that trails blazed by illegal border crossers
had denuded vegetation on 279 acres of the Buenos Aires National
Wildlife Refuge, and that more than half of 1,315 miles of makeshift
paths lay in habitat of an endangered cactus.
Today, refuge officials want to do a follow-up study, but they don't
have the money, refuge Manager Mitch Ellis said.
This is one of many examples of how federal budget cuts have crimped,
in some cases severely, the operations of Arizona's nine national
wildlife refuges, the refuge managers say.
Overall, the cuts are severe enough that the refuges no longer meet
their federal mandates to protect, preserve and manage natural
resources under their control, managers of the Cabeza Prieta, Buenos
Aires and Cibola refuges said last week.
In the Southwestern states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and
Oklahoma, all wildlife refuges and the regional federal office
supervising them have lost 17 full-time job positions since 2004.
Under a just-released budget-cutting plan, the refuge system in this
region will lose another 43 jobs by 2009, including 38 biologists,
managers, planners, a maintenance worker and a law enforcement staffer.
Arizona's refuges will lose 12 positions, or 16 percent of their work
force, between now and 2009. Jobs will be lost by attrition, with no
layoffs expected. The largest refuges, such as Buenos Aires and
Cabeza Prieta, will lose few or no staff members, although they
already have lost some since 2004. Midsize refuges, such as San
Bernardino and Cibola, will lose the most.
The reason for the cuts is that budget increases for the National
Wildlife Refuge system in the past five years have gone mainly into
specific programs such as border security and maintenance — not into
routine daily operations, federal officials say. While the entire
system's budget of $383 million is up from $300 million in 2001, the
refuges' general operating budgets haven't matched continuous
increases in salaries, utility bills and day-to-day expenses, said
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs the system.
The service's new operating plan for the system requires these staff
cuts to hold salaries to no more than 80 percent of refuges' total
operating costs.
"Being a land manager is a pretty expensive prospect these days,"
said Tom Harvey, who manages the Southwest's refuge system from
Albuquerque. "There are uncontrollable expenses: chemical costs, fuel
costs, utilities, personnel costs, benefits, health costs and
mandatory training. Even if our budgets stay flat and don't increase,
they are in a sense declining.
"When you couple that with deficits we are in, and the fact that we
are going to be in for some rigorous times, it makes sense to try to
get our house in order as best we can," Harvey said.
But these cuts have meant that bird and mammal surveys, firefighting
capabilities, restoration work, invasive-species control, trail
maintenance and, above all, monitoring and combating problems caused
by illegal entrants and U.S. Border Patrol vehicles pursuing them
have been cut back, refuge managers say.
"We're over our heads here," said Roger DiRosa, who manages Cabeza
Prieta, southwest of Ajo. "Say the refuges had more resources in the
form of biologists and technicians. That wouldn't make any difference
to controlling illegal activity on the border. But it would help us
know what the impacts are and what we have to do to mitigate the
impacts. In this case, we can only guess."
Some specifics:
● The Buenos Aires refuge, southwest of Tucson, lacks an adequate
staff to remove much of the fencing put up when the refuge was a
cattle ranch decades ago. Staffers don't have time to repair all the
water tanks and levees that blow out during monsoon rains. They do
probably half the wildlife surveys and habitat monitoring that
officials want done, Ellis said.
Although the refuge has lost only one staffer out of 15 in recent
years, the existing work force can't keep up with those tasks and
deal with the overwhelming pressures caused by illegal immigration,
he said.
● Cabeza Prieta, which borders Mexico southeast of Yuma, has lost
one of its two biologists in recent years, and it devotes 60 percent
to 70 percent of its staff's time to border-related problems.
Biologists spend their time recording border-related damage, DiRosa
said, and they're almost ignoring invasive buffelgrass and other
plants that are migrating up from Mexico.
While the refuge is trying to bring back the endangered Sonoran
pronghorn, DiRosa said he's not able to answer the questions he
regularly gets from the media and outside groups about how much
damage the refuge habitat suffers due to illegal-migrant traffic.
● Buenos Aires and Cabeza Prieta have eliminated youth programs due
to lack of staffing. Children used to come to the refuge and maintain
trails and fences, pick up trash and do groundskeeping work under the
supervision of full-time staff members.
● The San Bernardino Refuge, near Douglas, has no biologists, with
three such vacancies unfilled. Monitoring of the endangered fish
species that the refuge was formed to protect has decreased by 50
percent since 2004, the refuge manager said. Not being able to count
wildlife populations is like "putting air in your tires without
putting in a pressure gauge once in a while," Manager Bill Radke said.
"It's like fighting a tide," Radke continued. "You can build that
castle against the tide for a while — if you have enough people that
you can shore it up and make it work. But if you lose those
positions, tide will overwhelm."
Since 2001, the federal government's emphasis on homeland security,
fighting terrorism and the war in Iraq have all contributed to budget
pressures that are now hurting the refuges, said Harvey, the
Southwest system manager.
"Refuges are so good at doing more with less," Harvey said. "The
refuge managers and refuge staff are very creative at partnering,
seeking private donations, nongovernmental organizations, volunteers,
matching grants, surplus equipment and collaborative partnerships.
This is the time to say we are going to do less with less."
Linda Barber, president of Pima County's Republican Club, said that
right now, maybe the refuges don't need so many people because the
federal budgetary pot is not infinite.
"There are priorities to set, and the major priority is to protect
the borders of this country," said Barber, who added that she is not
averse to having wildlife refuges, because both she and her husband
are hunters and "we don't want to see these animals disappear."
But if cuts continue, border-area wildlife refuges eventually will
have to cut off public access, said Jenny Neeley, Southwest associate
for Defenders of Wildlife, an organization dedicated to protecting
native wild animals.
"We protect these refuges because of the long-term benefit to us, our
children and grandchildren," Neeley said. "These are things we'll
never get back if we keep cutting."
U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., believes one way to address the
problem of tight refuge budgets is to make sure the federal
government doesn't acquire more land until it has the money to
properly manage what it has, said Matthew Specht, Flake's press
secretary.
But the comments of Arizona refuge managers are in line with those
given by managers across the country who answered a recent survey
from a national environmental group, said Daniel Patterson, southwest
director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Ninety-four percent of the more than 160 refuge managers who
responded to the survey said their refuges' operations were
deteriorating. Nearly two in three who responded said the refuge
system isn't currently accomplishing its missions, the survey found.
Seventy-two percent of the respondents said that staffing levels have
fallen below the refuges' basic needs.
● Contact reporter Tony Davis at 806-7746 or tdavis@azstarnet.com.
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