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Is it a new amusement park – Containerland? No, something else …

Then it hits: The wall looks like like a long freight train that has lost its wheels, snaking four miles across the borderlands and abandoned in the mud.

The absurdity is apparent: This abandoned freight train, costing ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ taxpayers up to $95 million, will not stop people from crossing the border. For all the illegal environmental destruction that Gov. Doug Ducey is causing, the gain will be negligible.

At each of the high and low spots along this bumpy terrain, a triangular gap is naturally left between adjacent containers, as they meet at angles. Some of these gaps are large — plenty large enough for people to walk through.

The contractors have tried to solve this problem by welding sheet metal across some of the gaps. This is the kind of measure that will likely get the contractor AshBritt Inc., paid, but it will last only as long as a determined crosser wants it to.

A few swift blows with a sledge hammer, or a few quick cuts with a blade or torch, and those pieces of plate metal will be gone. Then the whole purpose of the container wall is defeated.

This is without even using a ladder or other implement to climb up and over the containers — also a possibility. The containers are topped with concertina wire, but that is easily cut with . Cutting open the containers themselves should also be doable.

There is even a deep stream bed where the slope is too steep to put containers, so the old vehicle barriers remain for a couple of hundred yards.

In the end, Containerland is just a bulkier, costlier, more environmentally damaging vehicle barrier than the one that already exists along this stretch of border.

So if it can so easily be defeated — what is the purpose of it? My best guess: A political symbol.

Container wall comes at a serious cost

There was something more practical about Ducey filling the holes between stretches of wall in the Yuma Sector, even if that has also been decried as illegal. There, the ground is flatter, and the distance covered is much shorter, potentially allowing the containers to convince migrants to try crossing elsewhere, where Border Patrol can monitor the sites.

In ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ County, the container wall serves only as a symbol of “doing somethingâ€� about the border. Of course, the symbolism could be important for a politician like Ducey.

In the future, if he runs for U.S. Senate or or Vice President, Ducey can point to his container wall and tell Republican primary voters he’s not just a business Republican — a Republican in Name Only, or RINO in the vernacular of Trump true-believers — but hardcore on the border.

His willingness to take charge of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s border with Mexico by standing up to the federal government, which has said the container placement is illegal and dangerous, may appeal to many Republican primary voters.

While purveyors of border fears did not win many close general-election races this year, it was a key part of GOP primary races. And those are the races where a candidate like Ducey could run into a rough time, if opposed by the Trump-supporting wing of the GOP.

But Ducey’s political effort comes at a serious cost. There’s the financial burden to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ taxpayers — up to $95,141,304 if the whole project is carried out. All for what amounts to a political gesture.

Even if the whole project is not carried out, it will inevitably be removed, something that is explicitly excluded as part of AshBritt’s contract. Either the courts will rule the container wall is illegal (it obviously is) or the new governor, Democrat Katie Hobbs, will have the containers removed on her own, making the political gimmick even more expensive for ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ taxpayers.

And that’s forgetting the wanton environmental destruction. Crews have damaged roads, torn down oak trees, leveled wide staging sights for storing equipment and containers, and, of course, placed the containers in a wild area enjoyed by hunters and hikers, campers and bikers.

Except in the stream bed, the containers block the movement of most larger animals, though I saw some squirrels ducking beneath the containers.

Standing up to environmental destruction

We owe a debt of gratitude to the handful of people who have started hanging out at the wall, stopping contractors from continuing their work. A handful of younger activists even stopped work just after midnight Wednesday , standing in front of a bulldozer when the contractors tried to sneak a few hours of work in the middle of the night.

Most of those half-dozen younger folks didn’t want us to use their names, when I visited Wednesday with reporter Danyelle Khmara. But the older ones didn’t care so much.

Kate Scott, who lives in nearby Lyle Canyon, helped launch the protests. She said, “There comes a time in your life when you say, ‘Enough.’ Enough destruction of the environment, enough destruction of wildlife habitat.�

By looking at her, you might expect Scott to be the type of person to stand in front of an excavator. Not so much Bill Scheel. He is from Phoenix and was chief of staff to former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. He was wearing a neat sweat jacket and had a close shave as he told me how he got involved.

“My son and I are hikers, and we’ve been hiking the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Trail in segments,â€� he said. “In early November, we did the segment from Parker Canyon Lake over to Patagonia. As we were driving in, all these fricking semis are flying by us on that little road.â€�

“Then I started paying a little more attention. I thought it was a Yuma thing, then all of a sudden it’s not a Yuma thing. I came out a week ago Tuesday based on a social media post,� he went on. “Last week they were barreling down the road and I got out there and stood in front of the bulldozer.

“This is like true civil disobedience, except it’s not civil disobedience because the law is on our side,� he said.

Yes, the law seems clearly against Ducey being able to unilaterally drop hundreds of containers on federal land. While detractors like me see that as a bad thing, from Ducey’s political perspective, that could actually be good.

Tim Steller is an opinion columnist. A 25-year veteran of reporting and editing, he digs into issues and stories that matter in the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ area, reports the results and tells you his conclusions. Contact him at tsteller@tucson.com or 520-807-7789. On Twitter: @senyorreporter