A re-consecration ceremony was held this past weekend at a damaged Indian mound in Oxford, Ala. As we reported last month, the 1,500-year-old sacred and archaeologically significant site was partially demolished during a taxpayer-funded economic development project, with the excavated dirt to be used as fill for construction of a Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store owned by Wal-Mart.

Following protests, the city appears to be backing away from the destruction, with a local landowner reporting that his property would be the source for the fill instead.

But it turns out the incident in Oxford is not the first time Arkansas-based Wal-Mart has been involved in the controversial destruction of sacred and/or archaeologically significant Native American sites.

Reader Marlin Mackley brought to our attention a similar incident in Fenton, Mo., a picturesque historic town along the Meramec River in the eastern part of the state. Inhabited for over 1,000 years, the area was home to the Fenton Mounds, two earthen burial structures dated between 600 and 1400 A.D. But in 2001, the Fenton Mounds were leveled for a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Mackley wrote on the website he created to document what happened:

As a 15 year resident of Old Town Fenton I watched in tears as the Former Fenton Indian Burial Mounds Mesa as I call it was excavated. Over and above the crimes against human history perpetrated by these preditory developers we in my city have to look at the back of a plain block building set on top of a pile of rocks.

The St. Louis Riverfront Times newspaper reported how workers with SCI, the engineering firm hired to determine whether there were remains at the site, grew short on time so began digging less carefully -- and soon struck human bone. Recalled Debra Magruder, a member of the crew who later filed a complaint with the state:

"The story I heard was that the guy working in that area thought it was a tree root and used some root clippers and snapped it in half. Then, when they figured out it was a femur, they just covered it and left it, half sticking out, and a looter came and ripped it out of the mound." The femur was indeed protruding from within a stone box chamber. On Feb. 17, a survey crew lifted the tarp and found that someone had dug horizontally into the vault and stolen the bone.

Doing a little digging of our own, Facing South discovered that what happened in Oxford and Fenton were not isolated instances. There have been numerous cases involving destruction of Native American burial grounds and other culturally significant sites by Wal-Mart:

* An Indian burial site in Nashville, Tenn. was demolished to build a Wal-Mart Supercenter on Charlotte Pike in the late 1990s. The company behind the project was JDN Realty of Atlanta, a developer for Wal-Mart stores since purchased by Developers Diversified Realty Corp. of Ohio. By the time excavations were completed in August 1998, the remains of 154 people including children had been taken from their graves, according to the Alliance for Native American Rights.

* In the mid-'90s, Wal-Mart developer JDN was involved in the relocation of numerous native graves while building a store in Canton, Ga., Wal-Mart Watch reports. The store set up a permanent display of unearthed Indian artifacts next to its layaway counter.

* When an Indian burial ground was discovered during construction of a Wal-Mart Supercenter in the northern California community of Anderson, the company proceeded with the project anyway, opening the store in 2007. In June of this year, to make up for the site's desecration, the store erected a bronze statue of a native Wintu feather dancer that was vandalized before the dedication ceremony.

* In 2004, Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico within view of the 2,000-year-old pyramids of Teotihuacan despite months of protests by local residents as well as prominent Mexican artists and intellectuals. In an interview with the Associated Press, novelist and poet Homero Aridjis compared the store's opening to "nailing globalization's stake in the heart of old Mexico."

* About five years ago, while building a Sam's Club and Wal-Mart Supercenter in Hawaii, workers unearthed 64 native Hawaiian graves, reports Wal-Mart Watch [pdf]. For at least three years afterward, the bones remained locked in a trailer, awaiting reburial.

"What if they built a Wal-Mart at Arlington? How would people feel?" Hawaiian activist William Aila told the AP at the time. "Those individuals were buried there with the thought that they would be undisturbed for the rest of the eternity."

There were other cases where Wal-Mart would have disturbed sacred sites but was dissuaded by protest:

* In 2001, Wal-Mart relocated a planned store in Morgantown, W.V. because it would have destroyed a Native American burial site, according to the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility [pdf]. The decision came after company shareholders and indigenous leaders wrote letters to Wal-Mart and West Virginia state leaders protesting the chosen location.

* Five years before that, Wal-Mart scrapped a plan to build a store in the Hudson Valley community of Leeds Flat, N.Y. after Mohican remains were found, according to a website about the Stockbridge Munsee Tribe of Mohican Indians. For more on the case, read the account by Mohican historian and educator Debra Winchell.

* In the early 1990s, Wal-Mart canceled plans to bulldoze a large Indian mound in Paso Robles, Calif. after leaders of the Chumash and Salinan Indian nations protested, Wal-Mart Watch reports [pdf]. The company complained the mound was blocking motorists' view of the store.

And it's not only Wal-Mart who's destroying native cultural sites. Others who've been involved in damaging or threatening sacred lands:

* An Indian burial site along the Cumberland River in Nashville, Tenn. was disturbed in the late 1990s by construction of a stadium for the Tennessee Titans, the National Football League team that was formerly the Houston Oilers. Though the project drew protests from local Indian rights advocates, then-Mayor, now Gov. Phil Bredesen defended it on the grounds that part of the site had already been disturbed by previous construction.

* When Whole Foods broke ground for its first store in the state of Hawaii, it discovered the remains of more than 20 indigenous people, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. But the Texas-based company continued with the construction anyway, storing the bones in a trailer to rebury at the site later.

* WMAC radio reports that Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is using federal economic stimulus funds to build a four-lane highway near the Ocmulgee National Monument, a site of great significance to the Muscogee (Creek) people where human occupation has been recorded for 12,000 years. The road would divide the monument from surrounding traditional cultural property, leading the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association to place the monument among America's most endangered national parks.

Why would the U.S. allow so much of its cultural heritage to be destroyed by development? After all, there's no shortage of federal laws designed to protect sacred and archaeologically significant sites. They include the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, President Clinton's Executive Order on Indian Sacred Sites, the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979, and the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.

But a fact sheet on sacred sites [pdf] prepared by the Morning Star Institute for the Coalition to Protect Native American Sacred Places during 2002 hearings by the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs points out there are no existing legal protections for certain sacred places -- and "none that provide a specific cause of action to defend sacred places against desecration or destruction."

Unfortunately, until those protections are strengthened, America's ancient sacred places will continue to fall to the bulldozer.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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Where the Sahara meets the Atlantic

In response to criticism that the Army Corps of Engineers has failed to take needed action, President Obama is creating a federal task force to overhaul management of coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi.

White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley made the announcement this week in an interview with Bloomberg News. The panel will consider options for revamping how the federal government manages environmental restoration and protection efforts in the region, which suffers from a serious coastal erosion problem.

The administration's budget and environmental offices will lead the effort, according to Sutley. The Corps will be part of the task force and continue to work on its projects in the Gulf, Sutley told Bloomberg:

"We thought it made sense to have an interagency working group on restoration that would include the Corps, but include other agencies as well," Sutley said. Discussions about how the group will be structured are in the early stages, she said.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently wrote a letter to Obama calling on him to reform the Corps and create just such a working group to address coastal restoration and flood protection. She told Bloomberg that she was "pleased that the President has responded to my request to elevate the challenges that face coastal Louisiana to a higher level of priority within the federal government."

As Facing South reported, a coalition of 17 advocacy groups held a press conference this week calling on the Corps to honor the president's pledge to restore wetlands that provide critical protection from storms.

The coalition noted that Congress directed the Corps to come up with a comprehensive plan for closing the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet navigation channel near New Orleans and restoring adjacent wetlands by May 2008. But the agency doesn't expect to complete its draft plan until next year.

In another example of slow movement by the Corps, it was more than four years ago that the agency completed a report recognizing the severe wetland loss in coastal Louisiana and recommending five critical restoration projects. Congress authorized those projects under the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 -- but only one is scheduled to begin construction before 2012. That meant none were eligible for funding as "shovel-ready" under the recent economic stimulus.

Louisiana officials recently offered recommendations for speeding up hurricane protection efforts. Pointing out that it currently takes an average of 40 years for the Corps to complete a project, they say the state's coastal communities don't have that much time.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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Louisiana's threatened wetlands provide a critical barrier to hurricanes and flooding.With the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, a coalition of 17 advocacy groups called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to promptly honor President Obama's pledge "to restore nature's barriers -- the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that can take the first blows and protect the people of the Gulf Coast."

The MRGO Must Go Coalition held a press conference and media tour in New Orleans yesterday to highlight the slow progress in restoring wetlands east of the city along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a navigation channel the Army Corps of Engineers constructed in the 1960s as a shortcut between the Port of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico.

When Hurricane Katrina blew ashore four years ago, MRGO directed wind-driven floodwaters into New Orleans and adjacent St. Bernard Parish, contributing to the catastrophic failure of levees and flood walls. Levees along the channel were breached in approximately 20 places during Katrina.

The channel's construction, use and maintenance also caused the loss of more than 27,000 acres of surrounding wetlands, another factor that exacerbated Katrina's impact on the New Orleans area. During the storm, levees protected by wetlands remained intact while those exposed to open water -- like the ones along the MRGO's banks -- failed.

Congress ordered MRGO's closure last year, and construction of a rock dam was completed last month. But the coalition points out that the dam is only the first step to protecting communities from storm surge.

Congress directed the Corps to develop a comprehensive closure plan that includes restoring adjacent wetlands with a deadline of last May -- but the agency doesn't expect to finish its MRGO Ecosystem Restoration Plan until next year. The coalition is urging faster action.

"There are good people at the Corps and at other relevant federal agencies who are trying to get their job done and quickly move these projects forward, but we need an unequivocal commitment from the Corps, Congress and other responsible agencies that they won't let outdated bureaucratic procedures stand in the way of necessary action," said Col. David Dysart, chief administrative officer for St. Bernard Parish. "It's going to take creativity and breaking away from some long-standing ways of doing business, but the stakes call for nothing less."

(This story originally appeared at Facing South)

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While Louisiana struggles to restore coastal wetlands ravaged in large part by decades of oil and gas drilling, its senior senator is leading the effort to lift the ban on drilling off Florida's Panhandle.

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is the lone co-sponsor of legislation sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to open up new areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas development. Introduced last month, Senate Bill 1517 would allow drilling in federal waters 45 miles off the Panhandle's coast. Current law bans drilling any closer than 125 miles off Panhandle beaches and 235 miles off Gulf Coast beaches from Tampa south.

Opposing the Murkowski-Landrieu plan is U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), a longtime foe of offshore drilling. He joins other Florida leaders worried about drilling's impact on the state's lucrative tourism industry, which in 2008 alone generated more than $65 billion for Florida's economy and $3.9 billion for the state in tax revenue. Nelson has criticized the drilling bill as giveaway to the oil industry, McClatchy reports:

"This isn't even thinly veiled," Nelson said. "It's an oil industry bailout plan. And it's Alaska and Louisiana's senators plan to boost their own revenues in tough economic times. But even in the toughest of times, there are some things states shouldn't sell out, like Florida's economy and environment."

Why is Landrieu pushing the plan? She says it's out of concern for rising oil prices -- though the U.S. Energy Information Administration says drilling in areas that are currently restricted would result in negligible savings to consumers. Meanwhile, Landrieu and and Murkowski are among the top congressional recipients of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org database, the industry is Landrieu's second-biggest contributor besides lawyers, investing more than $711,000 in her campaigns over the past 12 years. In the 2008 election cycle, she ranked first among all congressional recipients of oil and gas PAC contributions, receiving more than $171,600.  The oil and gas industry is Murkowski's third-biggest contributor after leadership PACs and electric utilities, donating more than $286,000 to her campaign over the past seven years; she's also the top recipient of oil and gas PAC contributions in the current election cycle.

Last year the League of Conservation Voters placed Landrieu on their "Dirty Dozen" list of lawmakers, noting that her lifetime score from the environmental advocacy group of 43 percent made her the worst Democratic senator on environmental issues among those running for re-election.

"For a Senator from Louisiana, which faces severe consequences from global warming, to fail to protect Louisiana is disappointing," LCV's Tony Massaro said at the time. "Senator Landrieu joins the [Dirty Dozen] because she acts more to protect Big Oil than the future for the people of Louisiana."

A football field lost every 38 minutes

Sen. Landrieu was among those who suffered personal losses from Hurricane Katrina four years ago, as the storm and the subsequent levee failures and flooding destroyed her lakeside home in New Orleans.

One reason the devastation to inland areas like New Orleans was so severe when the Category 3 storm hit Louisiana is because coastal wetlands that once served as storm breaks have been swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. Over the past 75 years, Louisiana has lost more than 2,300 square miles of coastal wetlands -- an area equivalent in size to the entire state of Delaware.

Between 1990 and 2000, Louisiana lost about 24 square miles of land each year -- equivalent to about one football field lost to the sea every 38 minutes, according to the state's Department of Natural Resources.

While some of Louisiana's land loss can be blamed on natural processes, coastal experts say most of the destruction is due to human alteration of the landscape. One factor is the extensive levee system constructed along the Lower Mississippi River that prevents sediment from depositing naturally along the coast. Another key factor is the thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines and canals cut through coastal wetlands, opening them up to saltwater intrusion that kills vegetation and leaves the land vulnerable to erosion.

In fact, between 40 and 60 percent of Louisiana's coastal wetlands loss can be traced to oil and gas activities, according to the Gulf Restoration Network. From 1983 to 2008, for example, Houston-based Shell Oil dredged 8.8 million cubic yards of coastal lands in Louisiana while laying its pipelines -- activity that GRN and other environmental advocates calculated as having caused the loss of 22,624 acres of wetlands.

Land loss is not the only environmental damage from oil and gas drilling. Last month alone, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico contaminated several beaches along the Texas coast, while a leak from a Shell pipeline 30 miles off the Louisiana coast created a nine-mile-long slick in the Gulf.

Storms increase the risk oil and gas drilling pose to the environment. Four years ago, Hurricane Katrina and Rita together caused 124 offshore spills that dumped more than 743,000 gallons of pollution into the ocean, according to the federal Minerals Management Service [PDF]. Onshore spills from pipelines, tanks and refineries added another 9 million gallons of pollution to the mess.

Pattern of delay

If no decisive action is taken to address coastal erosion, Louisiana is expected lose another 500 square miles of land by 2050 -- and that will have enormous consequences for communities throughout the state's coastal parishes, where almost 2 million people live. And unfortunately, the current processes for addressing the problem are anything but decisive.

This past June, Steven Peyronnin, executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, testified at the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works' hearing on Louisiana's coastal restoration. Noting that scientists and engineers have the expertise to restore sustainability to the landscape and protect vulnerable communities, he said what is lacking is a sense of urgency.

Peyronnin pointed out that it's been more than four years now since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers submitted a final report recognizing the severe wetland loss in coastal Louisiana and recommending five critical restoration projects for the near term. While Congress authorized these projects under the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) section of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007, only one is scheduled to begin construction before 2012. That meant none were eligible for funding under the recent economic stimulus package.

"Not only is the lack of progress a troubling obstacle to restoring a sustainable coast, but it has also negated the ability to leverage federal opportunities that could provide desperately needed funding streams and a strong sense of urgency," Peyronnin told the committee. "Without a single project ready for construction, LCA projects were not considered in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 because they fell far short of the shovel ready requirement intended to urgently move projects forward."

In authorizing the LCA, Congress also directed the Secretary of the Army to come up with a comprehensive long-term restoration plan, but this still has not been done. Instead, the Corps is relying on an older document -- the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Technical Report -- that has shortcomings. For example, it provides no framework for how restoration efforts work with navigation activities, which currently focus on dumping sediment too far offshore to maintain coastal wetlands.

Peyronnin testified that the delay of LCA projects and the Corps' failure to comply with congressional mandates show that the traditional model for carrying out coastal restoration projects is "ill-suited" to respond to the crisis.

"If this pattern of delay continues," he warned, "it will eliminate any chance of success."

Earlier this month, Louisiana officials released recommendations for speeding up Corps projects, which currently take an average of 40 years to complete. But the recommendations remain in the discussion stages.

A starker choice for Florida

Sen. Landrieu has long been an advocate for coastal restoration efforts. For example, the annual energy and water appropriations bill recently passed by the Senate contained hundreds of millions of dollars for Army Corps projects in Louisiana that she championed, including coastal restoration initiatives.

But her push to allow the oil and gas industry to expand its operations in the Gulf of Mexico while federal processes to address land loss remain in disarray would inevitably mean putting other areas of the Gulf Coast at risk of the same drilling-related wetlands destruction experienced by Louisiana.

Unlike Louisiana, Florida has long opposed drilling off its coast, seeing it as a threat to the state's $65 billion annual tourist economy. When Chevron discovered natural gas deposits in Florida waters in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, the state objected to plans to tap them, leading the Bush administration to buy back leases from Chevron, Conoco and Murphy Oil for $115 million.

This past April, amid concern about rising energy prices, the Florida House passed a bill allowing offshore drilling in state waters -- but the measure died in the Senate.

Then along came Murkowski's and Landrieu's bill, which resembles an amendment in a Senate energy bill written by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) that would also permit oil and gas rigs within 45 miles of Florida's Gulf coast, McClatchy reports. But unlike Dorgan's proposal, the Murkowski-Landrieu plan includes a revenue-sharing provision to sweeten the deal.

In 2006, another piece of legislation sponsored by Landrieu gave Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas 37.5 percent of proceeds from fuel production in the Gulf -- returning to the states an estimated total of $6 billion a year that previously went to the federal government. The arrangement aimed to compensate them for the environmental cost of pipelines and other infrastructure.

Florida wanted no part of that earlier deal, but Landrieu hopes the revenue-sharing provision will hold appeal because of the state's fiscal crunch. As she wrote in a June op-ed that ran in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call:

Had revenue sharing been a part of the bargain, Floridians would have faced a choice involving rewards and not just risks. Given Florida’s current $6 billion budget deficit, such a choice would be starker today.

But as Sen. Nelson has pointed out, the proposal is hardly a panacea for Florida's financial woes, since the money states raise from offshore drilling in federal waters can be used only to repair damages caused by drilling, such as coastal restoration and pollution cleanup.

The question facing the Senate is whether that makes drilling worth the environmental damage that Florida will inevitably suffer.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South)

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Following local protests and international outcry, the city of Oxford, Ala. appears to be backing away from plans to destroy an ancient and archaeologically significant Indian mound in order to use the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart.

A local landowner says his property will now serve as the source for construction fill dirt, according to the Anniston Star:

Landowner Charlie Williams confirmed to The Star Wednesday that Oxford-based Taylor Corp. is negotiating with him for dirt for the Sam's site. The company has the contract to do site prep work for Sam's Club. He said the dirt would come from his property on McIntosh Road in Oxford. He said he has not received money for the dirt but expects to eventually.

The paper also reports that a sinkhole has been discovered at the Sam's Club construction site. The city's Commercial Development Authority -- the force behind the controversial construction project -- has authorized setting aside $350,000 to reimburse Sam's Club for the cost of fixing the hole.

As Facing South reported earlier this month, the demolition of the 1,500-year-old structure drew protests from Native Americans and others concerned about the site, which a University of Alabama report found to be historically important as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. Preservation advocates have called such structures "prayer in stone."

However, city leaders have disputed the site's archaeological significance, with Mayor Leon Smith insisting it was not man-made and was used only to "send smoke signals." An Anniston Star investigation documented financial ties between the CDA, firms it does business with, and Smith's political campaign.

In the meantime, a protest and reconsecration ceremony are planned for this Sunday, Aug. 30 from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Oxford mound, according to the Alabama-based blog Deep Fried Kudzu.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South)

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City leaders in Oxford, Ala. have approved the destruction of a 1,500-year-old Native American ceremonial mound and are using the dirt as fill for a new Sam's Club, a retail warehouse store operated by Wal-Mart.

A University of Alabama archaeology report commissioned by the city found that the site was historically significant as the largest of several ancient stone and earthen mounds throughout the Choccolocco Valley. But Oxford Mayor Leon Smith -- whose campaign has financial connections to firms involved in the $2.6 million no-bid project -- insists the mound is not man-made and was used only to "send smoke signals."

"The City of Oxford and its archaeological advisers have completed a review and evaluation of a stone mound that was identified near Boiling Springs, Calhoun County, Alabama, and have concluded that the mound is the result of natural phenomena and does not meet the eligibility criteria for the Natural [sic] Register of Historic Places," according to a news release Smith issued last week.

In fact, the report does not conclude the mound is a result of "natural phenomena" but says very clearly it is of "cultural origin." And while the University's Office of Archaeological Research does not believe the site qualifies for the National Register of Historic Places, the Alabama Historical Commission disagrees, noting that the structure meets at least three criteria for inclusion: its "association with a broad pattern of history," architecture "embodying distinctive characteristics," and for the information it might yield to scholars.

The site is also significant to Native Americans. The Woodland and Mississippian cultures that inhabited the Southeast and Midwest before Europeans arrived constructed and used these mounds for various rituals, which may have included funerals. There are concerns that human remains may be present at the site, though none have been found yet.

United South and Eastern Tribes, a nonprofit coalition of 25 federally recognized tribes from Maine to Texas, passed a resolution in 2007 calling for the preservation of such structures, which it calls "prayer in stone." Native Americans have held protests against the mound's demolition, and last week someone altered a sign for the Leon Smith Parkway that runs past the development to read "Indian Mound Pkwy."

A local resident named Johnny Rollins told the Anniston Star how his Native American grandmother taught him that when she died he could "go to that mountain" to talk to her:

"It seems like it's taking part of you away," he said of the demolition. "I always felt I had ties to that there."

Since the media began reporting on the site's demolition, city officials have revised their story and are now claiming that dirt from the mound is not being used as fill, despite earlier statements to the contrary. But eyewitnesses say they have seen workers hauling dirt from the mound to the Sam's Club development.

"I mean really, I went there, saw the giant trucks deliver the earth straight from the mound to the construction site, and I still can't believe what they are doing," writes the seventh-generation Alabamian behind the blog Deep Fried Kudzu, where she shares photos from her visit to the site.

'More prettier' than an Indian mound

Deepening the development's controversy is how the contracting has been handled. The force behind the project is Oxford's Commercial Development Authority, a public board that uses taxpayer money to lure businesses to the area. The CDA owns the land where the mound is located.

Alabama law exempts CDAs from bid requirements, which means contracts can go to whomever the board chooses. A recent Anniston Star investigative series about the CDA  revealed among other things that the group has awarded nearly $9 million in contracts since 1994 but has taken bids for none of them.

The newspaper also detailed the financial ties between the CDA, firms it does business with, and Mayor Smith's political campaign.

For example, the $2.6 million contract for preparing the Sam's Club site went to Oxford-based Taylor Corp., with the money for that coming in part from the sale of city property to Georgia-based developers Abernathy and Timberlake. Taylor Corp. owner Tommy Taylor, who has received thousands of dollars in city contracts for non-CDA work, donated $1,000 to Smith in 2004 and $1,000 in 2008, while Abernathy and Timberlake donated $1,000 to Smith's re-election campaign in 2004, the paper reports.

The Anniston Star also found that the CDA paid engineering firm Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood of Montgomery, Ala. $45,000 in engineering contracts for the Sam's Club project, with part of that money paying for the archaeological study. The firm contributed $500 to Smith in 2004.

An Alabama Ethics Commission official said the relationships could violate state law "depending on facts," but the mayor said he's done nothing wrong.

Meanwhile, the controversy over the damaged mound's fate rages on. After getting an earful from alarmed preservationists, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) forwarded their concerns to the state Historical Commission -- but said his office has no intention of getting involved. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, Tommy Taylor contributed $1,000 to Riley's 2006 gubernatorial campaign, while Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood contributed $1,500.

For now, it appears Oxford officials are pressing ahead with the project. As Mayor Smith said in its defense, "What it's going to be is more prettier than it is today."

(A version of this story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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Congress approved a plan late last week to build a 700-mile-long, two-layer fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in an attempt to keep out illegal immigrants, eliciting an overwhelmingly negative reaction from environmentalists and, well, folks with a firm grasp on reality. "The fence is a knee-jerk reaction by Congress. No one really studied the economic impacts, the environmental impacts," says Eddie Aldrete of the Laredo, Texas-based International Bank of Commerce. The fence would disrupt the fragile desert ecosystem, as well as migration routes for scores of species, from snakes to jaguars, critics say. Others worry about private-property and water rights: "A wall is just going to stand between farmers and ranchers and others who need legitimate access to water," says Republican activist Mike Vickers. Still others find the plan insulting to Mexicans, who share a strong social bond with South Texans and significantly boost the economies of Texas border towns. Oh, and knowledgeable people don't think it will actually stem illegal immigration.

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In the three-way struggle between the U.S. Border Patrol, illegal border crossers, and the natural environment, it's never clear who's winning.

A U.S. Border Patrol truck on the
move near Douglas, Ariz.

Photo: Congressional Immigration Reform
Caucus.

If you ask the Border Patrol, they will tell you they apprehended nearly 1.2 million illegal crossers in fiscal year 2005, and that it was an increase from the previous year. They won't mention that roughly double that number managed to elude them over the last five years.

Meanwhile, Enrique Enriquez of Grupo Beta, a Mexican group that helps migrants in part by rescuing those abandoned by smugglers in the Arizona desert, will say that the number of deaths in the desert rises every year, with the harsh climate tragically trumping even the best efforts to survive.

Others see the land -- especially the sensitive ecosystems of the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona, where the majority of illegal immigrants have been crossing since the mid-1990s -- as another loser in the ongoing battle between immigrants, drug traffickers, and the authorities chasing them.

This month, as the House and Senate gear up for the challenging (some say impossible) task of reconciling their competing immigration-reform bills, many on the front lines are anxious to see major policy shifts that attack the root of the problem, steering people out of the desert and through legal points of entry. For their part, conservationists say the environmental impacts of illegal immigration -- like the human ones -- are too serious to continue unchecked.

"The sheer number of immigrants and Border Patrol agents pursuing them is having a huge impact on natural resources in the borderlands," says Sally Gall, a refuge operations specialist with U.S. Fish and Wildlife's Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge near Sasabe, Ariz. Gall and her coworkers face an increasingly difficult mission: trying to take care of 118,000 acres crossed by an estimated 2,000 to 4,000 migrants daily between February and May, when temperatures begin to creep into the triple digits.

Buenos Aires is one of three swaths of protected public lands along the Arizona border, and abuts Mexico for five flat, sparsely populated miles -- making it an ideal place to slip across. Besides topography, there's another reason the spot is popular, says David Bemiller, the Border Patrol Tucson Sector's public-lands liaison: the patrol is generally stretched thin across the sector's high-migrant-traffic zone.

While the Border Patrol is in principle required to follow federal laws like the Wilderness Act, which prohibits taking vehicles off-road in wilderness areas, the agency's law-enforcement prerogative frequently leads officers into remote terrain in pursuit of traffickers.

"The smuggling organizations are very aware of where the protected lands are," Bemiller says. "They're aware of where the [Border Patrol's] restrictions are, and tend to take advantage of them. They exploit the wilderness areas."

Belongings left behind in the
Buenos Aires refuge.

Photo: Eliza Barclay.

The resulting cat-and-mouse conflicts can cause staggering impacts on the land. According to Gall, an estimated 500 tons of trash are generated on the refuge per year, almost entirely by migrants. (While the refuge is open to visitors for camping and hunting, tourism has significantly declined in the last few years, according to refuge law enforcement, in part because of safety concerns.) Recently, one "staging area" -- a spot where migrants are forced to shed most of their belongings before cramming into the vehicle sent to pick them up -- was covered by approximately 100 square yards of clothing, backpacks, water bottles, deodorant, and other detritus.

Gall says erosion from the huge number of trails generated by crossings is also worrisome. "We estimate there are about 1,500 linear miles of foot trails," she says. "Over time, the areas with trails have become devoid of vegetation, and we will see increased erosion, gullying, and trenching as the water runs down the trails during the monsoon season [in July and August]."

Further damage is caused by vehicle chases. "We've asked the Border Patrol to try to stick to the roads, but when they're in pursuit they often go off them," Gall says, and others confirm that's also the case in similar protected areas.

Bemiller says the agency has recently made a concerted effort to respect the sensitive environments where migrants often cross. "Our patrol efforts in the wilderness areas are challenging," he acknowledges. "There are times when environmental laws and concerns are amendable to our operations, and times when they're not."

These worries aren't particular to the U.S. Oscar Moctezuma of Naturalia, a leading Mexican organization that co-manages a private conservation ranch in Sonora, Mexico, with The Nature Conservancy, says migrants and the Mexican Army traverse the ranch daily. "They cross through and contaminate the water sources with their [bodily] waste," he says. He adds that soldiers sometimes cut fences and shoot deer while looking for traffickers.

Most involved agree that natural-resource problems will never be solved until a larger policy solution is found. "Why are we fighting the Border Patrol?" asks Jenny Neeley, southwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife. "There is no solution on the ground for all the damage to these habitats and sensitive areas. We need ... to give migrants an incentive to cross legally."

If Congress succeeds in hammering out a compromise immigration-reform bill, it could provide that incentive. But it could also take the environmental impacts of U.S. national-security policy to a new and dangerous level.

Fenced section of border in Douglas, Ariz.

Photo: Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.

The version approved by the Senate last month includes an amendment to build 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the border. These structures and the stadium-style lighting likely to accompany them could be constructed along remote stretches of the Sonoran Desert and other areas in Texas, New Mexico, and California that serve as corridors for wildlife.

"It's remarkable that this amendment to build 370 miles of wall sailed through the [U.S. Senate] unopposed by the environmental community," says Stephen Mumme, professor of political science at Colorado State University and an expert on border environmental policy. "This fence will be one of the greatest impacts on the borderlands environment in the last century."

If the fence provision becomes law, there's less wiggle room than one might think to challenge it and other incursions. That's because the Department of Homeland Security -- which houses the Border Patrol -- gained the authority in 2005 to waive any U.S. law when border security is at stake.

The agency first invoked the waiver in September 2005, when the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society of San Diego challenged construction of the final segment of a 14-mile fence slated to bulwark the Tijuana Estuary. A district court threw out the case, but according to environmental lawyer Cory Briggs, the groups are filing a new suit claiming that the waiver itself is unconstitutional.

Environmental groups working in Arizona have considered suing the Border Patrol for its off-road operations on public protected lands, says Neeley, but are afraid the waiver will be invoked, further paralyzing environmental legal strategies. "No one is litigating here, because there's very little recourse if the waiver is invoked," says Neeley. "Congress would have to enact a new law getting rid of the waiver" to pave the way for a successful suit against DHS, she says.

While environmentalists are alarmed by DHS's ability to ignore federal laws when convenient, Bemiller contends that environmental laws can hinder the Border Patrol's objectives. "We are installing rescue beacons [30-foot towers where people in distress can call for help] in the zones with the highest number of deaths, but it's a two-year process to install each one because of the National Environmental Policy Act," he says. He adds that NEPA requires the agency to analyze the impacts on endangered species like the Pima pineapple cactus. "Meanwhile, there are people dying in the desert, and we get blamed for it."

The Rev. Robin Hoover of Humane Borders, a humanitarian group that provides water and first aid for desert-crossing immigrants, is skeptical of Bemiller's complaint. "[DHS] could get permission to install those beacons in a heartbeat if they wanted them that bad," says Hoover, claiming that the agency has the ability to move swiftly on high-priority issues.

While the bickering continues between the Border Patrol, humanitarian groups, and environmental groups on the ground in the borderlands, Mumme argues that environmentalists should be trying to get their voices into the high-profile national debate over immigration policy now playing out in Washington.

"The only way to fight this is to insist on being at the table on all homeland-security matters," Mumme says. "Border security is environmental security, and the consequences, trade-offs, and costs ... need to be included in the debate."

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With hurricane season approaching, scientists are voicing worries about the ability of coastal ecosystems to recover from repeated storms. Some 118 square miles of coastal wetlands were lost to Hurricane Katrina, and the Gulf Coast is vulnerable to more loss, as many islands that had acted as storm barriers are fragmented or submerged after two busy hurricane seasons. "It takes a long time for these dunes to re-establish naturally, so the next storm that comes along will have an easier job overtopping the islands and flooding inland areas," says a U.S. Geological Survey oceanographer. One example of ecosystem disruption: Florida mangrove trees are suffocating under silt piled up by back-to-back hurricanes. Repeated storms "could eventually be the threshold that tips the bucket and leads freshwater systems to become brackish ... and the whole system kind of collapses," says USGS environmental scientist Thomas Doyle. Egad.

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In parting gesture, Norton paves way for more roads on federal lands

Yesterday, as a Cruella-De-Ville-esque parting shot, Interior Secretary Gale Norton issued a new policy that enviros warn could allow local and state governments to build hundreds of roads on national parks, wildlife refuges, and other federal lands in the West. At issue is an 1866 law that gave states and counties rights of way across federal lands; the law was repealed in 1976, but allowed claims for already-existing "routes." Since then, local governments and enviros have sparred over what routes deserve to be maintained as roads, with some local officials claiming that cattle tracks, dry streambeds, and old jeep tracks qualified. Norton's directive gives Interior officials more freedom to determine which right-of-way claims are legit, and to then let local governments maintain them as roads. That prospect makes greens nervous. Utah wilderness advocate Heidi McIntosh calls the move "classic Gale Norton. It's like getting punched in the head with a velvet glove." Adieu, Ms. Norton.

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Northern Alaska pipeline leak may rank as one of region's largest

Cleanup crews have been working in subzero temperatures to sop up crude oil and soiled snow near northern Alaska's Prudhoe Bay after what looks to be one of the largest spills ever in the region. The source of the crud(e) was discovered last Thursday by a BP oil worker: a quarter-inch rupture in the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, apparently caused by corrosion, 650-odd miles north of Anchorage. While the oil industry maintains it has an aggressive program for monitoring such leaks, this spill is one in a long series of breaches of the aging pipeline since at least 2001. These come in the wake of a 1999 attempt by six pipeline employees to blow the whistle on neglected maintenance. Enviros say this latest leak refutes industry claims that "gentle drilling" practices can keep Alaska's wilderness -- including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- safe from being soaked in petroleum.

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Gulf Coast ecosystems slow to bounce back after hurricanes

Gulf Coast ecosystems are struggling to rebound from last year's record hurricane season. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina destroyed over 100 square miles of wetlands in Louisiana alone. They spread salt water inland and killed many plants, including marsh grasses along the Louisiana coast, popular chow for wild ducks. Bird-nesting grounds on Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands -- an arc of barrier islands that typically shelter breeding brown pelicans, black skimmers, and more -- have vanished. Reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts were damaged by waves, buried in sand, and exposed to a plume of contaminated runoff from land. All in all: Yuck. To boot, scientists say human-driven factors -- from warming seas to rampant residential and industrial development -- are impairing nature's ability to bounce back from violent storms. The Gulf Coast won't become a wasteland, they say, but it may end up with a less diverse array of plants and critters.

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It's easy to see in hindsight. Yes, Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster, but it was aided by some very unnatural factors -- developed wetlands and neglected levees, to name two. Figuring there must be other parts of the U.S. in human-made peril, we talked with experts to learn where we've made ourselves most vulnerable, and what -- in lieu of scrapping the whole country and starting over -- is being done to help.

Where will this country's next "unnatural disaster" strike? Mouse over or click on the hotspots on our map to find out.

Map: NationalAtlas.gov

Map: NationalAtlas.gov

1. Uneven Ground

The bad news: Much of Seattle's downtown has been built on landfill and other unsteady ground, which can turn to liquid during earthquakes. The last quake here, in 2001, was deep, but a shallower one could cause this liquefaction, threatening residents and landmarks like the train station, football stadium, and (gasp!) Starbucks HQ. Meanwhile, Bill Steele of the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network worries that an offshore subduction quake, due every few hundred years, might strike "any day," rupturing fuel tanks and wreaking havoc.

The good news: Local and state officials are considering replacing the city's elevated highway and reinforcing its seawall, and Steele says awareness has increased: "The Northwest may turn out to be a leader in reducing our risk before disaster strikes."

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2. Weak Levees

The bad news: Sacramento, the country's 26th-largest metropolitan area ranks No. 1 in flooding risk, according to The Sacramento Bee. That's because of a troubling mix: increasing urbanization and the erosion of peat soils supporting much of the area's aging 1,100-mile levee system. In the words of a bipartisan state congressional coalition, "a major breach in these levees [due to a major storm, earthquake, or deterioration] could imperil hundreds of thousands of people and endanger most of the state's water supply."

The good news: While awareness of this problem has long been high, funding has been low. But Congress recently upped area flood-control support from $9 million to nearly $40 million, and upgrades are scheduled for next summer.

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3. Fire Foolishness

The bad news: We like to build houses in places that burn. Wildfires consumed 8.3 million U.S. acres this year, forcing residents in many states to flee their homes. "Nature will burn," says Roger Kennedy, former National Park Service director. "The question is, who's going to be there when it does?" Kennedy says fire disproportionately affects low-income people, especially in Colorado, New Mexico, and Montana, and predicts that imbalance could lead to a Katrina-like revelation: "The next great discovery will be too little water, not too much."

The good news: There's not a lot, unless we overhaul the insurance, housing, and transportation industries. But scientists have improved wildfire forecasting in recent years, and are perfecting a "debris-flow warning system" for burned areas.

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4. Lost Wetlands

The bad news: Just as lost wetlands helped sink New Orleans, they're haunting Houston. The flood-prone city sees major storms every other year, and relies on coastal flats and "prairie potholes" to absorb and filter rain. But since a 2001 Supreme Court ruling scaled back federal wetlands jurisdiction, development has boomed, and "no area has been more affected ... than the Texas coast," says Jim Blackburn, an environmental engineering professor at Rice University. According to John Jacob, director of the Texas Coastal Watershed Program, the situation is "pretty much approaching catastrophic."

The good news: A small but growing Wetland Restoration Team is drawing attention to the issue, with local students getting involved. Meanwhile, limited relief is provided by the stormwater detention basins developers are required to build.

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5. Water Woes

The bad news: In the West, a population explosion in recent decades coupled with climate change in the coming decades almost certainly means water trouble. The outlook ranges from flooding in California to possible droughts in the interior, says Brad Udall, director of the NOAA-funded Western Water Assessment program at the University of Colorado. And parts of the Southwest, he says, "could see massive diebacks in piñon and juniper forests, [then] forest fires, water pollution in terms of runoff and sediment ... It's something people need to pay attention to and be planning for."

The good news: The country is "not going to run out of water," says Dennis Lettenmaier, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington. "It's just a question of who's going to pay for it, and what it's going to be used for."

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6. Flood Relatives

The bad news: When St. Louis suffered major flooding in 1993, experts called it a 100-year event. Apparently that was comforting: thousands of acres that were underwater then have now been developed. Southern Illinois University geologist Nicholas Pinter says levees and dams have forced higher flood levels in the region over time, and new construction will up the ante. On top of that, says Missouri Coalition for the Environment director Ted Heisel, the city's floodwall needs a $20 million fix. What will happen? As Heisel puts it, "The water has to go somewhere."

The good news: MCE, Great Rivers Habitat Alliance, and others are working to strengthen floodplain rules and fight development. They have at least one influential voice on their side, beer magnate Adolphus Busch IV, but it's an uphill battle.

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7. Sprawl Addiction

The bad news: Sprawl happens everywhere, but experts cite Atlanta as the poster child, with 500 acres lost to development each week. While U.S. suburbanites happily rationalize their long commutes, energy experts are waiting for the whole system to crash. If a major oil shortage hit this or any other exurban area, how would all those sprawl-dwellers get anywhere, or transport food, or heat their McMansions? How would they escape a storm (remember Rita)? Keeping up current national patterns, says peak-oil guru Matthew Simmons, is "a luxury we can't afford."

The good news: Atlanta's business community and regional planners are collaborating for the first time to stop sprawl in its tracks. Elsewhere in the U.S. (and abroad), Post Carbon Institute is encouraging small groups to learn how to meet needs locally.

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8. Nuclear Reactions

The bad news: The U.S. has 104 nuclear-power reactors, but New Jersey's Hope Creek Plant tops the worry list. With a bent pump shaft causing vibrations, this aging facility could be prone to a meltdown, says David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists. On a regular day, he says, 10,000 to 30,000 people would be affected; mix in a heavy wind or storm, and watch out Wilmington and Philadelphia. "It won't be a surprise if that pipe breaks," Lochbaum says. "It won't be an accident. It will be criminal negligence."

The good news: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has extracted a promise from plant owner Public Service Electric and Gas to fix the problem in six months to a year. In the meantime, NRC requires daily monitoring.

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9. Aging Dams

The bad news: Last month, 2,000 residents of Taunton, Mass., were evacuated when a wooden dam nearly burst after the town received seven inches of rain. The widely reported crisis reminded the nation just how many aging dams are out there (roughly 95,000, since you asked). While federal dams are regularly inspected -- the Bureau of Reclamation oversees 472, and the Army Corps of Engineers tends another 600 -- tens of thousands of privately owned dams need attention too.

The good news: The "promising trend" of dam removal is on the upswing, according to American Rivers, which reports that 56 dams were removed this year. Dam safety has also improved in recent years, thanks to the work of state agencies.

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10. Beach Oblivion

The bad news: The Southeast has a penchant for "renourishment" projects, which import sand to bolster beaches and protect shorefront property from hurricanes. This type of work, for which the feds pay half, is popular with local officials (think Jaws-type tourism priorities). But besides damaging coral reefs and other critters, the re-sanding "gives people a false sense of security," says Michelle Duval, a scientist with Environmental Defense who lives in North Carolina. "I'd challenge any one of those projects to stand up to a Category 4 or 5 hurricane."

The good news: Presidents Clinton and Bush (yes, the current one) have both sought to reduce federal dollars for renourishment, reasoning that state and local governments should pay instead. But both have faced fierce opposition in Congress.

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Louisiana faces massive trash and toxics cleanups

New Orleans' ecological recovery is likely to be both complex and lengthy. State environmental officials say Hurricane Katrina left around 22 million tons of debris in southeast Louisiana, 12 million of it in Orleans Parish. The ginormous load of trash ranges from organics like downed trees and rotting food to about 60,000 boats and 350,000 cars. Louisiana oil refineries, pipelines, and storage facilities wrecked by Katrina spilled millions of gallons of oil, and it'll take months to clean up the mess. One 1.5-million-gallon spill from a refinery in a neighborhood southeast of New Orleans contaminated about 1,000 homes. And overall ecological damage -- to marshes, fishing grounds, urban environments, and more -- is so massive, some observers say it'll take years to assess and repair. Says Harry Roberts, director of the Louisiana State University's Coastal Studies Institute, "This is an unprecedented event in terms of devastation and scale."

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Rancher wins defamation claim against conservation nonprofit

An Arizona rancher has employed activist tactics to win a lawsuit against a conservation group, and his success may inspire other ranchers to fight back against greens. Jim Chilton took the Center for Biological Diversity to court last year for defamation, after the group posted photos to its website showing destruction on land that Chilton has long leased for grazing from the U.S. Forest Service. The center claimed that bad grazing practices caused the devastation. Chilton produced new photographs of the same areas, shot from different angles, to support his contention that the center exaggerated its claims. In January, a jury awarded Chilton $600,000, including $500,000 in punitive damages. Paying up may devastate the center, says cofounder Kieran Suckling. The group is planning to appeal. Suckling admits that its photos weren't representative of all the land Chilton leases, but, he says, "What law in the universe says I'm not allowed to take pictures showing [just] damaged areas?"

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Armed pot growers invade public lands

When we say "growing pot in national parks," what do you think of? Aging hippie, beat-up VW minibus, little dope field a few yards up the hill from the camp site? Yeah, those were good times ... but where were we? Oh yes. Well, times change: California's Sequoia National Park has become prime cropland for pot growers, and we're not talking blissed-out deadheads. As the profitability of marijuana has outpaced that of methamphetamines, gun-toting growers -- many with links to Mexican drug cartels -- have taken to colonizing isolated wilderness areas in Sequoia, causing massive ecological damage in the process. Some 180 acres of wilderness are disturbed for every five acres of marijuana grown, as growers set up huge camps, cut terraces into steep slopes, divert water from creeks and rivers, poach wildlife, and dump tons of trash. Local rangers and law enforcement say federal authorities -- and green groups -- aren't taking the problem seriously.

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Astronauts see widespread ecological destruction from space

Environmental damage on Earth is clearly visible from space, reports the crew of the shuttle Discovery. Chatting from an orbit of 220 miles up with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and other Japanese officials, Commander Eileen Collins said on Thursday that the astronauts could see widespread erosion and deforestation below. She described the Earth's atmosphere as "an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin," and suggested folks could maybe get a little more serious about saving the planet. "We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," she said. Koizumi, said to be distracted by a fierce political battle over privatizing Japan's postal system, asked Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi about ... space noodles. Specifically, noodles prepared in a jellified soup especially for slurping in zero gravity. Reports indicate that the astro-pasta was delicious -- even if the view left a disturbing aftertaste.

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Decline of wildflowers in forests worries scientists

Sprawling housing developments, hungry deer, invasive plants, and other threats have sent many forest wildflower species in the U.S. into decline. Scientists say there are limited studies and surveys available on the delicate flowering plants, known as spring ephemerals, because they are only visible above ground for a few weeks of the year and/or may go several years without flowering at all. But the few records they do have indicate reason for concern. Historical data from Wisconsin reveal an 18 percent decline in the richness of native species, including spring ephemerals and other wildflowers, over the past 50 years. Though in many parts of the Eastern U.S. forest density is actually increasing as abandoned farmland returns to its original state, research is beginning to show that much of the natural diversity, including wildflowers, is lacking. "Our forests are becoming less interesting," says scientist Tom Rooney. "It's similar to going to an art museum, and each time you go, there are a few pieces of art missing."

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