Debate Builds Over Proposed Mexican Resort

Braced against the sea like a protective forearm, the dune-covered peninsula corrals a bay teeming with natural wonders.

In one direction, a wayward whale looses a spout of mist. In another, clouds of geese, Pacific black brant, streak above the surface. Sea lions pop shiny heads from shallows charged electric blue in the noon sun. There’s even an innovative underwater farm: hundreds of thousands of oysters strung along submerged racks.

Local lore has it that 19th century sailors cruising the Baja California coast named this spot False Bay after falling victim to its deceptively shallow waters. Now the bay and the sheltering, seven-mile peninsula are ensnared in a battle over a proposal for a huge tourist resort: eight hotels, plus condominiums and other residences, three golf courses, a 350-slip marina and shopping centers.

The debate is considered by many the most important wetlands issue in Baja California because of the spot’s unspoiled beauty, known mostly to outdoors enthusiasts from Southern California. The matter is fast coming to a head, with a crucial decision on whether the project can proceed expected within 90 days.

The $700-million-plus resort, proposed by a group of investors from Mexico City and the United States, has sharply divided the rural population of the San Quintin Valley, a dust-blown expanse of tomato farms and packing plants 185 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border. Tourism accommodations in the region of 40,000 have been limited mainly to waterfront lodges for hunters, sport fishermen and other hardy travelers.

False Bay and a twin waterway form what is known as San Quintin Bay.

Conservationists say building on the peninsula would destroy a haven for migrating Pacific waterfowl and imperil the only oyster-exporting bay in Mexico clean enough to meet U.S. food standards. Developers vow to safeguard wildlife through eco-friendly upkeep and by introducing sewage treatment.

But the fight goes beyond golf and geese. At its heart churn far-reaching anxieties over the economic future of the San Quintin Valley as a whole. An increasing population and worries about farming--from diminishing water and falling profits to violence on one ranch over unpaid wages--have prompted doubt over how long San Quintin can survive on crops alone.

“The question is, what will there be to sustain the people?” said Manuel Sanchez Torres, a sociologist who teaches at a local agricultural college.

Sanchez and other local leaders are impressed by the resort promoters’ promises to inject millions of dollars and create 20,000 new and spinoff jobs in a region where unemployment estimates run as high as 30%. Ecologists counter that San Quintin Bay’s best economic prospects lie in its purity--as a destination for modest nature tourism and as a proving ground for organic methods of raising oysters and clams.

The opponents worry that the remote area, a four-hour drive over winding roads from San Diego, will be overwhelmed by the crowds needed to make such a project profitable. Developers say they will need to have a commuter airport built to get people there easily.

‘Enormous Controversy’

The debate has been joined by environmentalists on both sides of the border and around the world. Mexican officials in the middle say the issue seems to be a clash of irreconcilable opposites.

It is an “enormous controversy,” said Hugo Abel Castro Bojorquez, who heads Mexico’s environmental agency in Baja California. “On one end are people who say San Quintin needs economic development, and this will help social welfare for the whole area by creating jobs and drawing investment,” he said. “On the other end are people who say that if this project comes, the area it will be built on is of extremely high fragility.”

But the opposing sides share this in common: The need to boost San Quintin’s fortunes has led both to gaze west, past ramshackle houses and washboard roads, to the volcano-lined bay now ruled by sea lions and water birds.

Environmentalists say horseshoe-shaped San Quintin Bay is uniquely endowed. A vast lagoon, it remains largely undeveloped a century after an aborted effort by English settlers to grow and mill wheat. The spot is home to more than 100 bird species, including several, such as the light-footed clapper rail, deemed endangered in the United States.

Of concern to wildlife experts are the Pacific black brant from Russia and Alaska that wintered in California until virgin habitat there gave way to coastal development and dredging. San Quintin Bay, rich in eel grass, is one of three Baja waterways to which 150,000 geese flock in winter to bulk up for the return flight and breeding.

Ecologists count at least 10 kinds of plants, fish, lizards and rodents unique to the area.

The bay is also abundant below its surface. More than a dozen oyster and clam growers benefit from unusual currents that carry nutrients from the ocean depths to feed 30 million oysters raised yearly.

The largest firm, Agromarinos, has prospered using chemical-free methods, accounting for half of San Quintin’s $5-million oyster and clam industry. Most of the mollusks are sold in local restaurants and mom-and-pop seafood stands, but about a fifth are shipped to the United States.

The bay is the only one in Mexico certified by the Mexican government as meeting shellfish import standards of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And Agromarinos, with packing plants in San Quintin and Ensenada, is the only Mexican firm on that list.

“Aquaculture in the bay has been in development 23 years and nothing bad has happened. We don’t use chemicals . . . or contaminate in any way,” said Agromarinos co-owner Vicente Guerrero, easing a skiff through the oyster farm.

Resort foes fear pollution from sewage, fertilizers and boats. Others worry that the disappearance of eel grass and presence of people will jeopardize the geese, which are not endangered but are watched as a bellwether for other species.

“The birds are either going to starve or move to another location,” said David Ward, a research biologist for the U.S. Geological Survey.

If the fowl go, some worry, so will the weekend hunters who hire local guides to ferry them to choice spots along the water.

“False fears,” said architect Harrison Fagg, a partner in the project.

The builders say they will leave undeveloped half of the 2,200 acres--setting aside parks and wildlife refuges--and rely on cutting-edge techniques to minimize pollution. They plan a desalination plant to make seawater drinkable and a separate facility to treat waste from the resort and future employee housing north of the bay. San Quintin lacks sewage treatment, and many say the bay already receives raw waste.

Proponents say they will keep boats away from the zone where oysters and clams are harvested. No hotel will exceed three stories.

“I want it to be as environmentally pure as we can make a project and still have a development,” said Fagg, based in Billings, Mont.

Most compelling to many is what the resort could mean for San Quintin’s residents. Developers project 5,400 new resort jobs and another 15,000 in indirect employment. They say the jobs will pay $4 an hour--about five times more than local ranch wages.

“This will bring an answer to the social problems of San Quintin,” said Dr. Oscar Herrera Carrizales, who hopes to open a resort clinic.

Some resent involvement by foreign environmentalists, and accuse oyster farmers of treating the bay as a private preserve.

“We need more economic opportunities for people, more jobs,” said part-time boat captain Hector Villavicencio, who makes $120 a week guiding fishermen from a dock near the Old Mill hotel. “There are a lot of families with scarce resources who would benefit. There are a lot of masons without jobs.”

A Region in Turmoil

Serious anxieties focus on the countryside, a major agricultural area that is home to a “floating population” of as many as 30,000 Indian field hands from southern Mexico who are increasingly staying put.

Scant rainfall in the past two years has exacerbated long-standing worries about the ground water being sucked dry. Some farmers, while continually searching for new irrigation sources, have cut back planting. Shaky finances have translated into turmoil. Angry workers who said they were owed a month’s pay and Christmas bonuses blockaded the main highway and set fire to a packing shed last month. Jittery civic leaders have met to discuss solutions amid concern over future unrest.

“The economy in San Quintin is not healthy,” said municipal delegate Luis Reyes Calderon. “If it doesn’t rain, a lot of people are going to have to go somewhere else.”

Or find other work--such as tourism.

“It’s one of the only alternatives we have. We have to develop San Quintin as a tourist destination,” said Moises Macias, a restaurant owner who heads the local tourism association.

That may not be easy. Several recent projects never came to pass, and one of the few hotels on San Quintin Bay closed. The nearest towns are cheerless strips of second-hand stores and fertilizer outlets miles from the bay by bumpy dirt road. There is no commercial air service. Competing ownership claims to the peninsula between a Mexican woman and her American ex-husband have muddied the picture.

The developers express confidence that tourists will be drawn to fishing, golf and agreeable weather in a pristine setting.

Others are guarded about long-term prospects.

“If they open that project, a lot of people will benefit--that’s for sure,” said Reyes, the municipal delegate. “But for how long?”