Hello!
Attached are links to pertinent news stories regarding Homeland
Security and Border Patrol expansion. The increased budget for
Border Patrol expansion was approved as part of the $35 Billion
Homeland Security bill last week. For more on MN expansion, see
correspondence from Mark Dayton below.
Please contact the moderator if you are available to meet early next
week. Proposed days are Mon-Thurs, 7pm-8pm. There is new information
on Homeland Security, including local conflict of interest issues to
be discussed.
Also, the calendar function on this site is a bit unpredictable.
I’ve heard that some members do not receive meeting notices in a
timely manner as well incorrect meeting notices. The last notice
about the EDA Regular meeting was inaccurate. I did try to correct
the problem on the calendar page, but just in case, the next EDA
Regular meeting is Tuesday, October 10th at 4pm. The Old Skihill
property is on the agenda and public statements are taken at 4pm
about any EDA issue. We may also know what sites have been chosen by
then, so it would be good for concerned citizens to be in attendance
if you are able.
Thanks and keep up the good work! SLD
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MARK DAYTON RESPONSE:
September 27, 2006
Dear Ms. Mueller:
Thank you for contacting me regarding the Department of Homeland
Security’s (DHS) recent decision to build or renovate U.S. Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in Duluth, Grand Marais, and
International Falls.
According to CBP, the existing facilities in these three locations
are insufficient for the Border Patrol’s current needs, having been
built in the 1960’s. The proposed facility in Grand Marais, at a
site to be determined by DHS and the local government, will include
office space for 50 Border Patrol Agents, three detention cells, a
helipad, and a garage for vehicles. DHS and CBP have assured my
office that they will work with local officials to address any
concerns that they might have. Please be assured that I will
continue to monitor this situation.
Again, thank you for taking the time to be in touch with me. Please
let me know if there is any way my staff and I can be of assistance
to you.
My best regards.
Sincerely,
Mark Dayton
United States Senator
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LINKS AND RELATED NEWS STORIES:
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Homeland Security Bill Littered with Attachments
http://www.npr. org/templates/ story/story. php?storyId= 6151292&sc= emaf
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”Great Lakes machine guns raise ire in Canada
U.S. Coast Guard conducting live-ammunition training drills”
MARGARET PHILP
From Thursday’s Globe and Mail
The United States Coast Guard has started to patrol the Great Lakes
with machine guns mounted on their vessels and is conducting live-
ammunition training drills on the U.S. side to prepare officers to
combat terrorists flooding across the border from Canada by boat.
The automatic-weapon drills started earlier this year but came to
light only in the past two weeks after information about the Coast
Guard’s move to create 34 permanent live-fire training zones in the
Great Lakes was published in the U.S. federal register.
Since the beginning of the year, the Coast Guard have conducted 24
drills, each time firing about 3,000 rounds of lead bullets about a
third of the size of a fishing-line sinker from light-weight machine
guns in waters at least eight kilometres from the Canadian border
and
year. In
said his country is within its rights to arm vessels on the
Lakes
A U.S. Coast Guard response boat equipped with machine guns patrols
the
February. (Paul Sancya/AP)
Admiral Thad Allen, in
Coast Guard, said it is necessary to increase
on the lakes since Sept. 11, 2001.
Toronto Mayor David Miller has said the move violates a 90-year-old
treaty that forbids weapons on the lakes, but the U.S. Coast Guard,
however, says that is not an issue since Canadian and
agreed 18 months ago that arming small craft wouldn’t violate the
treaty.
The high-powered drills have, however, stunned environmentalists,
boaters and mayors in cities dotting the lakes in both countries who
are outraged that the
pleasure boaters and commercial fishermen who could stray into the
line of fire. Just as infuriating, they say, is the risk of lead
exposure to fish and the more than 40 million people who draw
drinking water from the
”It was a big surprise on both sides of the border. At first I
thought it was an Internet hoax,” said Mike Bradley, the mayor of
Harper asking him to intervene.
”The longest undefended border in the world is gone. It’s passé. And
this is an example of it.”
Toronto Mayor David Miller chairs a coalition of
mayors working to restore and protect the lakes.
He said the target practice violates a treaty signed after the War
of 1812 that outlaws military weapons on the
with two centuries of peaceful history.”This is very much the wrong
direction, to militarize the border between these two countries,” he
said in an interview. “It’s symbolically important and practically
important that the border remain open and doesn’t become
militarized. “”At a time ... when there is interest in restoring the
integrity of the lakes,” he writes in a letter to the Prime
Minister, “it is most disturbing that the
exercises that will militarize the lakes, cause pollution and
environmental degradation, restrict shipping and recreation, and
change the peaceful border between
Far more people are killed on
crossing the border, he said, than bloody-minded terrorists from
the
Coast Guard vessels carried only handguns and small-calibre rifles.
But anti-terrorist furor has led to a bolstering of firepower.
”We’re trying to be prepared in case something happens,” said a U.S.
Coast Guard spokesman, Chief Petty Officer Robert Lanier.”I don’t
know what it is, but I know I want to be prepared for it when it
happens. We need to conduct these live-fire exercises so we are
prepared for whatever it may be. If we are not prepared for it,
there are going to be questions about why we weren’t prepared for
it.”
The Coast Guard said the drills have so far been conducted without a
hitch. By way of safety precautions, broadcasts on marine radio
bands will be made repeatedly a few hours before training begins,
and a second Coast Guard vessel will monitor boat traffic around the
training zones during the shooting exercises.
But critics on both sides of the border say that many small pleasure
boats are either not equipped with marine radio, seldom tune in, or
could mistakenly wander into the unmarked firing range.Others are
raising alarms about the impact of tens of thousands of bullets made
from lead, which has been linked to brain-development and behaviour
problems in children. In recent years there have been efforts to
reduce lead in the lakes, including the banning of lead paint and a
more recent campaign asking fishermen to replace lead sinkers.
”We’ve spent years removing lead from the
Muter, a long-time cottager and vice-president of the Georgian Bay
Association, a coalition of cottage owners and boaters. “As a
Canadian, these are binational waters and this is just
offensive.”The Coast Guard commissioned a study from a consulting
group, stating that while lead from spent bullets could be passed up
the food chain, the drills would pose “no elevated risk” to the
environment or human health.
As for the shaky status of the world’s longest undefended border, a
spokeswoman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ambra Dickie,
said that Canada and the United States signed a written agreement
three years ago articulating that moves to arm U.S. law-enforcement
vessels with light machine guns in U.S. jurisdiction do not violate
the spirit of the treaty. That treaty, the argument goes, was
drafted to ensure peace in the Great Lakes by forbidding weapons of
war such as cannons on sailing ships.
”We don’t have any cannons or rocket launchers or anything like
that,” CPO Lanier said.
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Wilderness on U.S. Mexico Border Trashed
International Journal of Wilderness, August 2006
The Cabeza Prieta Wilderness is the largest in
Organ Pipe Cactus Wilderness contains 312,000 acres. Together, they
have protected a broad expanse of
greatest diversity of plants and animals of any North American
desert. They also form the
rub. According to the Los Angeles Times, these two wilderness areas
have suffered a “devastating toll” from the government’s ongoing
battle with cross-boundary smugglers and migrants. Cabeza Prieta NWR
manager Roger DiRosa claims that 2.5 million pounds of garbage are
abandoned in the refuge each year. Sections of
they are closed to the public. Since the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security has legal authority to ignore environmental laws, the U.S.
Border Patrol has set up camps in the wilderness, replete with
helicopter pads, trailers, fencing, generators and high-intensity
lights. Organ Pipe superintendent Kathy Billings is quoted by the LA
Times as saying, “If we lose Organ Pipe and it becomes a moonscape
as a result of these impacts,we lose our heritage”.
Is this in Northern Minnesota’s future? Follow links for more info.
http://action. wilderness. org/campaign/ OrganPipe/ explanation
http://www.defender s.org/newsroom/ border.html
http://www.lawg. org/countries/ mexico/border_ alert_4_14. htm
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Tuesday, October 03, 2006
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