Dear Sedona Times Editor: A friend in Georgia sent these photos which she said are circulating via Internet of the Sonoran Desert, outside Tucson, AZ. Is this being brought to the local public’s attention by the Sedona Times so that your desert is not destroyed? My friend included this comment: We had no idea that this was even possible in the USA!? Is this what you are seeing about the trails of the GC and Sedona? Where are the local policemen? Why is nothing being done to arrest these people? Obviously they are not hiding! This is flagrant and willful! How many state citizens who are protesting against the new law, go and spend weekends picking up this trash so to repair their once beautiful desert?!!? I will wager you that the people who are crying foul with this law leave THAT (clean-up work) to the state bureaucracy, but they will verbally castigate the bureaucracy assigned to disallow it. Sometimes we liberals give ourselves a bad name because we cease to think before we speak, we cease to know before we opine.’ The following is the forwarded email that was attached: As it is said, a picture speaks a thousand words:
We, in Arizona, know you are boycotting us — but you really should come out here and see our Beautiful Sonoran Desert. It’s just gorgeous right now! We know you’d love it and maybe you can share what you saw with the rest of the country so they can love it too!
This is on an ‘illegal super – highway’ from Mexico to the USA (Tucson) used by human smugglers.This area is located in a wash, approximately 1.5 miles long, just south of Tucson, Arizona. If a flood came, all this would be washed to the river and then onto the sea!
It is estimated over 5,000 discarded backpacks are in this wash. Countless water containers, food wrappers, clothing, human feces, including thousands of soiled baby diapers. And as you can see in this picture, fresh footprints leading right into it.
As we kept walking down the wash, we thought for sure it was going to end, but around every corner was more and more trash!
And, of course, the trail leading out of the wash into our city, heads directly NORTH to Tucson, then leads into your town tomorrow.
They’ve already come through here. Isn’t Arizona just beautiful, America?Why would and should you boycott us?
Our desert has basically been turned into a landfill.
The trash left behind by people illegally crossing our border is another environmental disaster to hit the USA. If these actions had been done in one of our Northwest Forests, or Seashore National Parks areas, there would be an outcry of the American people…..but this is the Arizona-Mexic0 border.You won’t see these pictures on CNN, ABC, NBC or even in the Arizona Republic Repugnant newspaper. Nor will they mention the disease that comes from the uncovered human waste left in our desert.However, with respect to CNN, ABC & NBC, they do offer us “Special Reports” on cheating celebrity spouses….
Why not consider forwarding this email. It should make people think. (the end of my friend’s email attachment)
Thank you for the forum, Sedona Times. We enjoyed reading your newspaper and visiting your website. We will revisit on the internet line quite often. Sincerely, John (and Margarete-Anne King), visitors to the Grand Canyon and Sedona from beautiful Toronto, Canada
This is from the Truth or Fiction website.
“The Truth:
The photos were taken in 2007 by members of the Minute Man Civil Defense Corps, a border watchdog group, who discovered the litter while they were in the Sonoran Desert just South of Tucson, Arizona. The scene is what the Minute Man group called a “layup,” an area where illegal immigrants gather when they have reached the U.S. and where they will meet with those who have arranged for transportation for them. They typically have backpacks full of clothing, food, and other supplies for their long trek to or across the U.S. border but when they arrive, they change into a clean set of clothes and leave everything else behind because there is not enough room in the packed vehicles used to transport them.
This eRumor began circulating in 2007 and went viral again in the Spring of 2010, after organized protests and boycotts to an Arizona Immigration Bill. The photos are being passed on by supporters as one of the many reasons why they justify the Grand Canyon State’s tough new law.”
Of course it was either last year or the year before that the Border Patrol itself said that the flow of illegal immigrants had really slowed.
Dear Sonoran Desert,
Though I was unable to see the photos, I’m very aware of Arizona’s highway trash issues and you have identified another area of concern. As to where is law enforcement is on these issues, I suspect they get their marching orders from the City Manager and Mayor.
We have to same situation in the Cottonwood area where the homeless and others are using vacant lots and washes within the Cottonwood City limits for their garbage can.
I and many businesses recently addressed this issue with the City Manager and Mayor of Cottonwood on trash being dumped in the Oak Creek wash near Home Depot. There were dozens of pieces of furniture and homeless related trash items were dumped.
In 2009, we remove over 70 bags in this same 400 yard section of wash. Besides the trash we removed a queen sized bed spring, several electronic appliances, old tires, a sheet of plywood, a old typewriter plus water, alcohol and soda containers. The fast food industry was well represented as well.
Once we brought this one particular case (of many) to the City of Cottonwood, Mayor Diane Joens took the bull by the !$!$’s and cleaned this one area up. Most all of the washes in Cottonwood need to be cleaned up and brush pruned back to make it more difficult for those who trash.
You might want to contact EPA, DEQ, and your local media. If you present the story and photos that will get some results. I have offered to work with the City of Cottonwood on locating and addressing this issue within the Cottonwood city limits.
If you contact the SedonaEYE.com, they have my permission to give you my contact information and we can discuss working together. Nothing like partnering to restore the beauty to America and Arizona the beautiful.
Remember that the EYE as in SedonaEYE is everywhere and they tell the stories others may avoid.
Gary Chamberlain
“Point Man”
Folksville USA