Part of Trump’s border wall at risk of collapse
just months after it was built
Part of the Trump administration’s border
wall between the US and Mexico is at risk
of collapsing just months after it was constructed,
new engineering reports claim.
The border wall, constructed at the shore
of Rio Grande, which forms part of the border
between the US and Mexico, is at risk of collapsing
due to construction flaws, new reports to
be filed in federal court this week allege.
The wall, that stretches three miles along
the river, was built earlier this year by
construction company Fisher Sand and Gravel,
who are based in North Dakota.
According to the documents, which were obtained
by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, sections
of the wall are at risk of collapsing if erosion
issues are not fixed and maintained.
Last year, Alex Mayor, a civil engineering
professor at the University of Texas, raised
concerns about the wall and said the project
is like a “$500 (£378) used car,” and
added: “It seems like they are cutting corners
everywhere.”
Tommy Fisher, the owner of the construction
company, dismissed any concerns of erosion
and said that “the wall will stand for 150
years,” according to the Tribune.
However, Mr Fisher agreed to an inspection,
when the the National Butterfly Centre and
the International Boundary and Water Commission
filed a lawsuit against the building of the
wall.
Construction still went ahead after the proceedings,
as a federal judge ruled that building could
not be halted until the potential negative
environmental impacts could be determined.
In one of the reports, that will be filed
later this week, environmental engineer Mark
Tompkins, concluded that heavy rain has caused
erosion at the border.
He wrote that “Fisher Industries private
bollard fence will fail during extreme high
flow events,” and called the construction
company’s maintenance inspection plans “completely
inadequate.”
In the second report, undertaken by Millennium
Engineers Group of Pharr, Texas, after an
inspection of the site, the organisation said
that the fence is stable at the moment but
will face problems in the future.
The organisation concluded that “the geography
at the wall’s construction location in comparison
to the river bend is not at a favourable location
for long-term performance.”
Speaking to the Tribune, Mr Fisher said that
he has not yet read the reports but claimed
his company has fixed the erosion issues,
partly by adding a road made of rocks next
to the wall that prevents border traffic from
displacing the structure.
He told the Tribune: “Bottom line, if you
want border security on the border you have
to think outside the box,” and added: “I
feel very comfortable with what we’ve done.”
The wall was partly funded by the We Build
the Wall campaign, who raised more than $25m
(£18.9m) to help the Trump administration’s
project, before its founder Brian Kolfage
and president Donald Trump’s former campaign
chairman Steve Bannon were indicted for fraud
related to the organisation.
Last month, Mr Bannon was indicted alongside
three others, for allegedly funnelling “hundreds
of thousands of dollars” from the We Build
the Wall online fundraising campaign to Mr
Kolfage.
We Build the Wall started as a GoFundMe campaign
in 2018, and was created to help raise money
from public funding to go directly towards
building the the US-Mexico border wall at
a time when the president was struggling with
Congress.
All four of the men have pleaded not guilty
and Mr Bannon claimed that “this entire
fiasco is to stop people who want to build
the wall”, as he left federal court in Manhattan,
New York, last month.
Mr Trump has attempted to distance himself
from the project, and told reporters last
month: “I know nothing about the project,
other than I didn’t like — when I read
about it, I didn’t like it.
I said, ‘This is for government.
This isn’t for private people’”.
