EDITORIAL: Trump’s border wall is a natural disaster
Which is why, even though it won't impact
Saturday, Trump, offered his compromise to get the partial shutdown over with: Three years of protection for DREAMers against deportation in exchange for
Open government or no, the wall remains a disastrous idea for both its human and enviromental costs.
Many people envision the border area as mostly desert. In fact, the landscape along the nation's southern border is incredibly diverse. One finds ecosystems from temperate forests, grasslands and subtropical scrublands to wetlands and salt marshes. A magnificent national park, wildlife refuge and the National Butterfly Center all are in the wall's path.
The plant and wildlife of the border is equally diverse. Yet the wall would degrade habitat, interfering with migration patterns and restricting the movement of endangered species such as jaguars, ocelots and the Mexican gray wolf, and making it harder for them to find mates.
The wall also would exacerbate flooding and perhaps trap and drown wildlife caught by rushing waters.
Because of the Real ID Act passed in 2005, the
The Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws to protect habitat, clean water and the environment become afterthoughts, and there would be no review in advance to understand environmental impacts.
It's not just the wall, either. Construction and maintenance of a wall would require hundreds of miles of roads and permanent infrastructure that would further degrade the natural landscape.
"That kind of wall would stop any movement of anything that couldn't fly above the wall and that would be hundreds of species of animals," he told
The environmental devastation would also hurt the economy, blunting a growing ecotourism industry along the border. Again,
As the partial government shutdown drags on, remember that it is about more than immigration. Trump's wall would be worse than ineffective -- it would cause irreparable environmental harm.
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