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I Need to Get in on This Action…..
So a North Dakota company named Fisher Sand and Gravel has won a $400 million contract to build … wait for it … 31 miles of border wall.
Some thoughts:
That’s around $12.9 million per mile or $2,444 per foot.
If that budget is accurate then we are only looking at around $6.5 billion for the entire border. I know there isn’t going to be a wall on the entire border plus some sections would obviously be harder than others but I was just curious how the numbers looked.
Actually, I would love to see the scope and specs on this to see what was actually priced. That’s a bunch of money (seems like about twice what tilt wall concrete would be) but no one works cheap for the government and their specs can be ridiculous.
It says in the article that the company “claimed” that they can build the wall faster than the Corps of Engineers. I would say this is more a statement of fact than a “claim.” The Corps is part of the government and the government does not do “fast.”
Published in General
This is quite a remote area, southwest of the thriving metropolis of Ajo, Arizona. Ajo is serious boondocks, even compared to the boondocks that is my home town of Tucson.
As one of the guys at work remarked, “What does it matter? Mexico’s paying for it anyway.”
Interesting….in some instances a remote location is a perk rather than a bug (with the exception of lodging). Working in a metro area is much more expensive. Hard to judge without knowing exactly what they are building so I am going to look into that. A quick search seemed to show it’s some sort of steel bollard fence…..possibly on a concrete footing?
YAAAAAAASSSSS
They ought to drive piles 15 or 20 feet down to discourage tunneling.
Great…..now we are up to 500 million Randy!
Maybe they’re included.
Or does it go straight down sixty feet so they can’t tunnel under, either?
Instead of a massive wall, how about hardening up the border? When I am driving on I-8, I note that there is a 12 foot wall which goes up the side of the mountain, and then apparently nothing! So harden it up.
Where there is no barrier, put up barbed wire or vehicle barriers. Where there is barbed wire or vehicle barriers, put up a solid six foot wall. Where there is a six foot wall, put up a 12 foot wall. Where there is a 12 foot wall, put in a second wall, with a roadway in between the two walls. When folks are breaching the fence and/or wall, harden up.
This is not a black or white issue. A bit of shades of gray would make some sense.
Don’t forget the machine gun nests with plenty of ammo, and soldiers with nothing to all day but shoot stuff.
Guard towers. You need guard towers. With machine guns.
Minefields. You don’t really even need to lay the field, just act like you are and put a few charges out there. Then you set one or two off. That oughta keep them guessing.
Just the signs might be enough.
Probably. I’d do a couple explosions just to make the point.
I thought someone suggested sharks.
I think they have fresh-water sharks in Titicaca.
The hilarious part will be when Trump secures the border and the next Democrat POTUS just makes anybody crossing it an instant US citizen. What a waste.
At that price it’s a bargain.
We save at least that much in healthcare and welfare every year on illegals.
If I understand correctly (rarely a safe bet), there is a concrete footer and the bollards are filled with concrete.
And crocodiles, both in the moat dug in front of the wall.
A bombing range is part of the border and it doesn’t stop them.
Yes, a fairly substantial footing to make tunneling more difficult, if I understand the general concept correctly.
Bedrock is quite deep, 100’s to >1000 feet. On the other hand, you usually have to bust through a very hard-baked layer of caliche not far below the surface. The depth is going to be about stability of the structure above ground, allowing it to “float” upright in the soil/sand.
The anti-tunneling component is more likely to be sensors, either fixed or air/vehicle borne sweeping along the border.
Well they’re not always bombing are they?
No, but planned sorties have had to be postponed or cancelled because illegals get onto the range.
And that’s why I would never be President. They have some type of warning to stay off the range, right? You ignore the sign, you take your chances.
Agreed. There’s most likely unexploded ordnance as well so it’s not the best place to cross. If an illegal found some the hard way it would be the military’s fault even though the illegal shouldn’t be there.
The best border wall I can imagine is a perp walk of a US executive caught with 500 undocumented workers on his payroll.
Yeah that sounds about right. I know they have constructed several mock ups of concrete boarder wall but I think the steel bollard route is still what they are using. I think I read that the congressional funding requires any replacement walls to be the same type of construction as what they are replacing as well. (most of the new stuff is replacing existing)
The best thing we could do to stop illegal immigration is elect one of those lunatic dems running for president. When the economy tanks we may be all sneaking into Mexico at some point. hahaha