Water tanks a bad idea, Patrol chief now says

Desert water stations failed to save Jorge Alonso Mireles last week, and now the U.S. Border Patrol is arguing against the humanitarian project.

Alonso, 24, was traveling in a group of eight border crossers who refilled their water jugs at the water stations in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Those stations were set up by a Tucson-based humanitarian group, Humane Borders, in March. They couldn't save Alonso from heat exhaustion, according to a Border Patrol interview with his brother, Fidel.

"There was more than enough water, but he couldn't make it," said Fidel Alonso, 18, who survived the trek.

The Border Patrol released a videotape of the interview Wednesday, and an agency spokesman said it reinforces the argument that the stations give border crossers a false sense of security.

"Even though they had sufficient water, it doesn't take care of them because they're still in the elements," Border Patrol spokesman Rob Daniels said.

The Rev. Robin Hoover, co-founder of Humane Borders, said the fact that Jorge Alonso died doesn't undercut the logic behind their project.

"There's a lot of people who have drunk a lot of water out of our tanks," Hoover said. "A lot of people have fared quite well."

Those who don't fare as well may have become too dehydrated to be helped by drinking.

"If you get past a certain point with dehydration, you can't drink anything. You can't keep it down," said Dr. Candace Shapiro, who has worked in the emergency room of the Indian Health Service hospital in Sells for seven years.

In recent summers, Shapiro said, she has seen as many as six patients suffering from dehydration each week.

Fidel Alonso also said the water the group drank was so hot that it upset their stomachs.

If water is hot enough, drinking it can do more harm than good to a person suffering from dehydration, Shapiro said.

"If you're extremely hot and dehydrated, and you drink something hot, it's going to make you more hot," she said. "If you drink something cool, it's much better for you."

While the water contained in the 60-gallon tanks is not cooled, it should be about the same temperature as the outdoor air, Hoover said. In March, Humane Borders set up two 60-gallon water tanks in the national monument beneath 30-foot flagpoles.

At the time, the chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector said he did not oppose the project and would tell agents not to lie in wait at the stations.

The agency has not changed that stance, but it is taking a harder line against the stations. Daniels said the interview with Fidel Alonso verifies the agency's concern that border crossers would think their trek is safe since water is available along the way.

The Alonso brothers came from the village of Los Pinos, Zacatecas, in west-central Mexico.

In the interview, filmed Friday at Tucson Sector headquarters, on West Ajo Way near Kennedy Park, Fidel Alonso said he and his brother took the path along Arizona 85 knowing water stations were ahead.

"We bought water in Sonoyta (Sonora, across from Lukeville, Ariz.). With that water, we got here to the water station in the desert," Alonso said.

"We filled up our gallons, and we carried them back to the path," he continued.

Arriving at the second station, he said, "we filled up the gallons again, and that lasted to here. There was more than enough water, but he couldn't make it."

Daniels said the interview may be used in public service announcements warning against the dangers of the desert. The interview includes several rhetorical questions that appear aimed at inducing a useful clip, such as, "Even though you had water, the desert still can kill?"

Another question: "Would you have a message you'd like to give people who are planning to do what you did?"

Fidel Alonso answered: "That they shouldn't risk it out there. That it's very dangerous. That you can't make it up here.

"When you're thinking of starting in the desert, yes. You can see what you're going to do and everything. But when you get in the middle, you don't know whether to go back or keep on because it's so hot. You can't walk very well in that heat."

* Contact Tim Steller 434-4086 or at steller@azstarnet.com.