Trump admin cuts off Quitobaquito, closing roads to sacred Arizona oasis during border wall work

All roads to Quitobaquito Springs — a Southern Arizona desert oasis sacred to the Hia-Ced O’odham, and a haven for three endangered species — were closed by the National Park Service on Friday, a prelude to construction of the Trump administration’s second border wall.

Officials with Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument announced the closure of the West Border Road from Lukeville, Ariz., as well as North Puerto Blanco Road and South Puerto Blanco Connector, and Senita Basin Road. The agency also closed the Camino de Dos Republicas, and the East Border Road east to the Santa Rosa Mountains.

The closure to vehicles and pedestrians effectively cuts off access to Quitobaquito.

Officials said federal law allows Organ Pipe’s Superintendent Raquel Montez to “designate areas for a specific use or activity, or impose conditions or restrictions on a use or activity.”

The closure was made “in furtherance of the Department of Homeland Security infrastructure project” and is “intended to mitigate considerable risk associated with an active, large
scale construction project and applies to all vehicles and pedestrian
traffic.”

The closure began on Friday, and “remain in effect until further notice.” Just last weekend, a group of Hia-Ced O’odham people and others gathered at the oasis — right next to the U.S.-Mexico border, south of Ajo and about a 170-mile drive from Tucson — to celebrate the site.

On July 21, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin waived dozens of environmental laws to clear the way for “Tucson 4 Project” — a 45.4-stretch of secondary border wall that will run along the southern edge of Organ Pipe.

The project is part of an expansive effort to cover the entire Southwestern border with both “primary” and “secondary” border barriers. Similar efforts are ongoing near Kino Springs, just east of Nogales, and in the San Rafael Valley, where contractors tore down three ancient cottonwoods to clear the way for border barriers.

Another primary wall project along 62 miles of the Tohono O’odham Nation faces a legal challenge from the tribe.

‘And, if we lose that, we lose everything’

Lorraine Marquez Eiler, a
Hia-Ced O’odham elder, worried about the pond’s future and said she
didn’t trust that Homeland Security officials would protect the oasis.

“Everything is so secretive,” Eiler told the Tucson Sentinel on Friday. “It
appears they just going to run through and knock things down, and
destroy the pond—that’s my worst fear.”

Quitobaquito has been important to the Hia-Ced O’odham for centuries,
and as noted ecologist Gary Paul Nahban wrote earlier this month, the
spring may have been the site of the first Palm Sunday celebration in
Arizona, where O’odham elders “invited Padre Kino to bless them with
palm fronds, just as they blessed their own with sprigs of cotton,
willow, and creosote in their ceremonies.”

Eiler said the O’odham would be allowed to go to Quitobaquito for special
ceremonies according to NPS staff, but “they’d have to work with staff to go through permits to
be allowed to go in. But, for everyone else it will be closed.”

She also worried that
even if border wall contractors are careful with the pond and its
banks, the construction could drain the aquifer.

During the first
Trump administration, border wall contractors installed a 30-foot wall
along the southern edge of the protected landscape, using millions of
gallons of water to make the concrete footers, as well as drainage
systems and the bases for stadium-style flood lights. The effort drained
the aquifer that supports Quitobaquito, and there were signs the
concrete liner beneath the pond was damaged by the construction.

In recent months, the oasis has clearly returned, but researchers. community
members, and environmental groups continue to worry about the spring’s
future with another, closer border barrier.

On Sunday, community members celebrated Quitobaquito as part of a weekend of events centered around protecting the watering hole.

Artist-in-residence Chip Thomas installed a mural on Ajo’s main drag, just beyond the town’s grassy plaza. Thomas, a former doctor on the Navajo Nation, used a photograph of Eiler at Quitobaquito, and wheat-pasted the image to a building with the words “Protect A’al Vaippia.”

“It’s frightening—if
they’re digging wells, they’ll hit the aquifer, and we could lose the
spring. And, if we lose that, we lose everything,” Eiler said. She said
CBP officials, and the contractors are not working with community
members or the tribe to protect the pond, or the species that live
there. “I don’t trust what they’re going to do. The unknown always
brings the worst things in our imagination.”

“At least 800 acres of public lands will be lost in Organ Pipe National Monument because of the secondary border wall construction,” said Erick Meza, borderlands coordinator with the Sierra Club. “The area is full of highly cultural important sites for the Tohono O’odham tribe, and is home of many species of plants and animals.”

“There are 18 small wildlife passages will potentially become a dead trap in this new ‘dead zone,'” Meza added. “More than ever access is very important for environmental monitoring to make contractors accountable. We hope that access continue to be open and the National Park Service does its best to protect our public lands.”

‘Existential destruction’

“This road closure effectively cuts off access to A’al Vaipia—a place of ceremony and a deeply valued site for O’odham peoples,” said Aaaron Cooper, executive Director for the International Sonoran Desert Alliance, based in Ajo. “It also prevents those of us committed to monitoring and caring for the fragile micro ecosystem around Quitobaquito Springs from doing just that.”

“Without local community monitors present during border work, this site is in danger of the same kind of existential destruction as seen at Las Playas Intaglio back in April,” said Cooper.

Contractors working for CBP seriously damaged the millennia-old Las Playas Intaglio—a well-documented cultural artifact in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, which sits just to the west of Organ Pipe.

The 200-foot-long etching resembles a giant fish, and was crafted on the desert floor about 1,000 years ago, but despite promises from federal officials and a push from the community, a contractor bulldozed a swath through it.

Eiler told the Tucson Sentinel on Sunday that she believes contractors “deliberately” damaged the Intaglio.

Quitobaquito Springs is fed by a tiny hidden crack in the mountains,
where a thin stream—now lined with concrete—slips through a complex of
mesquites and other trees before filling the pond. From the air, the
pond remains a turquoise jewel surrounded by the largely stark desert of
Organ Pipe.

The pond is the only home for three species adapted to live in its waters: the Sonoyta pupfish, the
Sonoyta Mud Turtle, and the Quitobaquito springsnail.

There’s a growing effort to protect all three species, including breeding programs at the Phoenix Zoo and the Sonoran Desert Museum, but there are signs this won’t be enough to save them, the Arizona Mirror reported.

Earlier this summer, the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity sued to protect the Quitobaquito springsnail, alleging that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act and a congressionally mandated deadline.

“Closing the only road to Quitobaquito so the Trump administration can build a second border wall is a tragic reminder that this desert oasis is being sacrificed piece by piece,” said Russ McSpadden, southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We are all being shut out of one of the Sonoran Desert’s greatest treasures. At the same time, construction crews are preparing to industrialize Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, putting irreplaceable wildlife and O’odham cultural heritage at great risk.”

“Obviously, we’re devastated by this and very pessimistic about what’s going to happen at Quitobaquito,” said Nikki See, a community member in Ajo, Ariz. “No one has said anything about protecting the area, or rescuing the endangered species that live there. The fact that DHS waived all these laws that were designed to protect endangered species and cultural resources is just devastating.”

Ajo is a small community at the furthest reach of Pima County, and “it’s hard to get anybody to come help us,” she said. “This is happening and no one knows about it.”

“What’s at stake here is so critical because these species really don’t live anywhere else, and once they’re gone, they’re gone forever,” See added.