Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Border work has rural towns fearing viral spread
BILLINGS, Mont. — Major construction projects along the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico are raising fears the coronavirus could race through temporary work camps and spread to rural communities unable to handle an outbreak.
Despite a clampdown on people’s movements in much of the country, groups of workers travel every day from camps in New Mexico to build President Donald Trump’s border wall.
Along the northern border, a Canadian company says it will start work this month on the disputed Keystone XL oil pipeline, another Trump-supported project that could bring thousands of workers to rural communities in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.
Residents, tribal leaders and state officials have warned that the influx of outsiders could make problems worse in rural areas with little or no medical infrastructure capable of dealing with a surge of infections. The border wall and pipeline are exempt from stay-at-home restrictions.
While cities have borne the brunt of the virus so far in the U.S., rural areas are expected to be hit, too.
That’s a fear in tiny Columbus, New Mexico, where residents worry about border wall workers who often gather outside the town’s few restaurants despite an order to stay home and keep away from others.
In the town of less than 1,500 people, about 30 construction workers are living in tightly packed trailers, residents say. Others are staying at two small hotels while they put up bollardstyle fencing along the scrub desert — a small piece of about 200 miles of barrier being built at the U.S.Mexico border.
“My bottom line is nothing is worth thousands or hundreds or tens of people getting COVID,” said July McClure, who manages a local RV park and volunteers with the fire department.
Just south of the Canadian border, workers began arriving last month in the small Montana town of
Glasgow where they’ll stay during the 1,200-mile pipeline project. Keystone would carry up to 830,000 barrels of crude daily to a Nebraska terminal for refining or export through the Gulf of Mexico.
First proposed in 2008, the pipeline was rejected twice under President Barack Obama and revived by Trump. Alberta’s government said it’s investing more than $1 billion to get work going quickly.
Calgary-based TC Energy, the project’s sponsor, negotiated with health officials in Montana on a plan to minimize risks, including checking everyone entering work sites for fever and ensuring workers practice social distancing.
“Is it a perfect system? No. It’s the best we can do to protect the county and our workers from them and them from us,” said Anne Millard, health officer for Valley County, where the workers are staying.
The company had planned to build 11 camps housing up to 1,000 workers each along the pipeline’s route — six in Montana, four in South Dakota and one in Nebraska. Those plans are under review.