Randy Serraglio is San Pedro cam-paign manager at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Related articles:

Construction of San Pedro stretch of border fence resumesLawsuit filed over feds' border fence construction waiver

Other articles by Randy Serraglio:

US must reverse harmful endangered-species rule Economy casts shadow on Rosemont plans

Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Health Care
CENTRAL ARIZONA COLLEGE
DIRECTOR OF HEALTH INFORMATION MANAGEMENT Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Health Care
Sierra Tucson
Eating Disorders Program Coordinator

In the heated rhetoric surrounding the waiver of environmental laws and construction of the border wall in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, some fundamental truths have been obscured.

Among these is the purpose of the laws that the Department of Homeland Security wishes to ignore. The National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, and numerous other laws waived by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff were enacted, at least in part, to force federal agencies to think outside of their particular bureaucratic boxes and consider the broader consequences of their policies.

In fact, the border wall is just the sort of potentially destructive boondoggle that the framers of these laws had in mind.

In the case of the San Pedro River, the wall will add to an intolerable list of factors already threatening this natural wonder. Named one of the Last Great Places on Earth, the San Pedro is besieged by rampant growth and groundwater pumping. The aquifer beneath the river is sinking and taking the river down with it. The San Pedro's base flow has dropped to a third of its historic average as the nourishing groundwater it relies on is sucked up for subdivisions and shopping malls.

At a crucial gauge along the upper San Pedro, the river has stopped flowing during the dry season the last three years in a row, something that had never happened in 75 years of previous records.

Construction in the area will increase erosion and polluted runoff that foul the river's waters and may change the hydrology of the river in other unforeseen ways. Few believe the barriers will stop undocumented immigration, but they may seriously threaten the river's ecological balance and crucial role as a wildlife corridor.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the Riparian National Conservation Area, has once again failed to step up to its legally mandated responsibility to protect the incredible biodiversity of the river. Instead, perpetually bound by political expediency, the BLM has whipped up a poor excuse for an environmental assessment and stepped aside.

The river is in peril, and so are its living beings. Moreover, the entire Arizona-Mexico border is fraught with critical environmental issues. But BLM, DHS and the rest of the Bush administration would have us ignore the context and cumulative consequences of their border policy. They would prefer that we simply shrug our shoulders in ignorance and fear.

Nonsense. Don't let them pull the wall over our eyes. Here's a round of applause for legal efforts to slow the rush to wall off the border, and to Rep. Raúl Grijalva for introducing legislation that would repeal Chertoff's waiver authority.

This is not a choice between uncontrolled immigration and walling off the border, as the Arizona Daily Star so simplistically characterized it in an online poll. Nor is it a choice between lizards and humans, as Chertoff disingenuously cast the issue.

It is a choice between preserving our democratic processes in order to make a rational, informed community decision on a complex issue, and ceding power to unaccountable bureaucracies and their political appointees.

We need to carefully consider, as a community, the potentially damaging consequences of building walls. We need to find strategies that will protect our nation and our beautiful desert.