The Water Information Program

Someday, Colorado River wetlands could be used to secure the border with Mexico. A group of southwestern Arizona leaders wants permission from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to create a marshland along the lower Colorado River south of Yuma by clearing out thick brush, adding steep levees and flooding dry riverbanks. The plan has support from the Mayor of Yuma, Yuma County sheriff and Cocopah tribal chairwoman. They wrote Chertoff about the plan in late September just as conventional riverside fence construction was starting. Chertoff was asked to halt the fence and use the money to flood a 435-acre area known as Hunter's Hole. Locals say it's become an overgrown haven for smugglers and drug dealers and a favorite dumping place for bodies. Border Patrol officials in Yuma backed the plan in an August letter because the river is the busiest crossing in the Yuma Sector. They described how smugglers hide in the weeds and cross the water on sandbag bridges. If the feds approve it, the plan is to flood Hunter's Hole by building levees and using groundwater pumps.

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