Border wall is trumping the butterflies
I’m surprised that the national news media has not picked up on this important crisis. My dad who lives in South Texas brought this article in the
San Antonio Express News to my attention. Bulldozing of protected butterfly refuge land is supposed to begin this weekend, destroying crucial refuge habitat for migrating butterflies, such as monarchs. This essential refuge is falling prey to wall construction that is, in short, dehumanizing political grandstanding.
Hundreds of thousands of butterflies flit through the center’s 100-acre sanctuary in Mission. . . Construction through the refuge could start in February.
Typically construction projects through sensitive habits have to pass through important layers of legislative protection before they can be approved. Projects have to prove that the environmental impacts of a project will be minimal compared to the benefits of the construction. However, the federal government has been allowed to bypass these federal laws.
The high court let stand an appeals ruling that lets the administration bypass 28 federal laws, mostly to protect the environment, to build the wall in the Rio Grande Valley. The Animal Legal Defense Fund and two other organizations had sued the government.
It is worth noting that some of the laws that were waived include:
the Endangered Species Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Environmental activists argue the wall could lead to the extinction of endangered species such as the ocelot, contamination of drinking water and destruction of indigenous historical sites.
Let’s try to get national attention on this important issue.