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Plans to Kill Plants Along US/Mexico Border Reminiscent of Agent Orange Use
The U.S. Border Patrol plans to poison the plant life along a 1.1-mile stretch of the Rio Grande riverbank as soon as Wednesday to get rid of the hiding places used by smugglers, robbers and illegal immigrants.
Mexican soldiers patrol along the bank of the Bravo river near Los Guerra, on Mexico's northeastern border with the U.S., Wednesday, March 18, 2009. (AP Photo/Alexandre Meneghini) If successful, the $2.1 million pilot project could later be duplicated along as many as 130 miles of river in the patrol's Laredo Sector, as well as other parts of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Although Border Patrol and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials say the chemical is safe for animals, detractors say the experiment is reminiscent of the Vietnam War-era Agent Orange chemical program and raises questions about long-term effects.
"We don't believe that is even moral," said Jay Johnson-Castro Sr., executive director of the Rio Grande International Study Center, located at Laredo Community College, adjacent to the planned test area.
"It is unprecedented that they'd do it in a populated area," he said of spraying the edge of the Rio Grande as it weaves between the cities of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.
Border Patrol agent Roque Sarinana said the pilot project aims to find the most efficient way to keep agents safer and better protect the nation's border. "We are trying to improve our mobility and visibility up and down the river," Sarinana said.
Criminals have grown adept at using the dense foliage to elude capture, he said.
"They can come over almost undetected," he said.
Should the Border Patrol project prove efficient, cane removal could become part of its arsenal of tools that have been used along various parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, including walls, fencing and look-out towers.
Members of the Laredo City Council have raised concerns about the spraying program and called on Mexico President Felipe Calderon to intervene.
Mexican officials are raising concerns the herbicide could threaten the water supply for Nuevo Laredo.
A U.S. government outline of the project indicates the Border Patrol is going to test three methods to rid the 1.1-mile bank of river of carrizo cane, which has thick stalks that form tight, isolated trails that can be dark and all but invisible from higher up on the bank.
One method calls for the cane to be cut by hand and the stumps painted with the herbicide, Imazapyr.
Another involves using mechanical equipment to dig the cane out by the roots. It is unclear if herbicides would be necessary in this scenario.
The third and most controversial removal method calls for helicopters spraying Imazapyr directly on the cane - repeatedly - until all plant life in the area is poisoned.
The Border Patrol said that after using the herbicide, it plans to make the river's edges green again by planting native plants.
Johnson-Castro said he has no issue with removing the cane, a non-native plant brought by the Spaniards centuries ago. The challenge, he said, is how it is done.
"We are saying it is one hell of a big deal," he said.
Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas said he believes federal officials when they say testing shows the chemical is not dangerous, but that he also realizes opponents of the project have concerns to evaluate.
"It is a complicated situation because we have to think about protecting our border," said Salinas, a retired FBI agent. "But let's do it in a sensible, reasonable way to make sure humans won't be harmed, nor the vegetation, nor the animals, nor the environment."
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48 Comments so far
Show AllAnd indeed, Agent Orange we were told, was completely safe and yet the people of Vietnam are still suffering its consquences today with birth defects and all else that is attributed to its use. We can not allow this to happen again.
I feel sorry, not only for the illegals, but for the Border Patrolmen who will be exposed to it, and its effects.
Why kill herbs, and spread poison along the border?
Save the environment, the economy, the water and plant free marijuana along the border so that there is no incentive for anyone to smuggle it. Without the profit on both sides, the law and smugglers, the problem is greatly reduced.
Has not the "Drug War" done enough damage? LET ME KNOW WHEN THE TIME TO END WAR COMES.
I am amazed.
All these problems with cartels, killings, kidnappings......
I have not heard or seen a peep about ENDING THE WAR ON DRUGS or LEGALIZATION OF DRUGS!!!!!
Either one would solve ALL the border violence issues!!!
From CNN commentary today:
quote
The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.
unquote
www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/miron.legalization.drugs/index.html
sometimes I wonder how much $$ our politicians get from "legal" shells of these drug cartels. the last thing groups like the hells angles want is a legal drug trade.
I believe Agent Orange was used throughout the Ozarks back in the late 60's, early 70's to defoliate scrub timber land for cattle grazing. My father and I watched as whole hillsides of green trees were sprayed one day looked burnt orange the following, bare the next year, and then several years later, most of the men in the region there were plagued with prostrate cancer, many died of it in the same short window of time, including my Dad. I don't think it was a coincidence...when will we learn to live on this earth with respect for it and it's living systems, including us?
Sioux Rose
CONCERNED: It is NOT a coincidence! There's little $ going into documenting the corelations between these noxious substances (which make money for adjuncts of the Military Industrial complex, disgusting Monsanto among those) and the diseases they lead to. What is clear to me is that there are now so many offensive substances being flagrantly used, our bodies rendered toxic dumps essentially, that a legal case would be difficult to make against any SINGLE trespasser.
I remember when certain pesticides banned in the US were exported to nations that didn't have our EPA standards. We'd then import the produce sprayed with that stuff. Things tend to come full circle. This holocaust against the natural world at a time when nature is dying, when water is scarcer, when so much has been rendered dangerously toxic... to keep going in the same direction, my God-dess, it seems that those with a passionate death wish are running all aspects of America's government. It would be difficult to amass so many foul decisions at once even in fiction!
I've had that same thought, during the noxious Bush administration - they just seemed bent on ruining everything they touched - could they be alien invaders or something? I doubt that was the explanation. They were just monsters.
"... to keep going in the same direction, my God-dess, it seems that those with a passionate death wish are running all aspects of America's government. It would be difficult to amass so many foul decisions at once even in fiction!"
This is the "schizoid" that Hedges spoke of in his Moral Autonomy piece right? Which brings me to the great amount of angst your comment there about emotions and the visceral stimulated. I thought you referenced Reich in some of your writing. If so, how could you have such a Freudian viewpoint that emotions are "primitive" and have to do merely with "hate" and "destroying"? Remember, the cortex grows 5 times it's size at birth; the late Joseph Campbell used to say it was a secondary organ to the other impulses of the body/mind; and as Feldenkrais depicts the body/mind is a unitary whole, that all thought, yes even abstract mathematical calculations, have an organic muscular component, and that all muscles have a nervous visceral connection. Well, maybe you don't have to remember all that, but please consider emotions as primordial as opposed to primitive...this has been proven to me in my professional work with families and early childhood development - besides divine intervention recognition and development of this is the only way to move Hedges' discussion on our collective schizoid state past the mere characterizations that he gave and Reich documented over 60 years ago and into something viable functional.
In the name of peace and recognized blessings for all.
Anyone out there willing to die for the cause of winning the Drug War?
I am dyin to end it!
The universe is waiting for us to grow up and show we are good enough and smart enough for the universal spirit of life to like us.
Where is Al Frankin when we need him?
http://www.pesticide.org/imazapyr.pdf
http://environmentalcommons.org/cetos/criticalhabitat/imazapyr.pdf
Plant resistance to imazapyr has developed: http://www.spartina.org/referencemtrl/ImazapyrFactSheet.pdf
more: http://www.epa.gov/oppsrrd1/REDs/imazapyr_red.pdf Even the 'greatly trusted' EPA says it can cause irreversible eye damage. Will everyone in the area have the required coveralls, shoes, socks, chermical-resistant gloves, and protected eyewear? (These are apparently not required for animals in the area...).
http://teamarundo.org/control_manage/docs/121804_Imazapyr.pdf
"In relatively arid areas in which microbial degradation may be
predominant factor in the decline of imazapyr residues in soil, residual toxicity to sensitive plant species could last for several months to several years"
Just killing off all the plants presents risks, both for animals (and the plants, (of course), and may also affect water and wind erosion. One never knows what unintended consequences could be -- thats why they are called unintended.
Another hair-brained scheme to avoid dealing with the underlying problems and reality.
Is this some kind of continuation of "Manifest Destiny"?
About government and Drug links, read "The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Governments Embrace," by James Mills (Doubleday, 1986)It is not a light read, 1186 pages, but very enlightening.
Just what the United States needs, a wide swatch of death at its Southern Border, and I suppose the Northern border, too. Dead and diseased plants, trees, animals and humans, poisoned by Monsanto et al., with the blessing of HS and our wonderful government for change.
I understand that DU has now been downgraded so it can be dumped with impunity. No more costly storage. That's a real change, isn't it. Saves a lot of money for the cartels. Maybe they can save even more by laying a carpet of it along the borders, a foot thick and several miles wide.
I think, at every border crossing into the United States, there should be a huge sign posted, with the words Dante says are written over the great gate of Hell.
'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!"
What are the only two countries building walls on their (or some elses land)borders in the World?
If Obama allows this to go forward it nullifies point for stopping MTR permits.
Herbicide in the water always a great additive for all loving things!
Bring all the drones home and use them to spot bad guys.
The government would use the drones to spot protesters, photograph and catalogue the leaders, and then use the FBI and CIA to harass them.
Or, if Cheney's death squad (see the articles about Seymour Hersh) is still active...arrange the odd 'accident'.
This is SO insane!
Another obscenity in pursuit of an impossible and insane dream. There's no way to absolutely "secure" the border, and what about herbicides gives a sense of security? It would be cheaper and much more effective to stop the war on drugs, make rehab available on demand, decriminalize drugs (replace coercion with education), and load workers on busses at the border to take them to where their work is. We do all this whining about there not being enough paid into SSI to provide for the boomers, and they aren't competing (for the most part) with citizens for jobs. Where there is competition, our people should check their job skills -- few of them are literate in English, a basic requirement for most of the jobs sought by those unemployed by the economic crisis. There's plenty of work to be done were our economic priorities rational instead of greed motivated. Build CommonWealth!
The issues about the "safety" of herbicide should include the scientific reality that the destruction of any habitat is key to the destruction of species. (including us) The basic root issue surrounding drug cartels is monetary greed. I agree with Bob Pomeroy on this point both regarding immigration and drug decriminalization.
Well, you don't see Israel using Agent Orange to build a protective border. They know the results and that they would be affected after the 'ethnic cleansing' currently in progress.
And besides, watching women and children "shake and bake" with white phosphorous is far more satisfying.
As an expat living in Mexico, I am horrified at the behavior of my country on a worldwide scale. I, like every other American, cried when Obama was elected. For the first time in recent memory, we had hope... something that the heart of the nation cannot live without. He may not be as dangerous as the last "cartel" that ran things... but, my GOD! He is so RUDE to other nations!!! ...and now this??? Is he not aware of the harm this can cause - to humans in the area - for generations to come??? Or is he just looking for what he mistakenly believes will be a "quick fix"??? Either way - this is outrageous! Ronald Reagan tricked us into electing him and, when we found out what he really was, we still turned him into almost a religion... Obama won't enjoy the same stupidity on our part. Behavior does have consequences and Americans are not going to put up with being tricked again... not by ANYbody!!!
I would like to believe your last two sentences, I really would.
But I am afraid that I see little evidence of this.
I too am an ex-pat and have been (and am) as horrified as you are.
I see Americans behaving as a nation like adolescents. They still behave this way.
This economic disaster is needed for that nation to grow up. This is what the Great Depression and a horrible war did for our grandparents. But they then made the mistake of raising the 'me' generation who still think they are 19 even though they are now in their late 50's.
There will be pain and blood before it is all over. And I'm uncertain whether the USA will emerge stronger and more assuredly embracing the highest principles upon which it was founded or whether the USA will go the way of all previous empires before it.
Be certain, we survived all the idiots before, we survived Bush and his radical right, we'll survive Obama and his bunch. We will eventually return politicians that concern themselves with whats best for America and its citizens first.
There is a boiling Populism just below the surface that may be about to blow all these idealogues to hell where they belong.
That can cut both ways. If it is not organized for positive things, it can become something like Hitler youth.
Joe
You are right of course. But I believe its positive. I believe people are reaching their limit on CEO's and Corporate culture excessively rewarding themselves, doing things not in the best interest of America or Americans and at the same time refusing to buy into creating more government, more government control and budgets that would begger the country.
A plague on all your houses is what I se beginning to see developing. I also begin to believe that Pelosi and Reid with help from President Obama are close to putting the best chance we've had in years in the ditch with their arrogance and over reaching.
Not too positve sounding am I?
Jeevee
Only God Himself can save us from our insanities; so whether you believe in Him or not, please pray without ceasing!!!
You know, as more of the kind of insanity reported by this article appears, it continually amazes me that people turn to a God that clearly either does not actually exist or obviously does not really care.
As the world spirals into stupidity and we only have ourselves to blame just why do you think rescue from above is coming exactly?
An infinitely more effective measure than prayer would be to write letters to your congressmen. This doesn't sound like a lot, but any finite number, no matter how small, divided by zero yields infinity.
So I will do infinitely better than prayer and actively agitate for change instead.
I would encourage others, regardless of belief or no, to do the same.
exactly, physicscitizen... mature prayer is intended to change oneSELF, not one's circumstances, anyway. we need to wake up and work with what's in front of us... que viva la LIBERATION THEOLOGY!! (or if not theistic, just plain old liberation).... we need to take RESPONSIBILITY and liberate ourselves from the notion that we are helpless and dependent upon a sick and dying economic system within arbitrarily drawn borders, NOT go suicidal and poison the planet or go dissociative and neglect the here and now.
Jeevee, asking people who don't believe to pray w/o cease is unlikely, I share w/ you though I pray for peace, forgiveness and to say thank you to God throughout the day. One below said writing letters to congressmen would work better. email them? I'm not so sure. Politicians and Prayer do both have one thing in common though, they both demand Faith.
The USA should hire the Mexicans, who are trying to cross the border, to clear out the cane and plant natives. The USA should pay the Mexicans in vouchers payable only to the traditional Mexican farmers for traditional Mexican food production, and also to the local communities thereabouts for locally produced tools, clothes, books, medicine, etc. But the elite chimp squads in Washington can't because they were trained to support class hierarchy, as they scaled it. Doing the right thing erodes the hierarchy. The elites prefer chemicals for the same reason they like fossil/nuke energy: These are all parts of a system to concentrate power/control.
First kill the natives, then steal half the neighboring country, exploit the undocumented and then poison what's left after you've stripped all the resources.
Kinda like a recipe from the Branch Davidians, Jim Jones and what not but on a nationwide scale.
There is something truly disturbed in the soul of ameriKa, wouldn't you agree?
Anyone for the Starschmucks dioxin latte brown beaner special del dia?
Viva MEXICO Cabrones!
Which has worse health consequences - marijuana or herbicide? Vietnam Veterans could tell you.
Joe
Why not follow the example of Arizona (motto: the River Killer State) and just drain the Rio Grande to water lawns in suburbia? It will kill all the plants and make the region impossibly desolate for would-be crossers.
Concern for wildlife is not an issue anyway, as exemplified by the last known surviving jaguar in the United States being caught and killed earlier this month near the Mexican border.
LIFE is the enemy .
It's been here so long and become rooted in so many places from Maine to California, I believe it has become a naturalized citizen.
Joe
That was great!!!!
Willing to take a bet that "invasive non-native" was a throw in for green sympathy? It's still a living eco-system. Is there really only one plant living between those two cities?(don't see much cane in the article's photo) Invasive's are pretty easy to discern due to the rapidity of growth and dominance of habitat, but considering the carrying and dispersing qualities of the wind, water and animals calling any plant non-native is questionable. And of course bringing into question the reasoning to implement the action makes it pure folly.
You didn't know what to look for. There is a patch of it in the foreground and yes, if given a chance, it really does form thickets that are practically impenetrable.
However, using chemical means to kill it is stupid. And to say that the chemical is harmless is foolish. It is designed to kill living cells. How can anyone say that it is harmless? That it may be more harmful to plants than humans doesn't mean that it is harmless to humans, and they never even thought about the organisms living in the water that maintain the riverine ecology.
This is the dumbest thing I've heard of yet. Destroy vegetation, chance chemical damage.....for what? There are plenty of places to catch these folks other than the waters edge.
Sounds like a plan hatched at a desk in Washington to me. Oh, by the way the assurances that Agent Orange was not injurious that we were given seem to have been a bit premature.
When God is plainly evident every day, its amazing to me that people can refuse to recognize him.
Good comment. May I suggest the poem "God's Grandeur", by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is one of my favorites, and says about the same thing you said in your last sentence.
Joe
Off the topic question for the ex-pats amongst us.
What countries are you all in besides Mexico?
It's finally time to leave and We are checking our options.
The fact that Obama has done nothing so far to restore rights under the constitution is very unsettling to say the least. His continued evoking of 'state secrets' in civil rights cases does not invoke confidence.
Sometimes I think the border actions, combined with possible arbitrary detention, are to keep us here, a la a 'Berlin Wall' scenario - just bigger.
Don't you think you're a teensy bit naive to not consider the possibility? Try stretching your mind around all possible scenarios - it's good exercise for your brain.
Stranger things have happened - after all, when I was growing up, we used to brag about our country having the longest non-militarized borders in the world!
And now we are planning to use a substance that by any standard creates toxic results, even though our gov't denies the effects. Who would have thought we would knowingly apply this toxin to US soil in the name of justic?
Don't forget, according to a news report yesterday, scanning equipment is being moved to the border to scan vehicles LEAVING the US.
But I could be wrong! But consider the possibilties!
As far as I know our borders have not been militarized yet. They may soon have our military all over them if something isn't done about the problems.
Would you consider that scanning cars leaving might be a good idea since a lot of weapons are flowing across our Southern borders?
The cameras that take your picture as you drive onto the bridge at Laredo have been there for years. The one thing I can think of that is beneficial is that when some migra or other US official tries to blame you for something you didn't do, you can prove that you had left the US before whatever it was happened.
This is insanity.
Sowing death, and we will reap its fury...
what kind of drugs are these people on who come up with such a foolish solution?! how many times we got to loose this war to realize it doesn't work. we can save many lives and open up our prisons for real criminals by legalizing drugs. we don't have to reinvent the wheel either. it works great in many countries that have already legalized drugs. the only reason we have not done so is because of some powerful interest groups who are gaining from the illegalization of drugs. drugs should be treated as a medical issue and not a criminal one. peace