Federal agencies pull permits for water stations in Arizona desert
TUCSON, Ariz. (KVOA) — Federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are not renewing permits for 12 water stations in the Arizona desert run by local nonprofit Humane Borders.
The group says the stations are critical to preventing deaths in extreme heat. The decision affects about 30 percent of Humane Borders’ typical operations.
Dora Rodriguez was just 19 years old when she fled El Salvador trying to escape civil war and find safety. She was part of a group of 26 migrants who lost their way in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument more than 40 years ago.
Federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are not renewing permits for 12 water stations in the Arizona desert run by local nonprofit Humane Borders.
“As a 19-year-old that has not left home ever, to an unknown place seeking safety, running for my life to be protected from a civil war that was running in my country, El Salvador, it was devastated to find myself five days later dying of thirst,” Rodriguez said.
“Because we ran out of water, we couldn’t have our own urine anymore. We drink our pee in order to survive,” Rodriguez said.
Decades later, Rodriguez says water is still a matter of life and death in the desert. The 55-gallon blue barrels marked by 30-foot blue flags are operated by Humane Borders, which places the stations where migrant deaths have occurred.
The National Park Service denied six of those stations at Organ Pipe, saying they could give migrants a “false sense of security” and encourage them to travel deeper into dangerous terrain. The Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are not renewing permits for the remaining six stations.
“Our water stations do not lead. They follow. Long before there was a blue water station, there is a ton of red death dots. Someone has died there,” said Octavio Fuentes, executive director of Humane Borders.
Humane Borders says 16 migrant remains have been found at Organ Pipe so far this year. For Rodriguez, the fight is personal.
“This is not about immigrants or illegals or criminals, this is about a human being,” Rodriguez said.
Humane Borders says it has a tight deadline to remove the 12 stations and hopes to get those permits renewed in the future.