$3.9 million per mile for the Fence in Name Only
Border security you can’t believe in, via the AZ Star:
The flurry of fencing erected along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past three years by the Department of Homeland Security has cost more than expected, a government report shows.
The 140 miles of pedestrian fencing put up under the Secure Border Initiative prior to Oct. 31 of last year cost an average of $3.9 million per mile with costs ranging from $400,000 to $15.1 million a mile, a Government Accountability Office report released Thursday found.That per-mile average is more than the $3 million estimated by the Congressional Budget Office in August 2006 and much more than the $2.2 million estimated by the Senate used during the immigration reform debate that same year. Even the highest estimate at the time, $3.2 million per mile from U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., ended up being too low.
Pedestrian fences, sometimes called primary fences, are 10-foot-or-higher steel barriers designed to stop or slow down people on foot.
Richard Stana, director of homeland security issues at the Government Accountability Office, said the GAO carried out the report to answer an intriguing question: If Homeland Security would have used the $393 million appropriated to the SBInet virtual fence project in fiscal years 2007-08, how many more miles of physical barriers could have been built?
The answer: 73 miles of pedestrian fencing or 232 miles of vehicle barriers; or 36 miles of pedestrian fences and 116 miles of vehicle barriers, the report says.
Project 28, the Boeing Co.-led virtual-fence test project anchored by nine camera and radar towers along a 28-mile stretch of border flanking Sasabe, Ariz., was delayed eight months by glitches and plagued with problems, a previous GAO report found. The second generation of virtual fences was scheduled to go up in late 2008, but the work was abruptly halted in August.
In reviewing Customs and Border Protection estimates of total contracts for fencing segments — the GAO did not independently verify or validate the information — the report offers a preliminary analysis of the actual costs of the biggest and fastest buildup of border barriers in U.S. history.
“It gives you an idea of what the fence is going to cost,” Stana said of the report.
Final costs are still pending.
The report only calculates the cost of the miles finished before Oct. 31 of last year.
Earlier this week, Homeland Security officials said the agency has brought the total miles of primary fencing and vehicle barriers along the Southwest border to 601 miles, 69 miles short of the goal of 670 miles set during the Bush administration. That means there are more than 200 miles of fencing put up whose costs have not been calculated.
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I need a Joe Arpio (sp) for President bumper sticker.
Has anyone ever explained why Boeing got the contract? I thought they were an airplane company.
Give the contract to a security and fence company!
Well, at $49.99 per rivet…
FINO?
I think Sears could put up some chainlink over the weekend – but would it have fly-by-wire?
Can’t they just dig a trench and make a moat with all that blue airplane-toilet water?
The primary responsibility of the U.S. government is to protect the territorial integrity and people of this country. They have completely abdicated this responsibility. Both parties have been complicit in this. We are being told it is not possible to control our borders, enforce our laws, and thereby control our destiny as a nation. Hogwash. We are being sold out by corporations intent on importing workers for jobs that can’t be exported with the taxpayers paying the true costs, financial and human. If we act like sheep and don’t stop the inundation across our borders, we will lose our country without a bleat.
It probably wouldn’t cost so much if they weren’t doing so much experimenting with unique technology. It’s just to simple for these people to put up two 10-foot fences with a minefield in between, for about $100,000 or so a mile.
How come when we catch illegal aliens we can’t make them work on the fence? That would cut down the labor costs substantially. Plus it would be funny as heck.
3.9 per MILE??? What are they making it with? gold?
Brought to you by the same people who want to run your health care.
It is time for Americans to arm themselves not only against the Hussein regime but against the flood of illegal aliens certain to come under the Hussein regime.
Yes, I said arm.
I know somebody has mentioned this before, but South Korea has a pretty good fence along the DMZ, and I don’t see no stinkin’ 2 million North Koreans sneaking in every year.
That turns out to be $768 per linear foot. This does not take into account the depth of work involved but just linear feet here. I imagine the bulk of the cost went to paying the people to place the fence there.
http://www.dhs.gov/xprevprot/programs/border-fence-southwest.shtm
What we need to do is build a few trebuchets (tre-boo-cheys) and use them to hurl illegal aliens back to where they came from!
These rather marvelous machines were used as seige engines and could hurl large stones or other objects against fortress walls. They were also used to hurl infected animal carcasses into the city — biological warfare!
In one example of their use, a spy from within a city under seige came out to watch how they worked (so they might be disabled). When the spy was found out, they used the trebuchet to send him back to whence he came — strong message, eh?!?!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trebuchet
Here’s the thing about that virtual fence. The sensor systems they set up were completely blind except in ideal weather conditions. It doesn’t rain that often in the southwest, but dust storms happen frequently. When they did, the system was blind.
I’m not supposed to tell you any of that, but I know an engineer who worked on the program.
Did it cost Israel this much per mile to build their fence?
I’ve noticed that since they fenced off the paleostinians, the number of suicides in Israel has dropped to near nothing.
I don’t think Mexican fruit pickers are as motivated to circumvent the fence as hamas terrorists.
So let’s pay the Israelis to build it for us.
*(sigh)*
Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to mindlessly, recklessly spend other people’s money?
12 million illegals…say that 25% are working; that’s 3 million jobs that Americans should have. And guess what, that puts us right near full employment.
A lot of people would argue that these are jobs Americans won’t do…but that’s only because the wages aren’t that great. Take away illegal labor, and the wages for these jobs go up. I know that prices then rise as well, but the fact is, we’ve all been living a little better than we ought to because of illegal labor. Frankly, I’d rather spend a little more on the things I buy and have a healthy full employment economy (that’s based on a free market and not some socialist intervention) than continue down the road we’re on.
So where are America’s unions on this one? Supporting lax and illegal immigration of course…because that’s what the democrats want and union leaders want some union-enabling legislation passed. What a sell-out…but not really comparable to unions’ support of the Dem’s green initiatives that will kill another million union jobs around the automotive industry. It’s par for the course…unions sold out their people during the Carter administration, killing thousands upon thousands of jobs as Carter closed the steel industry with the Clean Air Act.
Sounds like a long ramble, but the point is…is there anyone that actually represents working Americans any longer?
Freaking ridiculous!!! How in the h*ll can a fence cost over $3M per mile? Put up chain link fence, as mentioned above, along with rolled razor wire, give the BP orders to give 1 warning to any tresspasser then shoot to kill. After about 10 poor soles lost their lives, word would spread like wildfire that the dumb*ss gringos are finally serious. All future illegal crossings would come to a halt. I don’t care if it is inhumane. Enough is enough. Ah, I see why it cost so much now. It’s a PC fence that can’t be allowed to cause a hangnail on the invaders.
Prisoners, chain gang, steel, hammer.
Michelle,
Please keep us updated on the vote for RNC Chair. We need to start a Conservative Party if they are determined to be Whigs.
To be clear, the virtual fence is Boeing, the “hard” fence is another contractor.
Further, the Boeing virtual fence was not blind, per se, not anymore blind than an aircraft using radar in rain.
AZ is a low precipitation area so rain really insn’t an issue.
The Boeing SBInet system is a complex system of sensors that feed data into a common operating picture (COP). This picture helps the Sectors determine who is best positioned to respond, and besides, the SBInet system does look across the border, thereby allowing BP Agents to respond before the entry occurs.
The effectiveness of the sensors is already proven. You see, the CBP requested a tower go down as “it isn’t needed, no one comes through there.” Tower went away and within a month the CBP wanted it back because the aliens were flooding through the gap. The other side knows the sensors and they are avoiding them–kind of like a minefield in battle, marked and used to shape the battlefield, not necessarily kill the enemy.
The cost bogey that everyone is focusing on is the hard fence, and we should not confuse that hardware with the Boeing monitoring and detection system (”Virtual Fence” is such a wrong name and sends all the wrong signals and creates the wrong impression).
With over 800 miles of border to cover, SBInet fielded a 28 mile stretch to test concepts and refine what works and improve what we need to cover the border. You don’t introduce new technology without a field test under operational conditions. In the case of Project 28, the test did what is was supposed to do and improvements were made and it is a great system.
Besides confusing the hard fence with the electronic detection system, people should be wary of the hype coming out about this, as CBP is a novice about getting the word out.
The reluctance towards SBInet is mostly the Agent union, as they view the system as a threat to their jobs and not a tool to be used to help them do their jobs.
The younger BP Agents understand technology and like SBInet, the “older” guys do not.
Hire a group of Mexicans to build it. It will cost 1 mil per mile and we can use the balance to fund the UN.
ah yes, but we managed to build a border fence between Egypt and Gaza. That’s right I said WE as in the good ol’ USA. So it can be done.
I will happily volunteer to man that trebuchet.
I don’t see how much was STOLEN anywhere?????
And I’m sure there was plenty…never mind that the supposed finished fence is anything but….it is not the double layered fence proposed…..And now when Mexico collapses the floodgates won’t have to open because the welcome mat is out -as always!
On January 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm, Hulka said:
So are you saying you’re a Power Point engineer for Boeing?
It’s easy – cause to build a fence you have to put up fence posts, and to put up fence posts have to know how to make fence post holes.
Speaking as someone who spent most of their adult lives working on Boeing products I can safely say that the choice of Boeing was a good choice. Their products punch very nice holes in the ground
You have the answer and it doesn’t cost no steeenking 3 $M a mile either… .45 caliber bullets aren’t that expensive that I know for fact.
Truth is our government rep’s for the most part could care less about what “we the people” have to say or think. We just pay the freight.
Sounds like the same people are building this fence that put $800.00 toilet seats in airplanes. Let’s put all these illegals to work and just make sure they are on the south side of the fence when it is built. The real problem is the libs don’t want a fence because eventually all these illegals will be voting for them so they can stay on the government handout rolls.
we need the fence in reality now more then ever, this fence should have been put up years ago. we will be sorry we let “Commerce trump Security” or in the Democrats case, pandering to an underclass they are creating out of non citizens.
Nope.
Are you some union hack trying to mindlessly kill something you don’t understand?
Me? I don’t work the program, don’t work DHS, CBP or BP. I’m just someone that has read a lot of OMB reports, the RFPs (FOIA, ya’know), understand the nature of the IDIQ contract (do you?), read press reports and press releases. Oh, and my son in a Border Patrol Agent and we talk.
This sort of research helps one understand exactly what the program was designed to do, what the measures of merit are and if it is performing.
Are you alleging Boeing builds the physical fence?
Are you saying the Radar and IR imaging (with a topo over-lay) is not effective?
Are you also confusing the MSS trucks with a Boeing product?
Do you know what the MSS truck is?
Have you done research on the program?
With my son on the line I most certainly would not be arguing for the program if it wasn’t good and wasn’t effective, and didn’t improve the safety and effectiveness of the Agents. No way I would do that.
Look, lots of stuff needs looking at, for sure, and it is a duty to learn all you can about a subject so you don’t make basic mistakes or misunderstand the subject.
With limited agents to cover the entire border, north and south, we can continue to do what we have done, which was pretty much effective back in the day before the flood of illegals began. But that limits coverage because the number of Agents are not nearly enough to cover the entire border the entire time (notwithstanding the recent hiring binge that I am sure you knew about. . .right?)
Like running Combat Air Patrols, we use an AWACS to help detect and direct assets to protect airspace. Why not the same concept on the ground, with SBInet AWACS and the Border Patrol Agents the fighter pilots.
Like I said earlier, CBP is not good at dealing with the press and that is a major problem in stopping misinformation from spreading.
Have a nice day.
On January 30th, 2009 at 2:43 pm, Hulka said:
I didn’t mean to offend or imply that. It’s just that I used to do work for various defense research agencies and their contractors, and when you mentioned Common Air Picture stuff it raised my hackles a bit.
I can’t tell you how much money I’ve seen personally wasted by Power Point engineers at Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Teledyne Brown and so forth.
They spend ALL of their time tweaking words on those damned charts so they can convince people to give them money, instead of building cruise missiles or body armor or whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing.
Engineers in a never-ending quest for “billable hours.” They’ll throw out words like “COTS” (Common Off The Shelf) to make it seem like they’re saving us money. What a load.
The whole thing is frankly a huge racket, and the whole thing on the border smells like Power Point engineering to me, and your research into the matter only seems to confirm it for me.
Yes, I’ve seen on the military side all sorts of “spaghetti charts” showing how AWACS talks to F16 and F16 talks to F22 and all of this somehow gets boiled down into an IAD (integrated air defense) and the Predator looks real pretty on the chart too, and blah blah blah.
Meanwhile they (and by they I mean Homeland Defense) could’ve just poured some damn concrete, thrown a bunch of $100 COTS web-camers up every 100 yards with motion sensors, and been DONE.
THEN they could make spaghetti charts and done research into a common air + ground picture blah blah.
Didn’t mean to come off so hard, just that my son is in the business and because of that, I track it very closely and it bothers to see a lot of mis-reporting going on.
Understand about the PowerPoint Ranger thing. Too much convincing going on and not enough doing.
I am troubled, however, by your statement that the ” . .whole thing is frankly a huge racket, and the whole thing on the border smells like Power Point engineering to me, and your research into the matter only seems to confirm it for me.”
Not sure I follow.
I research and learn about something, and even talk with a guy that uses the stuff (one of the young and educated in the Border Patrol), and this somehow confirms the program is a waste? Perhaps I misunderstand.
Maybe because I perhaps sounded like one of those engineer types that it possibly tripped a switch of yours and lite-up the “B.S.” meter.
Engineers are wonderfully brilliant guys, and really passionate about their stuff. Heck, I have worked with a guy so smart that you would believe he thought in binary code and when you asked him what time it is, he would go into the whole theory of time. Nice guy, though.
To me the engineers aren’t really the problem. It is the marketing guys.
(Oh, and I think “COTS” means “Commercial-Off-the-Shelf)
Yep, we are truly not a serious nation anymore. Cross train Border Patrol Agents with ICE and start raiding businesses. Install more cameras with ground surveillance radar along the border, and deploy some A-130’s and/or A-10’s, and you can rest assured things will work out much cheaper with much more fun.
Boeing is a surveillance radar company, the virtual fence uses surveillance radar to work. Think attack planes and target identification radars.
With the way the Mexican drug gangs are going, it is going to be reasonable that Boeing help Lockheed build a few AC-130s to help out on the border.
Nacho-Man: I saw a program about them and, believe it or not, some guy convinced his girlfriend to let him “toss” her into a net (like the carnival act with a human cannonball) using his homebuilt trebuchet.
Although I have seen these things toss pianos several hundred yards, he set her up for a 50 yard toss.
Problem is, they forgot the action – reaction part of things and although she safely landed in the net, the rebound by the net threw her on the ground, breaking her hip!
Wonder where their relationship is now?
Put a camera on a pole, linked to a .50 or a 20mm, and remote it to the local bar.
Winners get beers and the losers have to go reload the ‘cameras’.
Hell, you could sell time on the things and make money.
LMAO. The best idea of the day.
I am afraid that trebuchet would be used from the other side to launch the illegals into the USA. kind of like the pole vault in a prison yard.
what they should do is to deport politicians who aid and abet illegals. from the top down to the local yokels
Would’ve been a whole lot cheaper in 1986, in one whole helluva lot of different ways.
Much cheaper alternative:
Claymores zig-zagging the length of the border. Add sharks-with-lasers, and Infrared detector-activated 50 caliber machine guns. Oh, and release hyenas, dingo, and rottweilers into the area.
Can’t we just land mine the damn area and erect a few thousand warning signs.
Never mind the mines. Just put up the signs/sarc
Kinda “History of the World” like.
“Pull”
Hopefully not procreating.
Looks like R.I.N.O. Fencing Inc just went out of business.
O.B.A.M.A. Fencing is the new Non-Profit business… Open Borders Accepting Millions for Amnesty.
I hate to ask the obvious, but oh….
Why don’t we use material on hand in the region to build something like a cithidel wall? Worked for the Chinese, a hell of alot cheaper too. But nope we have to pay $200 bucks for a hammer, $600 for a pole its the American way!
Remind me to call Boeing the next time I need an aerodynamic fence that virtually does not work.
Thanks for sharing your ignorance about the program.
Perhaps a little research on the subject might help.
Start with Posts 31 and 33.
Those posts will provide to you background on the concept and employment–how it works.
So. Moving forward, there are 69 more miles to be built, and then the 670 mile goal will have been met. The border is 2000 miles long. If you want the whole thing to be fenced, you’ll have to ask Barry, Harry, and Nancy for the money.
The Border Patrol is desperately trying to fill it’s staff. They’ve expanded greatly, but they have trouble getting and keeping employees.
If you really want to help, why don’t you apply for a job with them? They’ve built several huge new stations along the border, but they don’t have the people they need.
If it cost $3.9 mill/mile to fence 601 miles, just think what it would cost to fund a program to fence the rest of the border. Fencing canyons and reservoirs would be even more expensive. The parts they’ve fenced were the easy parts.
cabrerski said:
Exactly.
I see that your comment flew over the head of someone else though.
Guys,
Lighten up!!! I have to live next to it. I may not like it but its here. Besides, living in the vicinity gives a different perspective.
But since I am ignorant and you do not understand comedy, I will use the //sarc off comment next time.
Sheesh!! I thought for a minute I was on the Democratic Underground website.
Thanks, JHSII.
Nice to know someone gets it