Arizona Protesters Halt $500 Million Border Wall by Occupying 250-Year-Old Cottonwood
Updated
Updated · morethanjustparks.substack.com · Aug 17
Arizona Protesters Halt $500 Million Border Wall by Occupying 250-Year-Old Cottonwood
2 articles · Updated · morethanjustparks.substack.com · Aug 17
Summary
Three weeks after activists began rotating sit-ins in a 50-foot cottonwood near Lochiel, Arizona, construction on that border-wall stretch remains stopped because crews cannot safely remove the occupied tree.
Three other 200- to 250-year-old Fremont cottonwoods were cut down in less than four hours on July 27, leaving the last tree—dubbed Grandmother—as the immediate flashpoint for the protest.
The stalled project is part of a 27-mile, double-wall segment in the San Rafael Valley worth nearly $500 million and awarded to Fisher Sand & Gravel, a contractor criticized in the report for past legal and engineering problems.
The report says the administration waived 66 federal laws for the build, while Customs and Border Protection had separately promised pre-construction bird-nest surveys during nesting season that observers say never occurred.
The broader dispute centers on a remote wildlife corridor used by species including jaguars and ocelots, where the report says migrant crossings are scarce but habitat damage from the wall could be lasting.