Last month, North American Union brainchild Robert Pastor issued a statement lamenting the lack of interest in the NAU, or the Security and Prosperity Partnership as leaders from the three North American nations called it in their 2004-2007 meetings.

Yet, the highway is a reality that will not go away; and it is coming whether we want it or not.

A statement on the “NASCO Speaks Out” page of the organisation’s web site observes, “NASCO (the North American Super-corridor Coalition, Inc.) was founded in 1994 as the ‘I-35 Corridor Coalition.’  At that time, we focused entirely on I-35 in Texas.  We were founded in north Texas at about the same time as NAFTA was enacted, because certain urban sections of I-35 already were beyond designed capacity, and we knew it was only going to get worse.”

Frank Conde, who sometimes goes by Francisco Conde, is the Special Projects and Communications Director for NASCO, and he said that his group is concerned about I-35, but they’re also concerned about other interstate systems as well.

A crucial detail in the web statement and those from Mr. Conde is the organisation’s founding shortly after the NAFTA was passed and signed by then President Bill Clinton in 1994.  This detail raises the question:  Is there a connection between NAFTA, a North American Union and the Super Corridor?

THE ROAD

NASCO is a group that was organised in Mr. Conde’s words, “To think of the existing infrastructure—to encourage people to think of the Interstate 35 corridor as a working unit—a living breathing entity.”

While a romanticised concept of the corridor seems to be attractive to Mr. Conde, he denies that there is any attempt to use the corridor as a super highway to enhance and empower an effort to create a North American Union.

U. S. House Transportation Committee spokesman Jim Berard also denies a NAU establishing road.  “There is nothing in the works or in any legislation to create a ten-lane NAFTA super highway running from Mexico to Canada.”

Mr. Berard’s denial agrees in principle with Mr. Conde.  The interesting detail is that this writer didn’t ask about a ten-lane highway.  Mr. Berard mentioned such an artery on his own initiative.

The Super Corridor as it has been developed will move from Laredo, Texas, through Dallas, to Kansas City, to Des Moines, Iowa then to Duluth, Minnesota and the Canadian border.

The new Interstate 69, the combination of the former U. S. Highway 59 and a series of connecting freeways, will run from Laredo, Texas, to Texarkana, Texas and then through Sioux Falls, South Dakota up to the U. S.-Canadian border in North Dakota.

The Interstate 35 link is already the object of development.  A policy paper by the American Policy Center in Warrenton, VA says the Kansas City, Missouri city government has already allocated 2.5 million dollars to build an inland port to handle cargo entering the country from both Mexico and Canada.

Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser’s spokesman Kendrick Blackwood supplied a copy of the city ordinance creating the fund to build the port.  City Ordinance number 051128 directed the City Manager and the Mayor to develop plans to, “Fund the construction of a Mexican Customs Facility under a master lease-purchase agreement.”

The Ordinance continues to say that the port will be developed, “on the east side of Liberty Street between 14^th and 15^th Streets; and Kansas City Smartport, Inc., has requested city support in constructing, equipping and acquiring the Customs Facility.”

City transportation spokesman Kendrick Blackwood says that an account was created for the money, but he’s unsure of the account’s present status.  Another spokesman for the Kansas City mayor’s office agrees, “I’m not sure what’s transpired with all that.”

The unnamed spokesman went on to say, “I will neither confirm nor deny that our city has allocated money for the port.”

Without engaging in speculation, there has to have been money allocated for the project at one time for the spokesperson to use the words, “with all that.”

The Super Corridor will also include the new Interstate 69 which will run from Laredo through Texarkana, Texas via the old U. S. Highway 59.

SECURITY

A road that runs from Laredo, Texas to a point along the North Dakota-Manitoba boundary has to be populated with traffic to justify the expense of building such an artery.

NASCO Director of Special Projects Frank Conde says that his agency has been concerned with security issues.

“We have created harmonised customs documents and electronic manifests that identify everything that would be on one of the trucks entering the country.  These manifests are sent ahead to the border station so that the customs agents who inspect the trucks will know exactly what’s inside.”

Mr. Conde insists that any truck that is found to have something different on board at the border will be seized.

He did not say what would happen to illegal cargo if it passed the border, but was found at inland ports such as the one planned for Kansas City.

To counter concerns that the increase in traffic will lead to further immigration problems, Mr. Conde said that, “We have an interest in strong security and immigration enforcement.”

Yet, is NASCO’s concern enough to allay the fears of those who believe that allowing the additional traffic on U. S. interstate highways is enough?  Not according to a local advocacy group in Texarkana, Texas, a city that will be along the Interstate 69 link of the corridor.

“This highway will be a disaster.  Mexico doesn’t have the same standards for their 18-wheel rig operators as the United States,” said a Texarkana writer and veteran political operative who spoke on condition of anonymity.  “Allowing the additional Mexican trucks on the highway will allow more unlicenced, unregulated and poorly trained truck drivers on our highways.  The potential for an increase in deadly truck accidents alone is a hazard to security.”

ECONOMIC IMPACT

The project that will run the new Interstate 69 through Texarkana, Texas is called the Trans-Texas corridor.  It will connect U. S. Highway 59 which goes from the border to Texarkana to the links that will take the corridor through Kansas City, to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

An officer with the Guaranty Bond Bank in Texarkana, Texas wished not to be identified, but he says, “The Texarkana business community is anticipating the business that will come from the new major freeway that will come from Mexico, go through Texarkana and run to Canada.”

While the corridor will help some Texarkana businessmen, many of the North Eastern Texas community’s residents are unhappy about the project.  The local newspaper, the Texarkana Gazette has reported that the public hearings on the project have drawn angry responses to the project.

A Texarkana resident who asked not to be identified says, “Locals in Texarkana will lose their land because the highway is going to go right through their property.”

“The land is in the process of being seized to build the interstate.  Some of the farmer’s land will be cut in half,” said a Texarkana resident.  “You can imagine what that will do to the productivity of the farms that are cut in half.”

“Some of the farmers are going to be wiped out,” the resident said.

Other residents of the area are angered by the project’s possible impact on the Texarkana water supply. While local water district officials aren’t saying if there is a connection, water from Nichols Reservoir will be sent to Dallas, purified and sent back to Texarkana at a cost.

“Some community leaders are highly upset because the city of Dallas to take water from the Nichols Reservoir near Texarkana and then allow Dallas to sell the water back to Texarkana,” the local activist said.

THE END RESULT

While Frank Conde and House Transportation Committee Spokesman Jim Berard deny that a major, ten-lane Super Corridor exists, there’s enough of a paper trail to show that a plan for some type of super road exists.  Part of the paper trail is the earlier cited Kansas City city ordinance and a host of position papers by such diverse groups as the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Policy Center.

Further evidence comes from the North American Summits attended by former Mexican President Vicente Fox and his former Canadian counterpart, Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Following one of the summits, former Mexican president Vicente Fox said, “Eventually our long-range objective is to establish with the United States, an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union, with the goal of attending to future themes as important as, the freedom of movement of capital, goods and services and persons.  The new framework we wish is to construct is inspired in the example of the European Union.”

While the evidence suggests the road exists, there’s considerable opposition to such a plan.  An April American Policy Center survey showed that most Americans hadn’t heard of any plans, but of those who had heard, between sixty to eighty percent were opposed to the Security and Prosperity Partnership and the Super Corridor.

Despite Mr. Pastor’s statements to the contrary, legal and financial evidence shows that whether Americans like it or not, there will be a super highway connecting Mexico with Canada.

And it’s going to be in many American’s back yard.