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In Mexico, conflict boils over salt and sea life

By Valerie Alvord
Special for USA TODAY

PUNTA ABREOJOS, Mexico -- For as long as California gray whales have migrated from Alaska to Mexico, they have come to the placid lagoon near this fishing village, skirted by salt flats, to mate and bear their young. And as far back as recorded history, humans have mined and traded salt.

These two ancient traditions are colliding in this remote region about 500 miles down the Baja California peninsula, at San Ignacio lagoon.

Environmentalists are accusing a company owned jointly by the Mexican government and Mitsubishi Corp. of sacrificing the delicate ecosystem of the lagoon for salt, a commodity needed in huge quantities for industrial uses.

The company, Exportadora de Sal, S.A. (ESSA), wants to pull water from the saltwater lagoon and flood San Ignacio's barren flats, turning them into evaporation ponds where salt would gradually crystallize. Armed with studies showing that the operation won't hurt the 26,000 California gray whales, ESSA contends the 116-mile network of ponds would actually enhance the environment, transforming the sterile desert into fertile wetlands for migrating birds.

''The lagoon has great value for whales, and that value won't change,'' says Joaquin J. Ardura, administrative vice president of ESSA. ESSA's studies, conducted by scientists from such respected research organizations as Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., have netted few converts.

U.S. and Mexican environmental groups are demanding that the Mexican agency responsible for issuing the permit turn down the project.

There's no guarantee that gray whales, once almost extinct, would continue to use the lagoon, says Mark Spalding, who is spearheading opposition for the Natural Resources Defense Council. The proposal, he says, sets a ''bad precedent,'' and would encourage future development in an ecosystem considered so environmentally important that Mexico previously designated it a bird sanctuary, a biosphere reserve and a U.N. World Heritage site.

''For someone to tell me that this is going to be good for the environment is ridiculous,'' says Sara Wan, chairwoman of the California Coastal Commission, which last week joined about a dozen California cities in urging the Mexican government to deny a permit for the plan. ''Birds will land on any puddle on a golf course. That doesn't make it a good replacement for what's natural. Putting this project in San Ignacio lagoon would be like building an industrial plant in Yosemite Valley.''

Migration patterns

The California gray whales, here called Mexican gray whales, migrate about 6,000 miles from the Bering and Chukchi seas off Alaska in late summer and spend the winter on the coast of Baja. During the summer, the whales feed on amphipods on the ocean's floor. Then they stop eating and begin their trek past Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, heading to four Mexican lagoons -- Ojo de Liebre, Guerrero Negro, San Ignacio and Magdalena Bay. There they mate, then return to Alaska. The next winter, they come back to the lagoons to bear their young.

Here in San Ignacio, males swim in circles along the mouth of the lagoon, while females move farther back, into the calm estuary interiors, to give birth and train the calves for the arduous journey north.

Conservation groups in Mexico and the United States have launched an anti-Mitsubishi campaign under the dual slogans, ''Save the Baja Whales'' and ''Don't Buy It.'' They are urging a boycott of all Mitsubishi products and services.

Hundreds of thousands of letters, many of them from schoolchildren, have flooded Mitsubishi headquarters in New York and Japan. And 14 mutual funds have agreed not to invest in any arm of Mitsubishi.

Frustrated corporate officials contend the program is hurting companies like Mitsubishi Motors that carry the Mitsubishi name but have no formal ties to Mitsubishi Corp., a 49% owner of ESSA. And they insist their plans will have no impact on whales.

''It's flat-out dishonest,'' Tracy Austin, spokeswoman for Mitsubishi Corp, says of the campaign. ''This project will not hurt whales, and the environmentalists know it.''

Both sides agree the project would generate 200 jobs and jump-start the rural economy near San Ignacio lagoon with paved roads and other infrastructure. But fishermen in Punta Abreojos, the closest village, have weighed in against ESSA, voting unanimously to oppose the saltworks.

''No matter what the company says, I won't believe them,'' asserts Isidro Arce, 36, manager of the 800-member fishing cooperative at Punta Abreojos. He points to the village school and the water desalination plant as proof that the town of about 1,200 is doing fine without ESSA.

Fishing and whale watching are the only industries here. The fishermen know where to find whales, which begin arriving in December and leave in May.

On a recent day, signature whale spouts could be seen every 30 or 40 seconds across the lagoon. The sprays hung in the air, then burst into rainbow prisms as they fell apart in the sun. White-marked fins flipped in the air every two or three minutes, and whales rolled in the water and popped up their gray and white heads.

Jorge Solorio Espinoza, 36, a fisherman, says he doesn't want to co-exist with a salt plant.

''Many people will come here, and the mentality will change,'' he contends. ''There will be more people and more workers, and the people will fish. The company will take sea water and then return the brine to the sea. The water will be contaminated, and the fish will die.''

Statements like these frustrate Juan Bremmer, director general of ESSA, who oversees the company's existing salt-harvesting operation at the Ojo de Liebre lagoon near the town of Guerrero Negro, about 100 miles north of San Ignacio.

Guerrero Negro produces 20,000 tons of salt a day, or 7.5 million tons a year, just what the company hopes to produce at San Ignacio. It brings in $80 million in gross revenue and generates 1,000 jobs -- all at no cost to the environment, Bremmer says. The town has half a dozen schools, a junior college, a hospital, soccer fields, a tennis court and several churches. Ninety percent of the town's approximately 12,000 residents have chlorinated water, and their bathrooms are hooked up to sewers.

''Salt is good for Guerrero Negro,'' Bremmer says. ''And Guerrero Negro is good for the environment,'' he insists, pointing out osprey and peregrine falcons nesting on poles installed by ESSA to keep the birds high above the jaws of hungry coyotes.

Impact studies

Other studies show that despite the noise of diesel engines and the obstruction of barges crisscrossing the Ojo de Liebre lagoon, gray whales have continued to migrate there in record numbers. According to ESSA, statistics show whales are actually choosing Ojo de Liebre -- where salt is produced -- over the pristine San Ignacio lagoon.

Environmentalists dispute the company's interpretation of the statistics.

ESSA has commissioned these studies for an environmental impact assessment that is expected to be released as soon as this month and will form the basis for the company's permit application. Among the findings, the company says, are that taking water from San Ignacio lagoon will not decrease the salinity or the temperature of the water and that leftover brine won't contaminate the sea if it's diluted before it's discharged.

San Ignacio is the perfect spot for a salt-harvesting operation, Bremmer says. ''You can't do anything else with (the land),'' he says.

Conditions for crystallizing salt are rare in nature. Salt flats, sea water and warm perennial winds are needed in close proximity. At San Ignacio, the conditions are more than ideal, they are perfect -- even better than at Guerrero Negro where the wind blows cold off the ocean. At San Ignacio, the wind warms over desert before hitting the lagoon. Warmth speeds evaporation.

There are many in the area who see the economic implications. ''We need sustainable development as a legacy for our children,'' says Maria del Carmen Trujillo, a travel agent who belongs to a citizens group that favors the project.

Brought in to evaluate the program, U.N. investigators called the San Ignacio lagoon an area of ''superlative natural features of exceptional beauty.'' By contrast, they call Guerrero Negro an ''urban development,'' resulting ''from the presence of the saltworks.''

Though acknowledging that evaporation ponds at Guerrero Negro provide important habitat for birds and that whales have continued to thrive, the report also sounds warnings. The proposed saltworks, it says, ''would imply the transformation'' of the unique and beautiful landscape surrounding San Ignacio lagoon.