NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y., Feb. 8 (UPI) -- The last time Old Fort Niagara was garrisoned to face an enemy coming from Canada was in the war of 1812. From its battlements, the United States launched an attack on Fort George, less than a mile across the Niagara River and in the next two years of war it was to be bombarded a score of times and finally ignominiously overrun by British soldiers in a night attack.
Long before the American Revolution, this windswept pinnacle of land has been an outpost of the nation against danger from the Canadian frontier.
It has seen battles in the French Indian Wars, the American Revolution and the war if 1812.
But for the past 188 years, the more than 4,000-mile border between the United States and Canada has been called the "longest unguarded border in the world," reflecting the closeness of the two nations and why after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the United States faces an enormous task securing this vast land barrier against terrorist intrusion.
In December, President Bush announced a $10.7 billion border security budget, an increase of $2.1 billion over 2002, which will pay for large increases in the numbers of people watching U.S. borders and in the resources and equipment that they can rely upon.
The regular traffic across the U.S., Canadian and Mexican land borders tunnels through "ports of entry," including several bridges here. El Paso, Texas; San Ysidro, Calif; Detroit, St. John's, Vt., are well-known border crossing points, but between these ports are vast miles of open country, where entering the United States may be a matter of crossing a field or hiking through a forest or crossing a street.
In the Northeast alone, there are dozens of unmanned, remote border points, which may only have a video camera recording individuals entering and leaving the country. On the Southern border, the Border Patrol has sewn thousands of electronic censors that can pick up foot and vehicle traffic crossing remote areas and pinpoint it on monitors, but there are far less of these along the Canadian border.
Take the Niagara River. This gorge like river runs 35 miles from Niagara Falls to Lake Ontario. Only 500 yards to 600 yards wide at its widest point, the river has long been a transfer point for smugglers. A house on the American bank was a station on the underground railway where escaped slaves were smuggled into Canada.
Smuggling from Canada now brings illegal aliens, Chinese, Koreans, Bosnians, Arabs. "Every country under the sun," says Michael E. Przybyl, assistant chief patrol agent. They come across the vehicle bridges, rail bridges, in small boats and large.
Native Americans from Canadian and American tribes smuggle hydrophonic marijuana raised on reservations and drug smuggling groups like this busy summer waterway for heroin, cocaine and pills.
"Any of those smugglers could bring a terrorist along," Kelly points out.
Yet along this same river are two major targets for terrorism: the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant that use water from Niagara Falls to generate 2.4 million kilowatts, serving millions of people in New York and Ontario.
To guard this section of river frontier alone, the Border Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard combined after Sept. 11 to run a river patrol on a 24-hour basis, requiring some 12 men on 8-hour shifts.
Senior Border Patrol Agent Adrian Cotsworth, 30, of San Diego is part of one three-man team noses his $200,000, 27-foot Sea Ark patrol boat away from a slip at the old fort and begins another icy patrol that will take him and his two companions down the Niagara River almost to the base of Niagara Falls.
On the left seat is Supervisory Patrol Agent Kevin M. Kelly, 35, of Buffalo, N.Y., and on the open deck behind is their Coast Guard counterpart, Boatswain's Mate Third Class, David Jenkins, 25, of Pittsburgh.
Though the river is free of ice, a swimmer would last only minutes in its current and the three men have suited up carefully, donning special survival suits, sealed to keep air close to their bodies and give them as long a chance as they can in the water. The suits have built-in flotation devices and packs that would send out a beacon and radio signal to bring rescuers.
Only last March, two Coast Guardsmen died of hypothermia a few hundred yards from here after their patrol craft overturned in the waves. The men were in the water nearly 4-1/2 hours before rescuers arrived. Two other Coast Guardsmen survived. Jenkins said it was believed that the two who died had not sufficiently sealed their survival suits before starting the patrol and freezing water was allowed to seep in when their craft capsized in the waves.
The Niagara River, like Afghanistan's Kandahar or Kabul, is a frontline of the war on terrorism and the joint day-and-night patrols of the U.S. Border Patrol and the Coast Guard along this rocky gorge were instituted within days of the terrorism attacks on Sept. 11.
For all the millions of illegal aliens that have crossed the Southern U.S. border, Canada's liberal immigration policy has allowed numerous known terrorists to enter Canada and gain citizenship or resident credentials that would facilitate entering the United States.
Before Sept. 11, winter patrols were an occasional thing, but now, on a schedule that is a closely guarded secret, the Buffalo sector of the Border Patrol runs these patrols jointly with the Coast Guard on a "24/7" basis.
"There has never been coordination like this," argues young Jenkins. "We are learning their skills and they're learning ours."
But it also means that Border Patrol and Coast Guard boats are in the water about twice as much as they were before Sept. 11 and shore patrols are also much heavier.
Nevertheless, the key problem to this enforcement is manpower. The Border Patrol's Buffalo sector alone has miles of Lake Ontario shoreline to monitor. In the winter the lake traffic is light, but in the summer the lake is one of the most popular boating areas in the country and hundreds of Canadian boats cross and land everyday.
Beyond the Buffalo sector, up through New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, there are hundreds of roads, trails and other remote entry points. Many small border stations are not even manned and the amount of sensors and video scanners deployed are a tiny fraction of those across the 1,800-mile Mexican border to the South.
As the Sea Ark roars south through the roiling rapids, Kelly points out where only a few weeks ago a boatload of Chinese were landed at night.
"Our boats coordinate shore units," said Przybyl. "They spot the suspects going ashore and direct officers in cars to the spot."
Often he said, the smuggler is Canadian and will try to get back to the Canadian side.
"We have a great working relationship with Canadian officials and we can direct them to where the boat lands and they can snag the suspect," he said.
The Niagara River runs south to north, one of those strange anomalies of nature, and as the Sea Ark gets closer to Niagara Falls, the water gets rougher and rougher pitching the little boat back and forth. Kelly points out the beginning of the most crucial part of their patrol, two giant power plants, the Robert Moses Niagara Power plant on the U.S. side and the Sir Adam Beck Generating Station on the Canadian, which supply electrical power throughout the region.
Despite the cold, snowy day, there are a dozen small boats with fishermen near the restricted area and they pull back when they see the Sea Ark.
"Our patrols," said Kelly "can communicate with the power plan security people."
The plants are vulnerable to explosives that could be fed into the giant out flow valves that dump water into the Niagara.
According to Kelly, this wouldn't work as well without the cooperation of private citizens on both sides of the border.
"We get calls all the time. They see a boat running without lights or some guy coming ashore in their yard, they call us," he said.
Irene J. Elia, mayor of Niagara Falls of New York, which forms the U.S. border says that's no accident.
"The week after Sept. 11," she said, "I formed a domestic preparedness task force, that organize everything from security at the Robert Moses to training for responders."
But for the population municipality of 60,000, which came on hard times three decades ago with economic retrenchment in the Buffalo region, the costs of fighting the war on terror have been acute.
Mayor Elia was in Washington in late January with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to meet with President Bush and Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.
"We need help," she said. "To meet our responsibilities as a border city."
Next: Next: Sept. 11 has changed the politics of immigration for now, and may change policies for a long time.
