Plan for Baja Salt Factory Provokes Whale Worries

The Japanese need more salt than any nation on Earth. The Baja California peninsula of northern Mexico has the lagoons, sunshine and wind conditions necessary to produce it.

But the area where a Japanese firm operates the world’s largest salt-evaporation plant--and where they are planning to build another $150-million plant--is also Latin America’s largest biosphere reserve and the winter refuge of the gray whale.

The plan has shocked many environmentalist groups in the United States and Mexico, raised red flags at the office of Mexico’s environmental prosecutor, and caused dismay among the population of Point Abreojos, near the proposed new plant.

“We’re afraid we won’t be able to make a living anymore,” said Antonio Zuniga, secretary-general of the Point Abreojos fishing cooperative, which provides the community of 1,000 people with electricity and drinking water.

“They’re planning to build a dock where we do most of our fishing, and the discharges of brine on the open sea could kill the lobsters, fish, shrimp, abalone and oysters.”

Brine, Batteries Dumped Into Lagoon

Exportadora de Sal, known as ESSA, is outgrowing its factory in the Ojo de Liebre lagoon just south of the city of Guerrero Negro, in the middle of the peninsula that stretches south from California. Its new plant would be built along a pristine lagoon nearby.

The company makes salt by evaporating seawater in salt flats near the ocean. Brine--extremely salty water--is a byproduct. Marine animals can be affected by sudden changes in the salinity of ocean water.

A 1995 environmental audit disclosed 298 deficiencies in the plant, ranging from unauthorized discharges of brine to the dumping of almost 300 industrial batteries in the lagoon. Rather than fine the company, authorities decided to give ESSA the chance to clean up its act.

Now the expansion plan has become a public-relations nightmare for ESSA, a joint venture between Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. and the Mexican Commerce Ministry.

Environmental groups have launched an international campaign to prevent the expansion. In July, 34 of the world’s most distinguished scientists signed an open letter protesting the expansion plans that appeared in several newspapers worldwide.

The New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council is leading a letter-writing campaign to Mitsubishi Chairman Hiroaki Yano and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. Writes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a senior NRDC attorney: “If Mitsubishi has its way, the whales of San Ignacio may soon return to their last unspoiled breeding grounds only to find an industrial wasteland.”

ESSA contends the project would not pose a danger to marine wildlife and would provide a much-needed boost to the local economy.

But environmentalist groups say the company is pressuring the government into approving the project and point to a possible conflict of interest: The Mexican government, which is responsible for enforcing environmental laws, owns 51% of ESSA.

Mexico Denies Conflict of Interest

Antonio Azuela, Mexico’s environmental prosecutor, denied any conflict of interest.

“I can categorically state that during the administration of President Ernesto Zedillo, environmental authorities have never been pressured into not imposing a fine, or imposing a lesser fine,” Azuela said.

The government rejected the expansion project in 1995, but later decided to let the company appeal. ESSA is now working on an environmental impact study it says will prove the project is safe to the delicate environment of the biosphere reserve.

ESSA has said it will scrap the project if Mexico’s environmental authorities find it poses a danger to the biosphere reserve, which UNESCO declared a World Heritage Site in 1993.

“We certainly don’t want to be involved here or anyplace else in a project that would have environmental danger,” said James E. Brumm, executive vice president for Mitsubishi International. “It’s not something that we want to be known for.”

Brumm said Mitsubishi and the Mexican government are in close agreement on developing the expansion project. Commerce Ministry officials declined to comment on the project.

UNESCO Expresses Concern

Environmental groups are concerned with the possible effects on the gray whale, which migrates every year from the Arctic waters of the Bering Sea to mate and give birth in the warm waters of the peninsula.

Marine wildlife experts hired by ESSA to work on the environmental impact study have expressed doubts as well.

Clinton D. Winant, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said he would have no qualms about the project --were it not located at a World Heritage Site.

Another Scripps professor and ESSA consultant, Paul Dayton, said the increased ship traffic represented a risk that could lead to the deaths of some whales.

The project is also under review by a congressional committee, members of which are skeptical about its long-term impact.

“Why is it that the government previously said the project was illegal and is now reconsidering ESSA’s proposal?” Congressman Jorge Gonzalez of the Green Party said at a recent hearing.

ESSA’s operations and future expansion plans have also drawn concern from UNESCO. A team of UNESCO representatives made a three-day trip to the biosphere reserve in August to gauge the environmental impact of the salt plants.

The delegation, which will present its conclusions in November, could declare the area an endangered World Heritage Site, an act that would put more pressure on the government.

In the face of growing public pressure, ESSA has announced it has modified its project to minimize the possibility of environmental damage. But that’s hardly any relief to the community of Point Abreojos.

“They’ve made some changes, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s going to affect the environment,” Zuniga said. “It could really affect our livelihood, and we’re scared, because the damage it can cause would outweigh any economic benefits.”