Environmental Laws Waived for Border Fence

Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, waived several environmental laws yesterday to continue building a border fence through a national conservation area in Arizona, bypassing a federal court ruling that had suspended the fence construction.

Citing "unacceptable risks to our nation's security" if the fence along the border with Mexico was further delayed, Mr. Chertoff invoked waiver authority granted him under a 2005 bill that mandated construction of the fence.

He ordered work to continue on 6.9 miles of fence along the border through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Cochise County in southeastern Arizona.

In a ruling on Oct. 10, Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the federal court for the District of Columbia held up construction of the fence, finding that the government had failed to carry out the required environmental assessment. The decision came in a suit brought by the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife.

In a statement yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security said it "disagrees with the court's ruling" and was confident of eventually winning the case. It noted that two federal land management agencies had authorized the department to proceed with the fence.

In addition, department officials said that some 19,000 illegal immigrants were detained passing through the conservation area in the 2007 fiscal year and that the immigrants' trash, human waste and illegal roads had caused more damage to plant and animal life than the fence would.

Sean Sullivan, a spokesman for the Sierra Club in Arizona, said that "we can secure our borders while we protect our public lands" and that "bulldozing" the conservation area was not necessary to manage the border.

The plaintiffs described the area near the San Pedro River as "one of America's most unique and biologically diverse areas."

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