Border Sites Identified

U-S officials have narrowed the search for a new border crossing at International Falls to five potential sites.

Yesterday, members of the Falls business community learned more details about those sites and the process the U-S General Services Administration is following toward potential construction in 2014.

Project Manager Don Melcher says an expansion of duties by U-S Customs over the past fifteen years is driving the need for a new facility.

"At that time it was US Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service," says Melcher, "now they're all part of the Department of Homeland Security under the umbrella of US Customs and Border Protection Services."

Melcher says the new facility would be about 17-thousand square feet in size and address many of the deficiencies at existing site and improve traveller safety.