Boundary commission runs on tiny budget, despite 9-11

PORTLAND – A tiny agency that has fallen behind on its task of clearing and marking the U.S.-Canadian border hoped for a funding increase after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Instead, the International Boundary Commission continues to toil away in relative obscurity with a budget of less than $1 million, even as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol and U.S. Customs have received funding increases to boost border security.

Having enough money to clear trees and brush that have obscured the border in places would make it easier for agents to patrol the boundary, said Kyle Hipsley, the border agency’s acting U.S. commissioner.

“I guess people just assume that the boundary is clear,” he said from Washington. “They don’t realize what it takes to clear it.”

All told, the United States has six full-time employees and 15 summer workers devoted to maintaining the 5,525-mile border, which consists of thick woods along much of the 611-mile stretch in Maine. New Hampshire has 58 miles of mostly wooded border, while Vermont has 90 miles.

The U.S. workers, along with their Canadian counterparts, are responsible for slashing a 10-foot “vista” on either side of the border.

It looks something like a utility easement cut through the forest. There’s no fence, only occasional markers down the middle.

It’s a big job without a big budget for the agency, created by a 1925 treaty. The U.S. budget this year is $979,000, roughly the same as last year, and the Canadian budget is $800,000. After salaries, benefits and office expenses, both governments spent $380,000 apiece on the border last summer, Hipsley said.

Funding hasn’t kept pace with inflation, Hipsley said, and U.S. workers use aging equipment, much of which dates to the Vietnam War.

Last month, leaders of the commission decided enough was enough and moved to hire an independent consultant to study the boundary and report on funding levels needed to get the long-neglected agency back on track, Hipsley said.

Hipsley also hopes that the Bush administration will appoint a permanent commissioner who will lobby for additional funding.

Something needs to be done because the agency cannot fulfill the treaty mandate, and the job is all the more important in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, said Thomas Baldini, the past U.S. commissioner.

“This is such a small amount in the total context of the budget and it gets lost,” Baldini said from his home in Michigan.

A State Department official said the administration believes funding for the coming year is adequate for staffing and equipment needs. The budget is slated to be $1.143 million beginning Oct. 1.

Much of the increase presumably would go to the commissioner’s salary. The past commissioner did not draw a salary.

Taking into account inflation, the agency needs $1.25 million from the U.S. government in the coming year to be funded at the same level as in 1985, Hipsley said. But the agency would like an additional $500,000 to step up its efforts.

Crews now are supposed to clear brush and repair markers and monuments every 15 years. Because of the terrorist attacks, the agency would like to accelerate the schedule, cutting that time in half.

Al Arseneault, an engineer for the Canadian section in Ottawa, said funding has been inadequate for the past decade. And maintaining the border on the current budget was made more difficult when crews stopped using herbicides to cut down on regrowth of plants, he said.

In Big Twenty Township, at the extreme northern tip of Maine, for example, the rugged border terrain is overgrown with alders, maples and young spruce. The last time crews cleared the area was in 1986.

This month, U.S. crews will begin placing new markers along the St. Francis River on the Maine-New Brunswick border, and they’ll be rebuilding and updating the positions of markers in Montana and Minnesota. A contract team will be cutting down trees on the border in Washington state.

The Canadians will have a team clearing trees along the highlands between western Maine and Quebec, as well as a team removing fences and footbridges that encroached on the border in Point Roberts, Wash.