Alfonso Espinoza and Erin Fiorini speak with Marisela Centeno Lara about her composting toilet in Nogales, Sonora. Photo by Curt Prendergast.

“Thanks to eco-toilets that compost human waste, 75 families in Colinas del Sol, a hardscrabble neighborhood clinging to a hillside just south of the border, don’t have to use homemade latrines anymore.

On Saturday, students from the Technological Institute of Nogales and the University of Arizona visited the neighborhood to check for design problems with the toilets and to ask residents if the toilets had been a help. Judging by the reactions at several houses, the toilets have turned out to be a godsend.

“Before these toilets were here almost everybody used open pits and latrines. It caused a lot of illnesses,” said Marisela Centeno Lara, a 12-year resident of the neighborhood who, like many of her neighbors, now owns an eco-toilet. With the new toilets, many health problems have gone away, she said. “We don’t get that same aroma, either,” she added with a laugh.” [Read more]

###

Photo by Curt Prendergast.

“(Reuters) – U.S. authorities have upgraded six miles of border fencing in a remote Arizona ranching town with a taller barrier that will be tougher to breach, in the latest effort to tighten their grip on the isolated stretches of the Mexico border.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said it has replaced outdated panel fencing that carved across the southern reach of Douglas, in the far southeast corner of Arizona, with an 18-foot-tall bollard and steel-mesh fence design.

The move to refurbish the barrier separating Douglas from Agua Prieta in Mexico’s northern Sonora state follows an overhaul of 2.8 miles of fencing in Nogales, the largest city on the Arizona-Mexico border, last year.

“Every time we get a new technology it allows us to expand.” said David Herrera, a spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, of the overhaul completed this week. [Read more]

###

Review by Paul M. Ingram

The cause remains a mystery, but in early October 1947, a fire incinerated the entire Phoenix streetcar fleet. The city, suddenly without a public transport system had two choices: rebuild the fleet from scratch or follow Los Angeles and purchase buses from General Motors.

To General Motors’ glee, the city picked the buses, setting the city on a pattern of public transport that remained for sixty years, ended only by the opening of the city’s new light-rail system. By then Phoenix’s sprawling development had metastasized into the enormous megapolis that balances on the edge of complete failure.

Phoenix may be a metropolis jinxed by the myth of its namesake. The valley was once the center of Hohokam culture, but was abandoned simply because life there became unsustainable. The modern story isn’t much different, the city depends on water from the drought-stricken Colorado River delivered through the Central Arizona Project.

It is this city that Andrew Ross, Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, has decided to study the pratfalls and successes of sustainable development.

Ross draws on interviews with hundreds of Phoenicians, including state legislators, urban planners, developers, green business advocates, community activists, and energy lobbyists, to develop a history of the city and its future as a growing city in the desert.

By understanding the history of the city, Ross is also able to appraise its future and thus gives a road for a future Phoenix shifted away from sprawl and endless subdivisions to sustainable culture.

With aplomb, Ross evaluates the difficult relationships between politics and green development, as well as the state’s drive toward anti-immigrant laws like SB1070. He criticizes what he calls “eco-apartheid” noting that wealthy Phoenicians can afford clean air and mountain views while poor residents suffer in toxic pollution. Ross calls upon readers to reconsider sustainability, arguing that small individual gestures aren’t enough. To really change the city’s future, and for that matter the future of southwestern United States, a significant change must happen.

###

“Sometimes positive outcomes are born of bad practices.

The current Nogales police station in the Nogales City Complex. Photo by Curt Prendergast.

Take, for example, the Nogales Police Department’s planned funding method for a new station.

The department, with its 56 uniformed officers and 18 other staffers, says it has outgrown its current digs at City Hall, which were built in 1978 to accommodate 30 people. But when an effort to convince the city council to finance a new station with bond and grant money fell short of support, NPD needed a Plan B.

So now it’s turning to another, relatively abundant source of funding in Santa Cruz County, one that doesn’t place an additional burden on taxpayers: forfeitures of “dirty” money.” [Read more]

###

The rarest rocks on Earth are actually chunks of other planets, and Tucson’s  Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase is ground zero for the meteorite-obsessed.

Meteorites – space rocks that survived a fiery plummet through Earth’s  atmosphere – are the main attraction for an eclectic community of enthusiasts  from around the world every February. It offers Tucsonans the opportunity to see  the rarest of the rare and learn from the world’s leading meteorite experts.

“The mineral show is a chance for people to see things before they go to the  museums and things the museums can only dream of having,” said Marvin Kilgore,  curator of the meteorite collection at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and  Planetary Laboratory. [Read more]

###

Photo by Curt Prendergast.

“For the past 30 years, the San Juan Bosco shelter in Nogales, Sonora has welcomed deported migrants with nowhere else to go.

The shelter opened its doors on Jan. 31, 1982 and hasn’t closed them since. On Tuesday night, local government officials, migrants, and friends of the shelter gathered to celebrate three decades of helping those most in need. The celebration included a dinner, a Catholic Mass, and a dance featuring hits like Michael Jackson’s “Beat it” and “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets. There was also a belly dancer.

Since it opened, almost 900,000 people – mostly deported migrants – have found a warm meal, medical care, a soft bed, and protection for few nights at the shelter, said Francisco Loureiro, who founded the facility with his wife Gilda. Today, the safety offered by the shelter is especially important considering the violent drug war raging in Mexico, he said.

“They’re afraid of the thousands of things that can happen with the violence we are living right now,” Loureiro said.” [Read more]

 ###

“North of Albuquerque, the people of the Pueblo of Jemez may hold a secret to dealing with wildfires in the ponderosa pine forests of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona.

The tribe has lived in these forests since before the Spanish conquistadors explored the region in the 16th century. This long history makes the pueblo an ideal place for University of Arizona researchers to study how humans in the Southwest have dealt with wildfires over the centuries.

With backing from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the USDA under a four-year, $1.5 million grant, the UA-led team includes experts in tree-ring science, fire ecology, forest fire behavior, archaeology, anthropology and education.

The team’s goal is to figure out how to keep forests healthy using prescribed burns and other methods to minimize the destructive power of large fires. This goal will become increasingly important as drought conditions make woodlands more likely to burst into flames.” [Read more]

###

Jerry Kosmeder picks up trash along the Santa Cruz River. Photo by Curt Prendergast.

“Bright-blue trash bags dotted the Santa Cruz River on Saturday morning as more than 120 volunteers cleaned up the river south of Rio Rico.

The cleanup was organized by Friends of the Santa Cruz River (FOSCR) and sponsored by the Anza Trail Coalition of Arizona, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) and Rio Rico Properties. The 123 volunteers, who ranged from Green Valley retirees to a Tucson-based Boy Scout troop, packed everything from disintegrating sofas to empty water bottles into two dumpsters donated by Santa Cruz County.

David Burkett, a lawyer, came all the way from Scottsdale to pitch in.

“I spend a lot of time in the desert,” he said. “It’s time to give back.” [Read more]

###

Photo by Marisa Gerber.

“Last summer, as the Murphy Complex Fire raged through Santa Cruz County, charring almost 70,000 acres of wildlands, there was a crew of firefighters who wanted to help out, but couldn’t.

Nogales, Sonora’s 110-man cadre of firefighters was ready to come lend a hand in Arizona but couldn’t, due to a lack of proper training.

This week, in a trial run for what officials hope will become an ongoing training collaboration, a crew of Sonoran firefighters spent four days in Rio Rico for an all-in-Spanish crash course in how to fight forest fires.

Louis Chaboya, special projects manager for the Tubac Fire District, said he remembers getting a call from Eduardo Canizales, fire captain and civil protection director for Nogales, Sonora, last summer during the Murphy fire.

“Louie, we’re ready to go. What do you need?” [Read more]

###

–

Nogales, AZ — It looks like President Obama didn’t have to pull an all-nighter to get his message on immigration ready for the State of the Union address.

Photo courtesy White House.

Here are his comments on immigration in Tuesday’s State of the Union address:

“Let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hard-working students in this country face another challenge: the fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through-and-through. Yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business, and science, and engineering. But as soon as they get their degree we send them home, to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. That doesn’t make sense.

I believe as strongly as ever that we should take on illegal immigration, that is why my administration has put more boots on the border than ever before. That’s why there are fewer illegal crossings than when I took office. The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. (Applause) But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.” (Watch it here, during minutes 23:40-25:30)

These comments echoed, almost word-for-word, his State of the Union address in 2011:

“One last point about education.  Today, there are hundreds of  thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American  citizens.  Some are the children of undocumented workers, who had nothing to do with the actions of their parents. They grew up as  Americans and pledge allegiance to our flag, and yet they live every day with the threat of deportation.  Others come here from abroad to study  in our colleges and universities.  But as soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us.  It makes no sense.

Photo courtesy White House.

Now, I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration.  And I am prepared to work with  Republicans and Democrats to protect our borders, enforce our laws and  address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the  shadows.  (Applause.)  I know that debate will be difficult.  I know it  will take time.  But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort.  And  let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who could be  staffing our research labs or starting a new business, who could be  further enriching this nation.  (Applause.)” (Watch it here)

Immigration was not mentioned in the GOP response to this year’s address, delivered by Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (Watch it here), nor was it mentioned by President Obama when he spoke at an Intel plant in Chandler, Ariz. on Wednesday (Watch it here).

###