CBP will host in-person public comment meeting regarding plans for new border patrol station

Apr. 16—FISHERS LANDING — U.S. Customs and Border Patrol will host a public meeting in the north country to discuss and take feedback on its plan to build a new Border Patrol station along the St. Lawrence River, reversing course on years of hearing public comments only by written statements.

In a press release Tuesday, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that CBP's acting commissioner Troy A. Miller had agreed to schedule a public meeting in the community to discuss the agency's plans, and to extend the public comment period to 45 days.

Just under two weeks ago, Schumer sent a letter to Miller demanding that the agency hold an in-person meeting, and on Tuesday morning spoke with Miller over the phone to confirm the meeting will go forward.

"CBP has wisely heeded my call and agreed to hold a public hearing on proposed sites for a new border patrol facility in the St. Lawrence River area so residents can have their voices heard — loud and clear," he said. "It is also a very good thing they have extended the public comment period to 45 days."

Since at least 2022, CBP has been moving forward with a plan to build a new Border Patrol station on the mainland, to replace its aging facility on Wellesley Island. CBP first identified a property on Blind Bay, in the town of Orleans, that quickly garnered significant public backlash.

Environmental advocates like Save the River expressed concern that CBP would need to dredge part of Blind Bay, which serves as one of just a handful of natural muskellunge fish breeding sites left in the St. Lawrence River.

The iconic fish, synonymous for years with fishing in the Thousand Islands, is not endangered, but its numbers in the St. Lawrence River have been decimated by the spread of viral hemorrhagic septicemia, an invasive viral infection first found in the Great Lakes in 2005.

Neighbors, both residential and commercial, to the Blind Bay site identified by CBP expressed concern that the agency's plans called for a facility that would ruin the character of the riverfront, which in that area is dominated by homes, cottages and vacation properties.

The Thousand Islands Land Trust, a local land conservation nonprofit, bought the Blind Bay property from its former owner and pledged to keep it "forever wild." They've fought CBP as the agency has tried to further evaluate the property with on-site studies, but TILT officials have expressed worry that CBP could use eminent domain to take control of the property anyway.

A slate of local officials including county legislator Philip N. Reed, Sr., R-Alexandria, state Assemblyman Scott A. Gray, R-Watertown and Congresswoman Claudia L. Tenney, R-Cleveland, have all come out publicly against the Blind Bay plan and said they want the local community to be given more of a voice in the site selection process.

TILT and Save the River have organized community letter-writing campaigns to submit in the 2022 public comment process for the Blind Bay site, and ongoing public opinion campaigns against the movement including billboards, T-shirts and continued letter-writing.

In January, CBP officials said they had identified a second location further west, in the town of Clayton, that fit many of their requirements, but said that the Blind Bay location would remain the primary site of interest. Neighbors and officials in Clayton have expressed similar levels of opposition to the CBP site there, which would be in the very middle of a rural, residential stretch of Route 12 along the riverfront.

The agency is in the process of creating a draft supplemental environmental assessment for the Clayton site, expected to be released sometime in "early 2024."

In his announcement, Schumer said that CBP is expecting to release more information about the public comment period in the coming weeks.

"For too long, CBP has kept North Country communities in the dark on plans for the new, proposed facility, but thanks to my all-out push they will now have more transparency, more information sharing and more opportunity to participate in the decision on the siting of a new facility," he said.