Marijuana bundles hidden in hollowed-out stacks of industrial lime in Del Rio, Texas on March 3, 2012. Photo: Customs and Border Protection
Working a Border Patrol checkpoint can be an exhausting job. There’s the Southwestern heat, long hours, and drug smugglers. Adding to the stress is the job of fetching drug bundles by the dozen out of toxic waste containers.
The drug cartels, it turns out, are moving their merchandise in tanker trucks containing “various forms of industrial hazardous waste,” according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). And so the border security agency announced it’s seeking proposals from contractors who can deploy toxic waste decontamination teams to two checkpoints in south Texas. Border Patrol agents aren’t adequately trained to extract drug packages hidden in toxic liquids, solids and sludge.
“Past history has shown that contraband may be hidden in conveyances transporting materials considered hazardous waste,” a recent solicitation stated. “CBP agents do not have the expertise or training to safely extract the contraband and decontaminate it for future use as evidence in legal proceeding. The contraband has to be extracted and decontaminated on site under the supervision of CBP agents who will take control of all the contraband once the extraction and decontamination process is completed.”
This toxic stew includes oil, drilling fluids and wastewater used in gas and oil wells, among “other substances found in industrial transportation vehicles.” Wastewater used in drilling wells can include a nasty mix of chemicals including benzene, a petroleum by-product which can cause leukemia and bone marrow disease. Another chemical — although there are dozens of examples (.pdf) — is calcium hydroxide powder, used in drilling mud and commonly known as slaked lime. Get enough of it into your eyes, and you’ll go blind. Note to drug users: the cartels will haul dozens of marijuana bundles at a time in this stuff over hundreds of miles.
CBP doesn’t estimate how many hazmat teams it needs for its checkpoints. The numbers are to be “specified on individual orders” for two interior checkpoints named Falfurrias and Sarita, located about 70 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border. (CBP claims Falfurrias is its top checkpoint for drug busts.) These are also interior checkpoints, away from the border and designed to stop travelers along the main highways headed north. For car drivers, an agent will typically ask whether you’re a U.S. citizen and your destination. Eighteen-wheel-trucks can be scanned by drive-through X-ray machines.
If a scan picks up what looks like a drug shipment inside an industrial tanker truck, the contractors will deploy vacuum trucks that suck out any hazardous chemicals. The teams, wearing protective suits and respirators, then physically step inside the tanker and haul out the drugs. Standard practice is to usually put the chemicals back into the trucks, but sometimes the chemicals are taken away and disposed separately. To prevent contractors from violating environmental laws, they are required to “dispose of all waste at a disposal or recycling facility properly permitted to accept the material.” If there’s a spill, the contractor has to clean it up.
In the meantime, the Border Patrol is beefing up its presence in Texas. The Guardian recently reported that the cartels are “increasingly looking for safe passage in remote parts of south Texas” due to a step-up in enforcement by agents in Arizona — a traditional drug-trafficking hotspot. An oil boom in south Texas spurred along by fracking — which uses concentrated blasts of water to crack open rock that contains oil and gas — has also led to a proliferation of new backroads used by smugglers. The cartels have even taken to stealing and copying trucks owned by energy companieswho’ve moved into the area.
Which means working those border checkpoints might get even busier. Perhaps the vacuum-armed hazmat teams can make fetching drugs out of toxic waste a little safer. LINK
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