A couple of years ago I was working with the Border Patrol in Douglas Arizona to put in a broadband wireless network and I got to experience first hand some of the issues that they are experiencing down there.
In fact, the first summit register that I ever signed was College Peak, AZ. They helicoptered the gear up there, but the peak itself was so narrow that we had to hike up. The summit register was a jar that was attached to a stick with some wire.
Because of the drug trafficking in the area, we were always accompanied by a border patrol agent.
On the hike back down we were hit by an incredibly strong stench of death. When we hiked down further we ran into these two characters.
The border patrol agent changed our route down to avoid going to the source of the smell of death. The reasoning was that if we "knew" it was a human body, we would be stuck up there while he dealt with official procedures. He obviously had to report it and it was human corpse who was suspected to be a drug runner who fell victim to foul play.
Actually, when I was on top of this tower, I was attacked with rocks. There's actually a pretty funny story behind that, but it does show how brazen the drug and human traffickers on the border can be.
The article mentions that environmentalists are part of the issue in combating the drug trafficking on the border. That was my experience as well. The rig that we installed on the summit of College Peak, which is BLM land, required congressional influence to get it approved. The environmentalists fought it tooth and nail.
