Forest officials warn visitors about shipping container wall at Arizona border

PHOENIX – Officials are warning Coronado National Forest visitors about potential safety hazards related to shipping container border wall construction in southern Arizona.

“We’re really concerned about just making sure that visitors know that there is this border wall activity occurring … and we want people to stay away from that,” Starr Farrell of the National Forest Service told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Wednesday.

“It’s a public safety concern at this point. And, so, we’re hoping that by getting this information out there, people will know that it’s not the best time to be visiting that area in Sierra Vista Ranger District.”

One of the risks is the presence of unauthorized armed personnel, Farrell said.

“At this time, it doesn’t appear to be a set group,” she said. “It is just individuals.”

Farrell said forest officials would prefer that visitors avoid the area.

“We don’t want a conflict to occur,” she said.

Since August, the state, at the direction of Gov. Doug Ducey, has been installing shipping containers to fill gaps along the Arizona-Mexico border that don’t have barriers. The project started in Yuma before expanding.

The National Forest Service says the work on federal land in Coronado National Forest is unauthorized. A spokesman for Ducey told KTAR News the containers make it more difficult for drug and human traffickers to exploit gaps in the border.

Last month, Ducey filed a lawsuit defending the practice after the Bureau of Reclamation said containers installed on federal land were illegal and needed to be removed.

“They would have to go through a procedure if they wanted to add containers onto federal land, just like if any of us wanted to do something on our federal land, but those processes were not adhered to — they did not take place,” Ferrell said.

The Coronado National Forest wall is going up in area over an hour and half from Tucson, in the vicinity of Copper Canyon south of National Forest System Road 61. Ferrell said she expects the work to expand along the border.

“It’s in a pretty remote location, so it’s not something you would just stumble upon on your normal visit to the Sierra Vista Ranger District,” she said.

“But it is … within where people like to hunt, where people like to recreate … if they’re looking for that more solitude experience.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Jim Cross contributed to this report.

Follow @kstonezone