Can Whales Live in Harmony with Salt Plant
12/17/99
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Can whales live in harmony with salt plant?
Source: Environment News Network, http://www.enn.com/
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: December 17, 1999
Byline: Elizabeth Fullerton
Every January, schools of gray whales arrive at San Ignacio lagoon in
northern Mexico's Baja California state to breed and cavort in the
Pacific Ocean waves for three months.
The whales make an annual 6,200 mile-journey from the Bering Straits
to the warm-water lagoon, a designated World Heritage Site, where the
only sound is the wind rushing unhindered across miles of white sand.
This unspoiled haven could be dramatically transformed if plans to
build a multimillion-dollar salt plant in the lagoon go ahead,
according to a newly released U.N. report. The lagoon, in North
America's largest wildlife sanctuary, the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve,
is the center ring for a bitter battle between environmentalists and
big business.
Exportadora del Sal (ESSA), a joint venture between Japanese giant
Mitsubishi and the Mexican government, says the $120 million plant
would bring much-needed jobs and development to an impoverished
region with minimal ecological damage.
But the U.N. report, approved by the World Heritage Committee,
appears to have handed environmentalists victory in the first round,
saying the site's integrity was at risk.
ESSA wins environmental plaudits for current plant
The battle is by no means over. Nor is it clear-cut.
ESSA is up against a powerful coalition of 58 international and
Mexican environmental groups including nine Nobel Prize-winning
scientists and 15 green U.S. mutual funds with assets worth $14
billion who have boycotted Mitsubishi.
They accuse ESSA, which already runs a large salt evaporation plant
in Guerrero Negro and Ojo de Liebre lagoon 87 miles up the coast, of
polluting the region, home to sea lions, black sea turtles and prong-
horned antelopes.
But the U.N. report, the result of a visit by U.N. cultural body
UNESCO specifically to inspect ESSA's current salt plant, in fact
praised the company's environmental performance so far and said
wildlife at Guerrero Negro was not in danger.
The area near the plant is home to colonies of pelicans, geese and
ducks who bob on huge seawater basins from which salt is made through
evaporation. Peregrine falcons and ospreys circle overhead and swoop
down on fish in the salt water.
"Look around, you can see we're not hurting the environment, we're
helping it. People criticize us from afar but they often change their
minds when they come here," said Joaquin Ardura, ESSA's
administrative director.
ESSA says the gray whale population in Ojo de Liebre has risen to
1,700 from 380 since the salt plant started in 1957. "San Ignacio is
the only place untouched by humans, but the whale population there
has declined," Ardura said.
But ESSA's environmental track record is not unblemished.
A government audit found the company guilty of 298 environmental
violations and Mexican watchdog Profepa has fined it $24,000 for
marine pollution through a brine leakage. Profepa has also been
investigating ESSA over the death of 94 black sea turtles, allegedly
through salt poisoning.
ESSA has since taken steps to clean up its act. It is investing in
new measures to make its operation greener, such as a system to
dilute the toxic waste brine, or salt water, it disperses into the
sea and to replace diesel use with quieter, more environmentally
friendly electricity where possible.
ESSA has local political backing
Local politicians across the spectrum in Baja California are 100
percent behind ESSA's new salt plant project, viewing it as a rare
opportunity for sustainable development.
"The environmentalists are more worried about the ecology than about
the people living there," conservative National Action Party deputy
Victor Martinez charged. "The reserve is the second poorest area
after (southern) Chiapas state."
Local deputies argue the salt project would provide 250 jobs to
inhabitants of the lagoon who now live in "deplorable conditions"
without electricity, drinking water or sewage.
But residents of Punta Abreojos, a village of 1,150 people perched on
the edge of San Ignacio lagoon, have a very different viewpoint.
"Most of the villagers are against the plant because the brine and
waste fuel from it will kill the fish that are our livelihood,"
Antonio Zuniga, head of the Fishing Cooperative of Punta Abreojos,
told Reuters.
"We don't need a firm like ESSA to give us more jobs. There are
better alternatives like ecotourism and shrimp farming."
Joel Reynolds of the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense
Council cited a recent World Wildlife Fund report estimating
fisheries in the region could bring in $60-120 million annually if
properly managed. "Fisheries is the basis of that economy and has
been for generations. This is why the project makes no sense from an
economic perspective," he said.
ESSA to be real gainer from San Ignacio project
Ultimately, ESSA is the real gainer from the Mexican venture, which
stands to become the world's No. 1 exporter of salt, leapfrogging
over current leader Australia if the project goes ahead. At full
capacity, ESSA would more than double its current annual production
of 7 million metric tons of salt.
As for doubts about whether demand exists for so much extra salt,
ESSA points to world population growth, which it says means rising
consumption. Apart from food, salt is used in many industries from
textiles and PVCs to glass and aluminum.
ESSA's big hurdle will be convincing a government sensitive to its
image abroad to approve a project bound to provoke an international
outcry due to the huge popular appeal of whales.
Much will depend on the findings of an environmental impact study due
to be delivered by international scientists next month. The
government has said the project will not go ahead if it is found
likely to damage the ecology.
With 124,000 acres of natural salt flats, San Ignacio lagoon would
clearly be an ideal location for a saltworks, with synergies in
production, given its proximity to Guerrero Negro - ideal, that is,
were the lagoon not in a World Heritage Site, biosphere reserve and
whale sanctuary.
"It's absolutely the wrong place to put the world's largest
industrial salt works," said the NRDC's Reynolds. "You can make salt
all over the world, you don't need to do it there."