Read the full Watertown Daily Times Article Here!
 

It is inconceivable that the federal government’s ears could fall so deafly on the community’s resounding opposition to siting a massive Border Patrol station on Blind Bay.

The ecologically sensitive bay on the St. Lawrence River, where the elusive muskellunge spawn, has been the preferred site for a nearly 50,000-square-foot station for more than a year, but at two hearings in Clayton, scores of residents resoundingly rejected the government’s plans and presented a viable alternative.

On Oct. 30 the Watertown Daily Times reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials are still moving forward with plans to build a new Border Patrol station on Blind Bay, and recently rejected a community-driven proposal to site the project in an area in Collins Landing, just south and in the shadow of the Thousand Islands Bridge.

Local lawmakers and community members pitched the property — north of the cloverleaf interchange connecting Interstate 81 to Route 12 — as an ideal site to build the station. It’s close to the water, which CBP officials have expressed is a major requirement, and it’s relatively secluded, not near an environmentally sensitive region and it would not interrupt an undeveloped section of the shoreline, as residents of the towns of Clayton, Orleans and Alexandria have requested.

The location was brought up as a potential compromise for the new station in a series of community meetings held with CBP officials in August. Local lawmakers put forward a formal pitch to CBP officials shortly after those meetings.

But CBP officials summarily rejected the proposal without any formal consideration, and continue to study the Blind Bay property.

That is not only preposterous, it is downright rude.

There is no question of the need for a new border station, especially in this era of widespread illegal immigration that has been reported along northern border. And the community resoundingly respects and appreciates the Border Patrol agents who live and work here. But to take this pristine bay away by eminent domain from the Thousand Islands Land Trust, which purchased the property to keep it undeveloped in perpetuity, is among good reasons many these days not only distrust their government, but have disdain for it.

No representative of the north country from town to state to federal office has been in favor of this proposal. Going beyond that, the alternative proposal is considerate of the Border Patrol’s needs and should be explored.

In an email sent to state Assemblyman Scott A. Gray, R-Watertown, on Sept. 9, obtained by the Watertown Daily Times, a top CBP official said the bridge-adjacent property, identified by locals as the “cloverleaf” property, has been eliminated from consideration. Daniel Githens, chief of intergovernmental affairs for the CBP Commissioner’s Office of the Intergovernmental Public Liaison, said there are two key reasons why the property won’t work for CBP: The parcel isn’t directly on the water, and the plot is visible from above from the bridge.

Githens wrote that CBP officials are looking to be more effective, and respond more quickly when needed, than the current operation at Wellesley Island, and a parcel without direct waterfront access would increase response times.

“Placement beneath the Thousand Islands Bridge would enable individuals to monitor the property from a high vantage point without a means to counteract it, which would not comply with site security standards,” Githens wrote. “Therefore, this alternative has been eliminated from further consideration in the detailed study.”

That is poor reasoning.

Local officials aren’t satisfied with that response. They think CBP didn’t effectively review the property or what it could offer.

“These are reasons that, I would say, are less than satisfactory,” Gray said in an interview.

He said the concerns over waterfront access are overblown — the way the property is laid out and borders the bridge, a dock with water access is within 100 feet and there’s space to construct farther along the waterfront as needed. The area remains ice-free throughout the year, offering year-round water access that isn’t possible at Blind Bay or Dockside Cottages, the other property CBP has identified for potential development in Clayton.

As for the visibility and security question, Gray said the property would be situated relatively far from the bridge, so direct overhead access wouldn’t be possible. An analysis of other regional Customs and Border Protection stations across Northern New York shows they are often situated near vantage points that could make them easier to surveil, and many are easily observable. A ridge near Blind Bay presents potential security risks as well, which haven’t been identified by CBP officials.

Ultimately, Gray said he and others in the area feel that CBP isn’t listening in the way that was anticipated after the agency scheduled the public comment sessions in August.

“They didn’t seem very engaged the first day, and the second day they seemed a bit more conversant, and now they’ve given the appearance that it was perfunctory,” Gray said.

Until something concrete is heard from CBP officials, Gray said locals are likely not going to put together more site proposals.

“It’s maybe pointless to keep throwing locations up in front of them until we know they’re actually going to talk to us about them,” he said.

It is admirable that the Thousand Islands Land Trust, Save the River, Gray, Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., Rep. Claudia L. Tenney, R-Cleveland, and local officials and stakeholders have worked so hard to present a viable solution to this problem.

The bureaucrats driving this process must listen to them. To not even consider the Cloverleaf proposal is utterly disrespectful to all the residents of Northern New York.