Few spots on the Canada-U.S. border would seem as tranquil as Morses Line. Cows vastly outnumber cars. You're more likely to hear the sounds of songbirds than an idling 18-wheeler.
Yet it's here, on a rustling meadow seeded with clover and alfalfa just steps from the border with Quebec, that the Department of Homeland Security envisions a modern new border station to bolster security on its northern frontier. That is, unless dairy farmer Clement Rainville gets his way.
In a David-and-Goliath standoff, Mr. Rainville and his family are resisting demands to hand over 4.9 acres of their farmland to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, arguing that it's crucial to the operation of their third-generation family farm. Their protest has reverberated all the way to Washington, underscoring the tensions between post-9/11 security and preserving a traditional way of life.
"We need our land, it's as simple as that," said Mr. Rainville, whose grandfather moved to Vermont from rural Quebec a century ago. "They say they want to reinforce the border here. But we're not at war. Canada has 33 million people, and I have no problem with Canadians and with my neighbours."
The Rainvilles' cause has rallied support on both sides of the border, and Saturday, on orders from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, officials are holding a public town-hall meeting in northern Vermont to address the controversy.
Central to criticism of the Morses Line overhaul, 95 kilometres southeast of Montreal, is that it's simply unnecessary. The existing customs building sees an average 2.5 cars an hour. Rush hour, as it were, happens on holidays like the Canada Day long weekend, or on bingo nights when Quebeckers head to the nearby parish church in Highgate Center, Vt.
The traffic is so slow that the checkpoint shuts down at midnight, leaving the supposedly sensitive northern security outpost unattended.
"We're trying to figure how we're critical to national security when they have no personnel on site for a third of the day," says Brian Rainville, Mr. Rainville's son. "Why are we putting up a building for traffic that doesn't exist?"
For its part, U.S. Customs and Border Protection says the current building is aging and in disrepair. According to local lore, the pre-Second World War structure was built - too late - in response to the lively trade in contraband booze during Prohibition. Now the building's roof is leaking and a bench serves as the detention facility. The new building project is estimated at $8-million (U.S.).
"Modernizing the Morses Line Port will address a critical national security need and help jump start the local economy," Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.
The showdown at Morses Line mirrors similar tensions along the Canada-U.S. border, where communities are struggling with the new realities of a strengthened boundary. Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection got $420-million in stimulus funding to reinforce small border crossings like the one at Morses Line.
"Homeland Security has given out this bucket of money, and come hell or high water they're going to spend it," says SharonLee Tyler, who retired as a U.S. customs inspector on the Quebec-Vermont border two years ago. "The Rainvilles have been on that land since 1946 and taking their land for such a project is nothing but stealing."
The parcel of land at the heart of the tug-of-war is only a small piece of the Rainville's 224-acre farm. But the 1,000 bales of hay it produces each year is a source of livelihood and helps feed the family's 160 dairy cows, the Rainvilles say.
U.S. officials have offered the family $34,500 for it, but have also sent notice they're ready to expropriate if an agreement can't be reached.
Still another possibility would see the U.S. discuss with Canada the possibility of shutting the Morses Line crossing altogether, something the Rainvilles wouldn't mind. A large crossing 10 kilometres west of Morses Line, as the crow flies, handles much of the Vermont-bound traffic out of Montreal.
The Rainvilles say they're sympathetic to national security concerns. One of Mr. Rainville's sons, a part-time sheriff's deputy, once made a citizen's arrest of an illegal immigrant trying to sneak into Canada from his farm. And the Rainvilles shut down their farm two summers ago to allow officials to conduct a weapons-of-mass-destruction training drill complete with field hospitals, decontamination tents and bomb-defusing robots, Brian Rainville says.
"We have no ill will against Customs and Border Protection," says the younger Mr. Rainville, a high-school teacher. "We just believe they fail to understand that our land is not a vacant lot. This is my father's life's work, and these folks don't care."