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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 2016)
24 Wednesday, March 23, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon Organ Pipe: The quiet conflict By Craig Rullman Correspondent Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, estab- lished in 1937, is composed of 517 square miles of majestic Sonoran desert, bordered to the south by Mexico, to the east by the massive Tohono O’Odham Reservation, and to the west by the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. A designated UNESCO bio- sphere reserve, it is 95 percent designated wilderness. It is home to numerous species of birds, cacti, bobcats, mountain lions, deer, and many histori- cal sites. It may be one of the most beautiful National Monuments in our country. It is also one of the most active and dangerous narcot- ics- and human-smuggling corridors in the world. On August 9, 2002, 28-year-old park ranger Kris Eggle was shot and killed while pursuing members of a drug cartel, who had fled into the United States after com- mitting a series of murders in Mexico (see column, page 23). This event, combined with others, prompted an 11-year closure of America’s “most dangerous national park.” The park was reopened in 2014, but it is still quietly dangerous. Organ Pipe lies within the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, in the Ajo Area of Responsibility, which includes 64 miles of border, and over 7,000 square miles of hard, unforgiving desert. Border Patrol agents told The Nugget that, while the park is now almost entirely open to visitors, their own esti- mates suggest that at any one time, as many as 200 people are actively smuggling nar- cotics or human beings in the hardscrabble mountain ranges and broad desert valleys. The Border Patrol and Park Service utilize a broad array of technology, old and new, to accomplish their mission, including daily horseback patrols, ATVs, aerial drones, ground sensors, infrared, radar, and sign-cutting tech- niques. There are over 500 Border Patrol agents assigned to the Ajo station, and they are working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And still the people keep coming. U.S. Border Patrol sta- tistics for 2015 show that in the Tucson Sector alone, which includes Ajo Station and Organ Pipe, over 63,000 apprehensions were made by Border Patrol and Park Service law enforcement agents. Some Fires are roaring at Ponderosa Forge Stop by the showroom to see what’s cooking! 6,000 of those apprehensions were unaccompanied juve- niles; 14,481 were of people other than Mexican descent. In the same time period, agents seized 746,868 pounds of mar- ijuana, 153 pounds of cocaine, were assaulted 87 times in the course of their duties, and res- cued 790 individuals in danger of dying in the vast Sonoran desert. Of the more than 63,000 apprehension cases, slightly less than half were accepted by the U.S. Attorney’s office for prosecution. Sometimes people just give up, beaten by the desert. For them the Border Patrol has installed rescue beacons, a big red button on a box, affixed to a tall radar tower. Pressing the button means rescue. In Border Patrol parlance, they are referred to as “quitters.” One Border Patrol agent told The Nugget, “We find everybody out here. Families of Romanians. Indians, Chinese, you name it, they are all here.” He pointed to nearby Sweetwater Pass and Alli Wau, gaps in the Puerto Blanco range. “They have FINE FURNITURE By Commission Dining Tables, Desks, Beds, Chests, Etc. Adam Bronstein, Craftsman 541-410-1309 SpringCreekWoodworking.com photo by Craig rullMan A high-powered spotting scope overlooks rugged terrain where cartel scouts, smugglers, and immigrants move daily. scouts up there, right now, in an incredibly vast desert for days and sometimes for where backup may take 45 weeks, with full-blown camps, minutes to arrive, and a life- and they have a radio network flight helicopter takes two that stretches all the way to hours from the minute the call Phoenix.” is made. This agent described find- “It’s scary,” he said. “You ing and dismantling the “spi- never know. It only takes one der holes” and campsites, person in a group to turn the often equipped with solar pan- whole thing sour.” els for recharging radios and Steve Birt, 60, in his cell phones. third year as a full-time park He said that every move volunteer, who was assist- was under observation from ing Warfighter Outfitters as both sides of the border, and they dismantled a smuggling being communicated over the site and collected hundreds radio. of pounds of trash — water One look at the terrain, bottles, running shoes, impro- vast, open, commanded by vised backpacks, food wrap- towering peaks and occupied pers, and piles of “carpet by armed smugglers, instantly slippers,” created in an impro- dispels any notion of easy vised attempt to deter Border solutions. Patrol sign-cutters from fol- Another agent described lowing smugglers — said, “I the intense tension of making large apprehensions alone, See oRGAN PIPe on page 25 Dr. Thomas R. 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