Construction has begun on a defense contract to replace 15 miles of fencing along a training range in Arizona at the Mexico border with a new, taller barrier and an access road for federal border agents to patrol the area. (Screengrab from Department of Defense video)
Construction began Wednesday on a $230 million defense contract to replace 15 miles of fencing along a training range in Arizona near the Mexico border with a new, taller barrier and an access road for federal border agents to patrol the area.
The Pentagon funded the project by pulling military construction dollars from Army, Navy and Air Force projects across the globe.
The project protects the Barry M. Goldwater Range in San Luis, Ariz., which is used by the military services as an aviation training location, including support for operations of the F-35, F-16, A-10 and F/A-18, Jordan Gillis, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, said during a call with reporters Thursday.
“This is a project that represents both a national security investment and a safeguard to military readiness,” Gillis said. “When incursions occur and illegal border crossers get into that area, the ranges must close. That delays the training exercises, it diverts our time and our resources and ultimately impacts readiness.”
The Marine Corps assumed jurisdiction this year of some of the roughly 1.7 million-acre range from the Bureau of Land Management as part of the Trump Administration’s effort to transfer land along the southwest border into military-owned property. This allowed service members to begin patrols in the area for people who have crossed into the U.S. without authorization and circumvent a federal law that prohibits the military from conducting law enforcement activities outside of military property.
Army officials did not have an estimate of how frequently the range has been forced to close because people had entered it.
“I can tell you that because they do happen, whenever we are about to embark on range operations there, we have to spend a lot of time and effort and manpower doing a sweep to be sure that the range is clear,” Gillis said. “Whether it’s one or two or a dozen a year, we’ve got this safety mechanism in place that hopefully we can scale back on ... once the barrier is complete.”
Bozeman, Mont.-based company BFBC LLC was awarded the contract to build the barrier Aug. 15 and should finish the work by August 2026. It has received defense contracts in the past for barrier work along the border.
The funds were awarded through Section 2803, an emergency funding law that allows the military services to shift up to $50 million in military construction dollars to an emergency project. Roughly $174 million was obligated for the contract from fiscal year 2021 projects from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Defense Department, according to the Pentagon. The contract would reach the full amount of $230 million only if all options within it were maximized.
The Army moved funds from “uncommitted planning and design dollars,” Gillis said.
Defense Comptroller documents sent to Congress in May to approve the movement of funding stated that the Navy pulled funds from projects in Guam, California and Japan. The Air Force moved money from projects in Luxembourg, Germany, Mississippi and other unspecified locations, according to the documents.
Defense Department funds came from elementary school projects at Fort Knox, Ky., and Stuttgart, Germany, and other unspecified projects.
The range now has 12-foot mesh fencing, much of which has holes cut into it and is climbable, said Brig. Gen. John P. Lloyd, South Pacific Division commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who joined Gillis on the media call.
The new barrier will be 30-foot tall steel bollard border barrier with anti-climbing plates attached at the top, he said. It will also have vehicle access gates to allow federal agents with Customs and Border Protection to patrol the area. Construction also includes a new road with a secondary barrier.
Each panel is 8 feet by 32 feet and weighs about 9,000 pounds when filled with grout. A panel has eight steel bollards that are 6-by-6-inch squares with about 4 inches between them.
Crews can install about 40 panels a day, Lloyd said. In January, a second crew will join the effort, doubling to 80 panels a day. This should wrap up in April while work on the road and drainage features continues through August.
Under President Donald Trump’s first term in office, the military made similar movements of funding to construct border barriers. Since 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers has built about 450 miles of permanent border wall, Lloyd said.
