Arizona

Ancient Native American Burial Site Blasted for Trump Border Wall Construction

Crews have been blasting the hillside at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona for sections of the federal government's barrier

Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Red-lettered signs warning of "BLASTING" began appearing over the past week at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a remote desert region in southwestern Arizona bordered by Mexico to the south and a Native American reservation to the east, NBC News reports.

Crews have been blasting the hillside while excavators and backhoes clear a path for the towering sections of border wall fast-tracked by the Trump administration — a pace that has environmental groups worried that sacred burial sites and ancestral lands are at risk of being irreversibly harmed.

Since 1976, the 516-square-mile park — home to more than two dozen unique species of cacti and countless wildlife — has been recognized as a UNESCO ecological preserve worth conserving.

"This is a new low even for the Trump administration," said Laiken Jordahl, a borderlands campaigner for the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona who has been documenting the altered landscape.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

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