BajaNomad - Loreto Desalination

Loreto Desalination

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oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 06:57 AM

It is my position that any development of any area should be limited in size according to what the natural water supply can support without desalination. It's a simple position, easy to understand, and I think very logical.

This July/August issue of The Atlantic has a full page ad by General Electric about their desalination products.

Quote:

"Water desalination from GE turns saltwater into drinking water for areas that NEED it." I added the emphasis.

I say there is a BIG difference between need and want.

Loreto development as planned is certainly not needed. And, I haven't heard very many people say that it is even wanted.

See:
http://ge.ecomagination.com/site/index.html#desa/introductio...

Make sure to take a look at the gallery showing desal plants.

If you agree with the first statement in this post, and care about the development of BCS, repeat it to all that have interest.

capt. mike - 8-5-2007 at 07:13 AM

Loreto development as planned is certainly not needed.

says who? you? hahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!! ROTFLMFAO!!

that is a market function.

your position is purely supercillious.

Best laugh of the morning thus far, viejo hipster. keep it coming. :lol:

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 07:19 AM

I will keep it coming, that's for sure.

Glad I made you smile.

Just to weaken your arguement a bit, methamphetamine is big business because of market function.

[Edited on 8-5-2007 by oldhippie]

Diver - 8-5-2007 at 07:30 AM

Not that I agree with the practices of the Loreto Bay Company (I don't know enough) but I have talked to many of their purchasers and they think it's a great thing for many reasons.
So, who's definitions of "want" and "need" are you using ?

I suppose we should not have drilled all those water wells to live in places where no surface water exists ? Seems desal is just another newer technology like pumps and RO and .....

Mike,
YOU made me laugh !!! :lol:

capt. mike - 8-5-2007 at 07:39 AM

"Just to weaken your arguement a bit, methamphetamine is big business because of market function"

so is baskin robbins and KFC. so what? i don't argue that the market is good or bad. it just "is" and it self corrects.

so, when we all (those of us that binge on fatty foods) croak with heart disease, there will be less demand for those 2 products.....unless they can "hook" the younger generation....ummmm, yes.......that's the ticket!

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Diver
I suppose we should not have drilled all those water wells to live in places where no surface water exists ? .

Come on guys, start thinking, I'll be glad to change my mind if someone gives a good reason.

Water wells would be included in the natural water supply, even aqueducts moving natural sources in.

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by capt. mike
"Just to weaken your arguement a bit, methamphetamine is big business because of market function"

so is baskin robbins and KFC. so what? i don't argue that the market is good or bad. it just "is" and it self corrects.

so, when we all (those of us that binge on fatty foods) croak with heart disease, there will be less demand for those 2 products.....unless they can "hook" the younger generation....ummmm, yes.......that's the ticket!

nonsense

capt. mike - 8-5-2007 at 08:05 AM

hey, been a slice O.H.
thx for the fun.
gotta go now.........time flys. :coolup:

capn.sharky - 8-5-2007 at 08:20 AM

It must be obvious that Capt. Mike and Diver don't live in Loreto. Hey, I don't live in Cabo San Lucas, but I think tourism ruined it to the point that the native Mexicans can't afford to live in town. I understand the Captains point, but that doesn't mean that Old Hippy doesn't have a right to complain. I live near a small private airplane airport. I don't like it because there have been several times planes have plowed into buildings. I think it should be closed....but I don't own a private airplane. I am not rich. But people have been killed by those private airplane and that just ain't right. I know, cars kill more and I own several of them. But cars are a necessity for work, shopping for groceries, etc. So....keep up the good work Old Hippy. You have a right to your opinions....and so does Mike. Go ahead Mike and rotflmao...just remember, no ass no more crap.

Diver - 8-5-2007 at 08:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie

Quote:

Originally posted by Diver
I suppose we should not have drilled all those water wells to live in places where no surface water exists ? .

Come on guys, start thinking, I'll be glad to change my mind if someone gives a good reason.

Water wells would be included in the natural water supply, even aqueducts moving natural sources in.

You were given one.
The water is available.
The method is the suspect.
And yes, it would seem prudent to make sure the method is sound and workeable before selling the water.

So how much water is it OK to take from a given "natural water supply" by wells or aquaduct or other means ?
Seems many wells and aquifers are drying up.

Seems all those desal guys think the oceans are a "natural water supply". Seems like a much more endless source, potentially.

.

Diver - 8-5-2007 at 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by capn.sharky
I live near a small private airplane airport. I don't like it because there have been several times planes have plowed into buildings. I think it should be closed....but I don't own a private airplane.

Yup, I bought next to a swine farm and when I moved in, it stunk !! And did you know that swine make noise ?
I will start picketting the farm tomorrow !!
Who do they think they are making all that stink ?!

:lol:

backninedan - 8-5-2007 at 09:14 AM

Diver, I didn't know you bought next to Loreto Bay.

Diver - 8-5-2007 at 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by backninedan
Diver, I didn't know you bought next to Loreto Bay.

Nope, I didn't, although I wish I had bought in Loreto a few years back for a great investment. I have, however, spent much time in Loreto over the years. I bought in Asuncion where htere is no Loreto Bay although I realize that one may come someday. That day, I may sell for a huge profit and find another small town or towns to relocate for another of life's experiences.

I do not consider ALL development to be bad. The Loreto project may have it's problems but that is another issue. Development CAN be done responsibly, even with environmental benefits.
And as far as what this has done to Loreto, I feel for you that would prefer no changes but the impact is viewed differently by many others I have spoken with. I'm just saying that there are other opinions - not that I agree or have formed one myself.
.

Need and Want.

MrBillM - 8-5-2007 at 09:38 AM

What Governmental authority gets to make that decision ?

As a young and single man living near the beach, I lived in a studio apartment converted from a single-car garage. I had a radio and a B/W TV that got good reception most of the time. It was all I needed.

Later, my wife, two elementary school children and I lived in a 940 square foot two-bedroom house. We both were within walking or biking distance of work and the necessary strores for groceries, etc. We didn't even NEED a car. Sure liked it though.

If you are going to attempt a re-structure of society and limit people to what they NEED, as opposed to what they desire and enjoy, you'd find yourself very alone in that position.

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 11:57 AM

I understand MrBill. My position is that desalination should not be done unless the people living in the area need water and that it also should not be done for the sole purpose of bringing in more people.

I'm waiting for the desal plant's environmental impact report. Then I'll know the amount of energy that will be required and be able to estimate the amount of brine that will need to be disposed of based upon its capacity.

From that I'll draw my own conclusions about its environmental impact.

That's the ecological part of it. There are also sociological and economical sides to the story.

I'm not going to stop. What's planned is simply too big.

toneart - 8-5-2007 at 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MrBillM
What Governmental authority gets to make that decision ?

As a young and single man living near the beach, I lived in a studio apartment converted from a single-car garage. I had a radio and a B/W TV that got good reception most of the time. It was all I needed.

Later, my wife, two elementary school children and I lived in a 940 square foot two-bedroom house. We both were within walking or biking distance of work and the necessary strores for groceries, etc. We didn't even NEED a car. Sure liked it though.

If you are going to attempt a re-structure of society and limit people to what they NEED, as opposed to what they desire and enjoy, you'd find yourself very alone in that position.

While true, that is a value judgment based on the luxury of options. We who make investments in Baja or anywhere, have options available to us. We are striving to get what we want.

Need is something we all have, and must have fulfilled. It is something I wish for all people on this earth. Unfortunately, the majority cannot have their needs met. I subscribe to the philosophy that this is an area where government can make a difference. Some people fall through the cracks without a governmental safety net. That is the fundamental tenant of heart-based philosophy.

Forget labels like Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal. They have philosophical principles that cross over; all have good (and bad) practices. To even think of oneself as one or the other of these conceptual labels is self limiting.....like stuck in a box.

DENNIS - 8-5-2007 at 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MrBillM

If you are going to attempt a re-structure of society and limit people to what they NEED, as opposed to what they desire and enjoy, you'd find yourself very alone in that position.

Well, not completely alone. They'll have Karl Marx to keep them company.

Cypress - 8-5-2007 at 12:52 PM

I'm thinking this whole discussion boils down to the question of whether the Loreto Bay group can deliver water, sewage treatment, and electricity. If any of the three are missing, somebody is gonna be in deep doo-doo. :tumble:

rob - 8-5-2007 at 02:34 PM

OH: what is the moral difference between an aqueduct and desal - or for that matter, excavating a well?

Your argument (?) seems to rest on what is more "natural" is "better". . .

Diver points out that taking water from natural sources via aqueduct might be MORE morally suspect than desalinating it - the marine supply is greater.

That Australian wind-desalination system covers all the moral bases very nicely!

[Edited on 8-5-2007 by rob]

[Edited on 8-5-2007 by rob]

Don Alley - 8-5-2007 at 02:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cypress
I'm thinking this whole discussion boils down to the question of whether the Loreto Bay group can deliver water, sewage treatment, and electricity. If any of the three are missing, somebody is gonna be in deep doo-doo. :tumble:

For sewage, the Loreto Bay Company insisted that sewage treatment, being a component of "infrastructure," was the responsibility of FONATUR. FONATUR is currently building the sewage treatment plant, next to LB's nursery. So LB apparently won that argument.

Also, keep in mind that the vast majority of increased demand for water, sewage treatment, garbage disposal, electrical power, propane, medical services, banking services, roads, gasoline and all other infrastructure needs will occur off-site from the Loreto Bay property. So someone other than LB is going to have to do some delivering.

right on Dennis and Bill!!

capt. mike - 8-5-2007 at 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DENNIS

Quote:

Well, not completely alone. They'll have Karl Marx to keep them company.

it's that "cradle to grave" mentality of social control that's so dangerous!
the last thing i need is a market interference mechanism the likes of OH and his fellow archetypes and iconoclastic demagogues telling me what's best for how i live. What a crock.....

send them all back to the dark ages for all i care. give me the freedom to make my own decisions, or none of it matters in the end - others can be autosheep, not me - i'd rather be deaaaad. :barf:

Cap - 8-5-2007 at 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by capn.sharky
It must be obvious that Capt. Mike and Diver don't live in Loreto. Hey, I don't live in Cabo San Lucas, but I think tourism ruined it to the point that the native Mexicans can't afford to live in town. I understand the Captains point, but that doesn't mean that Old Hippy doesn't have a right to complain. I live near a small private airplane airport. I don't like it because there have been several times planes have plowed into buildings. I think it should be closed....but I don't own a private airplane. I am not rich. But people have been killed by those private airplane and that just ain't right. I know, cars kill more and I own several of them. But cars are a necessity for work, shopping for groceries, etc. So....keep up the good work Old Hippy. You have a right to your opinions....and so does Mike. Go ahead Mike and rotflmao...just remember, no burro no more crap.

WOw! that is a bit scary. I would take care with this kind of moral relativism. Cars being more ness. than planes is relative to where you live, and your current state of health. I am sure the many people I have airlifted for medical reasons would attest to the very nessessary elements of small aircraft. The next time you fly on a comercial jet-liner please ask the flight crew where they got their start.
I wouldn't have mentioned this except for the "I'm not rich" comment. There are many working class back country small plane drivers that volunteer to fly in the Doctors with out borders crowd. Unknown to most folks these same pilots frequently rush to the aid or rescue of people in need. The word you are looking for is "thank you"

Instead of advocating closing our runways without thinking, you could move out of the flight pattern, and look into changing the zoning of the property around the airport to something more suitable. I would venture a guess that the airport was there first.

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 05:00 PM

Man-oh-man, I voice the opinion that desalination should be used only when needed and MrBill has me restructuring society, DENNIS throws in Marxism and Capt Mike is fearing cradel to grave social control by iconoclastic demagogues.

hehehehe you guys are a riot.

But Capt. Mike, you're right. The strongest force is market demand.

Just how is the real estate market doing these days?

DENNIS - 8-5-2007 at 05:22 PM

It may have been covered and missed but, with all the interest in de-sal and the assumption that eventually there will be many installations around the world....... What are they going to do with all the left over salt?

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 05:38 PM

leftover salt and all the other minerals and who knows what else comes through the intakes.

1. Spread on some ground that will soon be useless.
2. Dump it back into the ocean
3. Inject it into the ground and hope you miss the aquifers

Those are the options.

Hey honey, doesn't the water taste like dolphin pee today? I don't know dear, I've never tasted dolphin pee. Well you have now. Oh yeah, please go out back and get a few cups of salt for the popcorn party tonight. And please don't bring back any of the yellow salt.

I'll check into it as I research desal, but I think about 50% of the volume is waste.

[Edited on 8-6-2007 by oldhippie]

DENNIS - 8-5-2007 at 05:45 PM

So, the SOC could be turned into a sea of brine. You could tear the bottom off your boat and it would still float. It would be almost impossible to drown and everybody could throw away their fishing gear, all so the ninth green could be watered.

HMMMMMM..........Not good.

Diver - 8-5-2007 at 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie
leftover salt and all the other minerals and who knows what else comes through the intakes.

1. Spread on some ground that will soon be useless.
2. Dump it back into the ocean
3. Inject it into the ground and hope you miss the aquifers

Those are the options.

Hey honey, doesn't the water taste like dolphin pee today? I don't know dear, I've never tasted dolphin pee. Well you have now. Oh yeah, please go out back and get a few cups of salt for the popcorn party tonight. And please don't bring back any of the yellow salt.

Only 1, 2, 3 huh ?? What a doomster !
Have you never heard of the commercial salt business ??
Y'know, small lined drying ponds and trucks and employment and stuff like that.

.

.

DENNIS - 8-5-2007 at 05:51 PM

Diver ....

Isn't there now and in the past a glut of salt on the market? It's one of the few things in the store that could still be considered inexpensive.

oldhippie - 8-5-2007 at 06:03 PM

Diver,

Desalination plants produce liquid wastes that may contain all or some of the following constituents: high salt concentrations, chemicals used during defouling of plant equipment and pretreatment, and toxic metals (which are most likely to be present if the discharge water was in contact with metallic materials used in construction of the plant facilities).

What comes out is much more than desalinated water and salt. I'm planning to make a study of the desalination process. It's no doubt expensive, one time capital outlay to build the facility and recurring energy and maintenance costs, and it's no doubt polluting. The question is, is it prohibitively so? As you know the marine environment is the Loreto area is much more fragile than open ocean and Mexicans on average are poor. So expense and pollutants have high significance in the Loreto area.

jerry - 8-5-2007 at 06:19 PM

put the salt back in the sea where it came from
a desalt plant is like a dimple on a pimple on a misquitoes tity compared to the evaporation of water in the sea of cortez each day
if all your taking out is fresh water all the rest is all readdy in the sea :lol:

jerry - 8-5-2007 at 06:26 PM

ok all metal boats, docks,ships barges ferries as well as lures, swivels fish hooks props, dive gear will have to be out lawed too ??
come on old hippy the wear from metal parts in a desal plant are going to polute the sea get real your grabbing for straws
:lol:

Bajalero - 8-5-2007 at 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jerry
ok all metal boats, docks,ships barges ferries as well as lures, swivels fish hooks props, dive gear will have to be out lawed too ??
come on old hippy the wear from metal parts in a desal plant are going to polute the sea get real your grabbing for straws
:lol:

Jerry

What part of concentrating given toxins do you not comprehend?

Forget all the above items you listed , if you take what's already present in sea water and increase the presence 100 fold or more perhaps of all disolved minerals, don't you think that wherever the effluent falls it's going to make that area just a little too rich for life thats been used to a normal or lower concentration for the last 100 million years?

Me thinks you like a good laugh at the expense of a serious topic and conversation.

I'm not very good at writing myself, but your misspellings , lack of sentence structure and punctuation aside , you come across as dumb as a box of rocks

jerry - 8-5-2007 at 10:48 PM

bajalero kill the messanger?? Im very serious about what im saying.
As i said simple every day evaporation will concentrate minerals in the sea more then any desale plant . I have no reasone to believe that it will effect sea life at all because there is no way it will concentrate 1 fold much less 100 fold. So you dont know what your talking about.
People and who live in glass houses shouldnt throu rocks.

Cypress - 8-6-2007 at 05:17 AM

The dump site will be a "dead zone". Won't wipe out the whole Sea of Cortez, just a small area. No big deal unless you happen to live near that area. :no:

And the area will expand.

CaboRon - 8-6-2007 at 06:08 AM

Can the salt be sold ? Does it need to be further processed before it can be used in industrial or household applications.

The idea here is the complete use of byproducts to enhance the circular nature of the process. Thus, reducing the impact on the surrounding eco-systems.

-CaboRon

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:11 AM

An engineering company that is expert in desal hired by Loreto Bay has already concluded that because of the fragile nature of the SOC in that area that injection wells, the most expensive method of disposal, should be used.

I have to work every day this week, the company I have a contract with doesn't seem to understand the phrase "semi-retired", so I won't be reading too much about desal, but for those interested, start here:

http://www.coastal.ca.gov/desalrpt/dchap1.html

Jerry, this is where I got the paragraph about what is contained in the discharge. I was in a hurry and didn't cite the source before.

[Edited on 8-6-2007 by oldhippie]

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:15 AM

The comment about evaporation misses the mark a bit because the evaporation of water from the SOC is evenly distributed over its entire surface.

islandmusicteach - 8-6-2007 at 06:28 AM

This topic's quite interesting to me as I live on Catalina Island, one of the few places (outside of the middle east) where a desal plant runs 24/7.

I won't pretend to have all the details exact, here's the sketch:
The plant was put in as part of the Hamilton Cove condo development in the 80's, and was only planned to be run during times of drought. The first time they tried to fire it up when the reservoir was low, it failed all inspections and took a year to get on line. After that Edison decided it was prudent to keep it running 24/7. I'm not sure what they do with the brine.

Edison came back with a huge rate increase which the PUC approved. Now we have expensive water which gets more so as fuel costs rise. Edison, which sells us power and water, has no real incentive to limit desal use, even though alternatives like expansion of the reservoir and well drilling exist.

Developers see desal as the golden goose - it used to be that limited water resources was the reason projects wouldn't get approved. Now desal always comes up...

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by rob
OH: what is the moral difference between an aqueduct and desal - or for that matter, excavating a well?

I don't know how morals came into this discussion. I'm talking about cost to the consumer, the chemical and biological science of pollution, and the deleterious effects of both.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:38 AM

Thanks for the first hand info islandmusicteach. I hope you can provide more or point me to info on the Internet about the Catalina Island experience.

Lucky you, living on Catalina. 26 miles across the sea, romance, romance, romance, romance.

I did my final scuba check-out dive at Catalina. The instructor pulled off my face mask and pulled out my mouth piece to see my reaction. I gave him the finger. He thought it appropriate and I got my c-card :tumble:

capt. mike - 8-6-2007 at 06:39 AM

had a few minutes to WASTE waiting on a mtg so thot i'd pop back here this am to see what gems of folly were being propagated..........very funny stuff here.

doesn't the SOC flush itself fully every 3 days or so? thot i read that once.
i don't know it and cannot cite a source as a foot "in mouth" note so just asking.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by islandmusicteach
Developers see desal as the golden goose - it used to be that limited water resources was the reason projects wouldn't get approved. Now desal always comes up...

yup

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by capt. mike
had a few minutes to WASTE waiting on a mtg so thot i'd pop back here this am to see what gems of folly were being propagated..........very funny stuff here.

doesn't the SOC flush itself fully every 3 days or so? thot i read that once.
i don't know it and cannot cite a source as a foot "in mouth" note so just asking.

please stop wasting your time.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by lencho

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie
http://www.coastal.ca.gov/desalrpt/dchap1.html

Jerry, this is where I got the paragraph about what is contained in the discharge.

Interesting read, thanks. Something that confused me was comparing the results in the energy use table (where I was surprised to see distillation quite a bit cheaper energywise than RO) with the statement "RO plants usually have lower energy requirements" in the paragraph on comparison of technologies. This make sense to you?

--Larry

I haven't read the website closely yet. But seeing that it is a Government study............

capt. mike - 8-6-2007 at 07:24 AM

"please stop wasting your time" :barf:

ha! so typical of the social lefty controlanistas...........they want to tell me how to manage MY time!

if allowed they'd want to exert control over ALL of my life.............for the good of the WHOLE no doubt............. :wow:

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by capt. mike
doesn't the SOC flush itself fully every 3 days or so? thot i read that once.
i don't know it and cannot cite a source as a foot "in mouth" note so just asking.

Hmmmm, perhaps we should rename the Sea of Cortez to the Toilet of Cortez.

That's getting back to the old "the solution to pollution is dilution" practice, which has some merit. But not much.

Pescador - 8-6-2007 at 08:37 AM

I agree with Mike that the market is going to ultimately determine what happens in the final determination of whether or not Loreto Bay works.
And even though the Hipster and I probably sit on different sides of the political spectrum, I do have to agree with the concerns on Desal. I am a certified water operator in Colorado and have looked into this desal thing thouroughly and there is a serious problem. When you have small plants like the one operating at San Marcos Island, things go pretty well and they put the saline in the water and it gets flushed out with the changing of the tides and currents, but when you get something on the lines they are talking about with Loreto Bay you have a new problem. First of all the salt content in the Sea of Cortez is higher than it is across the peninsula in the Pacific Ocean. When you remove the salt from the water, most of the newer processes used by General Electric and Memcor or Us Filter, are using a modified Reverse Osmosis or Nano-filtration. In order to make sure that the salt molecules are fat enough to be correctly filtered out, they generally add some type of coagulant or flocculant to facilitate that. Now this has the tendency to clog the filters quite quickly so they have to be backwashed frequently which gives us a briney solution that is very saline but also has the other chemicals present in a high concentration that becomes a backwash sludge. Now to make it even worse, we get a scaling or filter pollution problem that has to be chemically scrubbed every so often and they have to use corrosive type chemicals like acids and chloramines to scrub the filter every so often (like 500 to 1000 hours) of operation. These are the most damaging polutants. So now you have this wonderful chemical sludge and they want to pump this stuff into the ground.
So most of us assume that they just seperate the salt from the water and we could use the salt on our vegetables, but that is hardly the case.

Cypress - 8-6-2007 at 08:43 AM

The desalination of seawater requires electricity. Isn't that something else that's in short supply? :?:

All this for a golf course? That's gonna be some expensive golf. :lol:

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 08:51 AM

Thanks for the information Pescador. I have a question. How much of the chemicals used to clean the system end up in the drinking water? It seems to me that to clean the system you need to run the chemicals through the same plumbing that produces the drinking water. But I don't know.

Cypress, you're catching on. This is where the need vs. want issue comes in.

wilderone - 8-6-2007 at 08:56 AM

Experts speak:
And don't forget - LB's intake would be in MARINE PRESERVE.

"Weighing in at the Monterey conference on how desalination would impact marine life was Dr. Pete Raimondi of UCSC's Center for Ocean Health. Drawing on data collected at intake systems such as the Moss Landing Power Plant, Raimondi said desal operations kill everything from fish, sea turtles and sea lions to eggs, larvae and spores.
"If something big hits the intake screen, it's typically deposited into a trash bin and put into a landfill; smaller things go through, but everything that comes in is assumed to die," says Raimondi.
But while he can tell you that 526 million fish larvae and 13.5 million crab larvae are lost annually inside the Morro Bay plant, Raimondi says it's harder to calculate the ecological impact of such plants.
"You can look at lost productivity of females, the adult equivalent loss, or the proportional mortality of total larvae source. Thousands and billions of larvae enter the plant. How many adult fish would these individuals have resulted in? We can't come up with that number," he says. "How fecund would the surviving females have been? We don't know. So, we look at proportional mortality."
Raimondi says 13 percent to 28 percent of the total larvae source was lost at the Moss Landing Power Plant, which is where CalAmerican is proposing to "collocate" a desal plant, meaning the desal addition would use the same energy and intake and outfall infrastructures as the already existing power plant.
Another iffy aspect of desal, some experts say, is the brine discharge, which is water that contains a high concentration of salt.
Mike Armstrong, general manager of the Marina Water District, which operates the only desal plant on the California coast currently producing drinking water, says brine disposal has been a challenge.
"Someone could make a lot of money if they came up with an environmentally safe way to dispose of brine," he says.
As it happens, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation already allocates $1 million to $3 million a year to research and develop ways to inject brine into oil fields to bring out more oil and to sell salt-related byproducts--an investment that the Bureau's Michelle Chapman finds a tad ironic. "

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 09:00 AM

Also, let's keep politics out of this. This is science. The off-topic threads are for politics.

jerry - 8-6-2007 at 09:04 AM

lets see 7500 desalt plants working world wide but it wont work for loreto??
dulute the discharge brine with sewer plant effluent witch is similar to fresh water that needs to be delt with and the discharge will be similar to the seawater.
there is a fast tide in that area and the dulution would be very good.

i believe that if one want to make something work and puts his mine to it he will find a way
some people spend there whole life in a negative mode
by engineers specks a bumbel bee and a humming bird cant fly but try to convince them that they cant fly

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 09:09 AM

Man, thanks wilderone. The chemistry and biology is fascinating, even to a physicist.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 09:13 AM

Jerry, I'm not negative, I'm a scientist, I'm skeptical.

[Edited on 8-6-2007 by oldhippie]

wilderone - 8-6-2007 at 09:27 AM

More expert opinion.
Again - it's a MARINE PRESERVE
Jerry, you've got all the answers. Are you an expert?

"Intake water design and operation have environmental and ecologica implications. As described above, coastal plants typically take in large volumes of seawater during operation. In a recent report on power plant cooling-water intake structures, the California Energy Commission notes that “seawater … is not just water. It is habitat and contains an entire ecosystem of phytoplankton, fishes, and invertebrates” (York and Foster2005). Large marine organisms, such as adult fish, invertebrates, birds, and even mammals, are killed on the intake screen (impingement); organisms small enough to pass through the intake screens, such as plankton, eggs, larvae, and some fish, are killed during processing of the salt water(entrainment). The impinged and entrained organisms are then disposed of in the marine environment. Decomposition of these organisms can reduce the oxygen content of the water near the discharge point, creating additional stress on the marine environment. Impingement and entrainment introduce a new source of mortality to the marine environment, with potentially broad implications for local fish and invertebrate populations. More specifically, impingement and entrainment “may adversely affect recruitment of juvenile fish and invertebrates to parent or resident populations or may reduce breeding stocks of economically valuable fishes below their compensation point resulting in reduced production and yield” (Brining et al. 1981). The magnitude and intensity of these effects depend upon a number of factors, including the percent mortality of the vulnerable species, the mortality rate of the organism relative to the natural mortality rate, and the standing stock in the area of interest (Edinger and Kolluru 2000).The effects of impingement and entrainment are species- and site-specific, and only limited research on the impacts of desalination facilities on the marine environment has been done. A recent overview of desalination seawater intakes, however, asserts that “[e]nvironmental impacts associated with concentrate discharge have historically been considered the greatest single ecological impediment when siting a seawater desalination facility. However, recent analyses have noted that marine life impingement and entrainment associated with intake designs were greater, harder to-quantify concerns and may represent the most significant direct adverse environmental impact of seawater desalination” (Pankratz 2004)."

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by wilderone
More expert opinion.
Again - it's a MARINE PRESERVE

"The effects of impingement and entrainment are species- and site-specific, and only limited research on the impacts of desalination facilities on the marine environment has been done.

A recent overview of desalination seawater intakes, however, asserts that “[e]nvironmental impacts associated with concentrate discharge have historically been considered the greatest single ecological impediment when siting a seawater desalination facility.

However, recent analyses have noted that marine life impingement and entrainment associated with intake designs were greater, harder to-quantify concerns and may represent the most significant direct adverse environmental impact of seawater desalination” (Pankratz 2004)."

I shortened the post to get to the bottom line and added paragraph breaks to assist my feeble mind.

Keep it coming Mr. Wilderone.

Loboron - 8-6-2007 at 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie
Thanks for the information Pescador. I have a question. How much of the chemicals used to clean the system end up in the drinking water? It seems to me that to clean the system you need to run the chemicals through the same plumbing that produces the drinking water. But I don't know.

Cypress, you're catching on. This is where the need vs. want issue comes in.

When the system goes into the cleaning mode or cycle. It no longer produces fresh water. It goes into a "Back Flush" mode. When it's in this mode, cleaning, the chemicals and the waste, or salt is discharged back into the sea as the brine is during normal operation.

These larger systems work just like the ones we have on the yachts. No chemicals are ever entered into the fresh water during the cleaning process.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Loboron

Quote:

Good to know. Thanks.

Pescador - 8-6-2007 at 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie

Quote:

Originally posted by Loboron

Quote:

Good to know. Thanks.

Well, we are close to the answer here. It depends on the size of the molecules. In the case of coagulant and flocculant, there is obviously some intrusion into the filtered product. The EPA recognizes this and gives us some parameters of how much is acceptable. This has caused some concern in the EPA as of late since most floc's are of an aluminum base and there is some worry in the scientific community that any ingestion of aluminum (especially in the chlorhydrate families) of contributing to Alzheimer's. The brine produced by an onboard desal on a sailboat is considered minimal and uses more salt water for flushing and backwashing than would be feasible on a larger plant.
Jerry is sort of right about the salt being washed away but recent studies in the Saudi Arabian area suggest that the salt levels are a very balanced situation and there have been some suggestions that a few of the die offs of marine life in the area can be directly attributed to raising of the salt level. The complication to this issue is that raising above the 300-400 ppm which is the current saline level in the Sea of Cortez will surely cause a real alteration to marine life.
The issue of killing egg larvae and small fish is usually not any kind of a problem with desal plants as they take in a much smaller amount of water than do power plants and there have been cases where they have spread the intakes over a larger area, so this issue does not really have much of an impact. If we have 5,000 units in Loreto Bay and we use 3,000 gallons per month (which is a little high) we are talking only 15 million gallons per month which is 500,000 gallons per day, which is 21 thousand gallons per hour, which is about 350 gallons per minute.
Now the real issue arises. If we are doing 15 million gallons per month and we have about a 30% brine production, we are talking approximately 4.5 million gallons of toxic brine solution every month. Now that is something that can not be put back in the sea water SAFELY.

Cypress - 8-6-2007 at 12:04 PM

Pescador, Thanks. :bounce:

You've done the research and have the facts. :bounce:

You can't really argue with facts, unless you've got an agenda which could well be out of touch with reality.

Pescador - 8-6-2007 at 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie
Also, let's keep politics out of this. This is science. The off-topic threads are for politics.

Unfortunately this is almost impossible to do. The way I see and view the world is directly tied to my perceptions and beliefs. I am not smart enough to figure out, scientifically that is, whether or not Global Warming is in fact happening but I see enough conflict and disagreement from both sides of the political spectrum on this issue that I come to the conclusion that we really don't know yet and that most of the rhetoric and discussion is nothing more than an excuse to further ones political postion.
The thing that I was pointing out here is that while you and I come from opposite sides of the political debate and philosophy, we are in almost complete agreement on this issue of desalinization. So even if we wanted to further our agendas about the development of marketing of Loreto Bay, the result is exactly the same. This is a bad idea and may
have serious complications for the entire Sea of Cortez. The biggest challenge is that most people do not have an indepth knowledge of desalinization and assume it is nothing more than a simple process of separating salt from water and disposing of salt, which could mean that it may be way too easy to get permits from the government to put in Desal plants since on the surface it looks like such a simple and great idea.

Cap - 8-6-2007 at 02:30 PM

Pescador, thank you. You are a voice of reason above the din. Well stated facts, and reason will attract admiration and you have mine.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 02:32 PM

"but I see enough conflict and disagreement from both sides of the political spectrum on this issue (global warming) that I come to the conclusion that we really don't know yet "

Look for conflict and disagreement between scientists. Ignore the politicians. The politics in the global warming issue is due to one of its main spokesman, a politician hated and respected by many, and the enormous financial implications if it is true.

A facility that filters water and sanitizes it with chlorine for a resort development should be easy to consider soley from a scientific point of view.

[Edited on 8-6-2007 by oldhippie]

Don Alley - 8-6-2007 at 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pescador

...If we have 5,000 units in Loreto Bay and we use 3,000 gallons per month (which is a little high) we are talking only 15 million gallons per month which is 500,000 gallons per day, which is 21 thousand gallons per hour, which is about 350 gallons per minute.
Now the real issue arises. If we are doing 15 million gallons per month and we have about a 30% brine production, we are talking approximately 4.5 million gallons of toxic brine solution every month. Now that is something that can not be put back in the sea water SAFELY.

The track everyone seems to be on here is the idea that Loreto Bay produce enough water from desal for its 5,000 units. So where does the water come from for the 50,000 new Mexican residents to the Loreto area that FONATUR says will come as a direct result of the Loreto Bay development? When you consider desalinization as an alternative for water in the Loreto area, we should (assuming the new developments don't fail) think of producing water for at least 100,000 people. And that's a VERY conservative number when you factor Paraiso (6500 units+), Villas Group (2500 units), Golden Beach (?) and factor in the "Harvard group" figures of nearly 20 new residents per unit vs. FONATUR's 10 per unit.

There have been a few mentions of using the desal plant(s) to produce marketable salt. Residual chemicals may be a problem, but consider that the vast majority of commercial salt is for industrial use, not table salt. But the problem is the desal plant residue is a briney liquid. While it could, in theory, be evaporated into a solid, most of the ground in the region is mountainous. Using the little available flat real estate in a resort area for salt evaporation ponds may require a slight rise in the market price of salt.

There was, of course, a salt business on Isla del Carmen for many years. It's out of business.

Best guess from what I've heard is that coastal wells may be the initial source for desal. These wells have water that has salt intrusion rendering it unpotable. LB operates one such well at their nursery. These will produce less residual salt that sea water. In theory the resulting brine can be pumped into aquifers where return to the sea, if any, would be gradual and dispersed.

Finally, there are advocates for municipal, not private, desal systems. These systems are expensive to build and operate and if the wealthy resorts build their own, the tens of thousands of Mexican (and other) residents would have to build their own systems without the financial participation of the wealthiest residents. That could result not only in more expensive water, but cheaper alternatives for brine disposal.

oldhippie - 8-6-2007 at 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Don Alley

The track everyone seems to be on here is the idea that Loreto Bay produce enough water from desal for its 5,000 units. So where does the water come from for the 50,000 new Mexican residents to the Loreto area that FONATUR says will come as a direct result of the Loreto Bay development? When you consider desalinization as an alternative for water in the Loreto area, we should (assuming the new developments don't fail) think of producing water for at least 100,000 people. And that's a VERY conservative number when you factor Paraiso (6500 units+), Villas Group (2500 units), Golden Beach (?) and factor in the "Harvard group" figures of nearly 20 new residents per unit vs. FONATUR's 10 per unit.

Doesn't make sense does it?

And to rub salt into the wound (sorry) I've read that NOBODY knows the recharge rate of the aquifers that do exist.

So even if they tried to limit development to what natural water resources can support, nobody knows what that limit is.

There is much fundamental work that needs to be done before Loreto is developed.

flyfishinPam - 8-6-2007 at 03:57 PM

I apologize for not reading through this entire thread but I´d like to let you in on the current situation.

I live outsite the Miramar colonia beyond the water lines. The growth of Loreto is taking place so quickly that lands surrounding the town are becoming settled and many of these settlers are without services. Since we´ve been at our property we have had water delivered. We waited for five and a half years before the elctrical lines were installed in our area but still there is no water. So from the beginning we had water delivered by the city´s pipa (water truck). We pay the city and also have to tip the driver or else he won´t watch the level and will forget about us.

We used to get water delivered on monday, wednesday and friday of every week. Came like clockwork even while the water lines were broken after Hurricane Juliette. For the past four months we get water every eight days and on the eigth day we end up running out. Last week we ran out of water after 10 days of waiting for a delivery. This last time we got water (Friday 3 Aug) the pipa ran out and wasn´t able to fill our pila (holding tank). The water that we did get smelled of metal like it had been sitting in a tank for twenty years, insecticide and urine! How can I shower in this water, wash dishes, bathe my children?

So is this what Loretanos have to look forward to now?

This is happening to all my neighbors and the demand on the water supply just keeps increasing. Damn straight we´re gonna fight this!

Don Alley - 8-6-2007 at 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie

And to rub salt into the wound (sorry) I've read that NOBODY knows the recharge rate of the aquifers that do exist.

There was a new study done. No results have been released, but instead of results we have new restrictions on water use, and the problems Pam describes with deliveries and quality.

No water lines to long existing homes in Mirimar, but rumor is that lines are going in at Paraiso before a single unit is started. Shows what the priorities are.

Pescador - 8-6-2007 at 04:32 PM

Pam, are you saying you got water from a tank truck or are you saying that you got water from the supply line? If you are getting water from the supply line that is that bad, then the problem may have already started to show. It would seem to me that someone needs to complain to Sagarpa and request a water test to see whether or not it is even safe.

Don Alley is right, in my simple illustration I only figured the water for Loreto Bay and did not even consider or factor in the numbers for the human supply of workers. It really gets scary when you do that.

flyfishinPam - 8-6-2007 at 04:47 PM

OK anybody out there know where we can get our water tested? in La Paz? I can send up to my friends at UC Davis if need be but hoping we can do it in La Paz, or maybe Ciudad Constitucion?

According to the chamber of commerce those pipes ARE running from the aquafer to Loreto Paraiso. and yes in the estblished colonia of Miramar where most of the growth is and will be taking place, less than 50% of residents have water lines.

on my lousy water, I don´t know the source (we get it from a tanker truck) but I will find out and will reserve a sample for testing for what its worth.

[Edited on 8-6-2007 by flyfishinPam]

toneart - 8-6-2007 at 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pescador

Quote:

Originally posted by oldhippie
Also, let's keep politics out of this. This is science. The off-topic threads are for politics.

Thank you Pescador. This is absolutely fair, reasonable and represents the best way to work through differences; constructive dialogue.

Old Hippie--Thank you for starting this most interesting and important string. Good discipline, sticking to the science and letting potential detractors fall out. :yes:

I am learning a lot here!

Who's "we"?

Dave - 8-6-2007 at 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by flyfishinPam
This is happening to all my neighbors and the demand on the water supply just keeps increasing. Damn straight we´re gonna fight this!

So.....The candidates running for the new administration:

Any who are anti LB?

If not, why not?

flyfishinPam - 8-6-2007 at 05:33 PM

"we" be the people

Right.....

Dave - 8-6-2007 at 07:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by flyfishinPam
"we" be the people

How many do "we" be?

What about my other questions?

mtgoat666 - 8-6-2007 at 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by flyfishinPam
"we" be the people

"we the people" ain't Mexican, it seems to ring a bell, though

Loreto development is fine, and what will be will be. If the water ain't reliable, then the development will be left like the ruins of the Anasazi, just another puzzle for people to ponder as they pass by in their RVs. If concerned about colapse of civilization, get out now.

Pescador - 8-6-2007 at 09:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by flyfishinPam
OK anybody out there know where we can get our water tested? in La Paz? I can send up to my friends at UC Davis if need be but hoping we can do it in La Paz, or maybe Ciudad Constitucion?

According to the chamber of commerce those pipes ARE running from the aquafer to Loreto Paraiso. and yes in the estblished colonia of Miramar where most of the growth is and will be taking place, less than 50% of residents have water lines.

on my lousy water, I don´t know the source (we get it from a tanker truck) but I will find out and will reserve a sample for testing for what its worth.

[Edited on 8-6-2007 by flyfishinPam]

Ok, the water that comes in the truck is anybody's guess. During hurricane John, all our friends were getting water from a truck and it came from a shallow irrigation well in San Lucas (South of Santa Rosalia) and was brackish and of terrible quality, so the only thing you can do there is to find out where the truck is filling up and see if he won't change. He may be pulling water from a shallow well or other questionable source and if it tests bad, then Sagarpa just shrugs it's shoulders and says so what.
I wanted to see the wells and water supply for Santa Rosalia and talked a friend into getting me a visit and when i got there I noticed the chlorinator was not working. When I asked about it they said, "oh yeah, it broke about three years ago and we are going to replace it one of these days". Thank goodness the wells by Agua Verde are deep enough and have no contamination from ground water so people are not getting sick, but make no mistake, there is no chlorine in the water. I find this really funny because I have to test every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, and if I fall below a certain level then I have to shut the system down and notify all users.
So Iam sure you do not want to do a full analytical test to see about lead or other heavy metals but it would be interesting to test for things like coloform bacteria, giardia, and cryptosporidium, which are the things that make you sick right away. Thank goodness we are dealing with deep wells here and all the bad stuff is pretty well filtered out by the time the water goes from the surface to the deeper aquifers which hold the water. So there is usually a lot of dissolved minerals in the water but little in the way that can cause illness or gastric distress.
What you really want to keep an eye out for is if the water starts to taste slightly brackish or salty. That will be the first indication that they have taken too much water from the underground storage tank that we call an aquifer which is like an underground reservoir. These are usually fed from high in the mountains in Baja and is one of the main reasons that hurricanes and rainy seasons are a good thing because it replaces the water that we have taken out. Now if we take too much out then we have negative pressure in the aquifer and it wants to fill in from any readily available source, which is usually the ocean in an area as close to the ocean as Loreto. Most aquifers that become intruded by salt water never recover and are for all intents and purposes destroyed.

flyfishinPam - 8-7-2007 at 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dave

Quote:

Originally posted by flyfishinPam
"we" be the people

How many do "we" be?

What about my other questions?

go ahead and roll your eyes.

what I don´t understand is why you think it is ok for foreign developers to come to a tiny town, dictate its law and its future then take all the water away. once the water is gone that´s it.

ruins of developments that disintegrate into the landscape and are interesting to look at and poke fun of aside, but think of the people it will destroy. so if we do get desal, who will pay? who will pay for the desal plant and who will pay the high price of the water that it will produce? what kind of damage will it cause enviornmentally? yeah I can move away and make a living elsewhere I am lucky but if I were planning that I´d just shut up and leave.
I would rather stay so we have to fight for my family and for my neighbors and friends. I am not a selfish person, I do take care of my family but I have no greed, I would rather have the respect of my friends and colleagues than become a pig feeding at the trough of temporary opportunity. The people I know here are not so lucky that they can relocte easily for many reasons, you of all people should know that.

as for your questions, I´ll answer whatever questions I feel like so stop sounding like another poster who usually stays in the off topic fourm, use your own tactic you do have one we´ve all seen it. i do not know the platforms of the candidates as it is early but I will find out and I will support the person who is for a responsible growth plan not one who only sees dollar signs like the current administration. with all the changes in this town it will be difficult for the current party in power to win.

as I write the city is paving the street in front of my shop, or at least prepping it for pavement. They broke no less than three sewer lines in front of us and that is only one city block. the raw sewage stinks out there and has been flooding all night. this is the kind of change that this "progress" of development is bringing. So Dave, how would YOU like to have raw sewage spewing out in front of your deli? How would YOU like to faced with the draining of YOUR town´s aquifers? How would YOU like it if your city was such a mess that you couldn´t even walk down the street let alone drive reasonably. You have no justification for the eye roll and you have no bone in this fight.

as for displacement of freshwater by seawater in a spent aquafer, we wish that was the case but the real facts are that since the San Juan Londo aquafer is so close to a geothermal area, we are seeing evidence of geothermal intrusion that contains high levels of Mercury, and Aresnic among other heavy metals. This was discussed in a thread back in March, I think Don Alley posted it and I saw him at that meeting.

I am a former scientist (chemistry and biology) and as a true scientist (once a scientist always a scientist) I am inquisitive and abhor the lies that are being cloaked in half-truths like one big developer is doing. I seek the truth and wish to educate the people whose very lives depend on the important decisions these pigs are making for them. They have the disadvantage of not having a proper education, most don´t even make it beyond secondario (Jr. High), many can´t read and don´t understand what is happening all around them. As I speak with people for instance when I explained the heavy metal intrusion of our aquafer with them, they are angered. when I show them the pdf flie that LB put out especially the part where it says they have all the water rights, they are angered further. when angry they have the passion to dictate their own future. what is bad about that? I do not wish to make decisions for anyone but my own family and business but I will always educate people, get them to ask questions and sit back while the people formulate their own decisions for THEIR future.

I would REALLY like to see a public town meeting in SPANISH presented by Loreto Bay and the other developers. LB has done them in the past for the gringo community to "dispel rumors" but they never did it in Spanish for the residents of Loreto, the ones who vote and can actually control their own futures. It is my opionon that the people deserve to hear the plans of the developers that will affect them for the rest of thier lives.

backninedan - 8-7-2007 at 08:22 AM

Dave, meet mtgoat, you two should get along just fine.

Life Isn't Fair !

MrBillM - 8-7-2007 at 08:33 AM

Something most of us find out when we are young kids. We adjust accordingly. Although "almost" everyone of us who bought in Baja "hoped" for that moment to be frozen in time, we knew deep down that it wouldn't be so.

IF the Money holds up and the politicos are paid well enough, the project will be built. PERIOD. When that happens, shed a tear and move on.

Bob and Susan - 8-7-2007 at 08:47 AM

pam i don't know if you've driven up to loreto bay recently but...

it's too late...
it's a city of it's own...
i drove by yesterday and WOW!!!

with the buffer of the airport between it and the town most "buyers" will NEVER see a problem and sales will continue

growth for loreto is ineventable...

the city of loreto (JUST LIKE THE STATES) must deal with the issues of growth and demand these developers supply answers and support

once the development is finished you'll NEVER see the builders again

you complaine about your water delivery...you should become self-sufficent and look for a back-up delivery system
....maybe your own tanker or a BIGGER holding tank

backninedan - 8-7-2007 at 08:47 AM

MrBillM

I'm afraid that this time you are dead on target. If the money holds out, the politicians will fall in line and it will continue.

I knew that things would change, just not so fast and so drastic. It may be getting close to the "move on" phase.

wilderone - 8-7-2007 at 09:37 AM

What LB Co. is doing is unprecedented - A development of 6,000 units. The other desal plants in Baja are for single hotel complexes as a backup, supplemental and emergency use which came years after the hotels were viable, and making a profit. What LB proposes is a desal plant which will generate 1 to 1.5 million gallons per day. They need test wells, an EIS, approvals and the MONEY to build a desal plant - which costs between $14-20 million dollars, and they can't pass that cost on to the condo buyers of the Village. LB Co. is reluctant to foot the cost now, but instead, is relying on their thin propoganda and veiled promises contained in the Sustainability Report to further their agenda without solid evidence that a desal plant will actually be built. But the growth of Loreto - due to the construction of the Villages project - is also unprecedented, and as LB is so shortsighed in everything they do, they didn't foresee that the water supply in Loreto would be affected before they could get the Villages built. So now, they're pressured to get the water problem solved NOW and it's affecting the unit sales. In contrast, the growth of Cancun happened in a similar fashion, but there is plenty of water there so that was not an issue, and it is not a desert environment, faces an ocean, not a gulf. So you can hypothesize "IF the Money holds up and the politicos are paid well enough, the project will be built. PERIOD", but hard science and the facts of life dictate otherwise. It's different this time. It won't be built if there are no buyers for the units - also unprecedented - one developer, one project. Cabo and Cancun were created on a foundation of hotels - not build-on-demand condo units. This "sustainable" "urban village" concept is simply untenable - it will never be "sustainable" - and is also unprecedented. They can talk all they want about Green building with compressed block, etc., but unless there is a huge major reliable desal plant built in the next 2 years to prove to the new buyers that there will be water (which will be dependent on the wind turbine power, which also must must be built), the Villages will not be built. The Villages project is no longer dependent on buying ejido land, or greasing palms to purchase smaller parcels for the electric generator plant, the worker housing, etc. It's now a matter of selling the condo units. And that, "we" can have an impact on. So you can't say that what's happened in the past in the FONATUR-inspired development areas will eventually come to pass in Loreto because the factors dictating those developments don't parallel what is happening in Loreto.

In a different vein, three people from GEA (in Loreto?) were sent to Mexico City to attend the World Water Forum, and one person from the Organismo Operador Municipal del Sistema de Agua Potable. The Forum had a very comprehensive agenda with presentations from around the world. These people must have an opinion on how to govern the water supply in Loreto - at least have come away from the forum realizing that the water issue in Loreto and the Villages is inexorable and must be dealt with. They should be contacted for their feedback and general information, possibly in a town meeting where there can be some discussion, and the request for regular water testing, among other things. After all, they attended the Forum with LB Foundation funds, which as we all know, is to benefit the community of Loreto. The only benefit to be derived from that expenditure is what those participants gained in knowledge and understanding and its application to Loreto.

backninedan - 8-7-2007 at 10:07 AM

Ya Pam, go out and buy a tanker truck lol. It makes me wonder how people can advise when they have no first hand information of a problem..

Bob and Susan - 8-7-2007 at 12:03 PM

dan
it's just "common sense"

if you are dependant on others and they are not producing...
don't "whine" about it...
take away the excuse... :light:

a 525 gallon water tank to haul water is less than $500
500 gallons "should" last a week

santa rosalia has piped water every other day
and somtimes once a week

if those people didn't "plan ahead" for the shortages
they'd have no water and "stink"

your in a different place...you NEED to be self sufficient

LB is "built"

"it's too late to cry about spilled milk"

"if you have lemons amke lemonade"

backninedan - 8-7-2007 at 12:28 PM

Is this what you tell the local people when water is more expensive than they can afford? "You should have planned ahead?"

Cypress - 8-7-2007 at 12:37 PM

Jeez, I'm gonna have to buy a tanker truck in order to have water? :lol:

Who's gonna drive this rig? :lol:

Hope there's room for parking it and turning it around. :lol:

backninedan - 8-7-2007 at 12:41 PM

Maybe tanker truck sales is the new hot business??

Where did you get that idea?

Dave - 8-7-2007 at 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by flyfishinPam
what I don´t understand is why you think it is ok for foreign developers to come to a tiny town, dictate its law and its future then take all the water away.

Not only do I think it's not OK, I consider it a criminal conspiracy.

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 05:51 AM

To those that say that the success of Loreto Bay is entirely dependent upon sales of the "units" I say you're almost correct. But, for the moment let's say you're entirely correct.

The goal then would be to stop sales, perhaps by appealing to the same thinking that this supposedly eco-friendly developer is appealing to. They say it's an environmentally safe development, we (explained below) say it's an environmental disaster.

The people that would like to see this development scaled back have just as much access to the world wide web as the developers. Judging from what has been sent to me via the email address associated with my nomad account (we) have the entire skill set needed to present our point of view.

Does anybody know how many "units" have been sold? Would somebody be willing to attend a sales pitch and find out that and related information such as price range and what they say about the fact that there's not enough water?

I imagine there will be a big fall/winter sales promotion. We should be ready to combat that.

Bob and Susan - 8-8-2007 at 06:06 AM

the people "buying" will have an entirely different outlook...

"their" loreto bay will "save" loreto not destroy it :biggrin:

"their" new houses are made "way better" than the "old" stuff :biggrin:

remember these people will think by "changing" loreto it will become "better" :no:

they NEVER saw the "old Loreto" and have no referance

Bob and Susan - 8-8-2007 at 06:08 AM

we have a trailer with a tank on it...no problems hauling water and no engine problems

you'll LEARN to drive...someday

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 06:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bob and Susan
the people "buying" will have an entirely different outlook...

"their" loreto bay will "save" loreto not destroy it :biggrin:

"their" new houses are made "way better" than the "old" stuff :biggrin:

remember these people will think by "changing" loreto it will become "better" :no:

they NEVER saw the "old Loreto" and have no referance

It won't be easy, that's for sure. I'm not going after folks who have made a decision to buy. I'm going after those thinking about it. I bet a large number of sales are to people looking to flip the UNIT and make a few bucks. They could care less about the environment 700 miles south of the border.

So I'll also have to come up with other places that would be better to meet those goals. Shouldn't be hard considering the high prices Loreto Bay UNITS are selling for.

There's at least two fronts in this battle. The environment and the financial. Plus there are certainly places where the weather is better and you can drive to a grocery store.

Buying into Loreto Bay is buying into a bad dream.

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 06:58 AM

Good point Larry. But another nomad wrote he was lured to Loreto because of their greenwash marketing. But he immediately saw through it all with the time share sales techniques employed once there.

Who are the other folks you mentioned. We'll need to "de-placate" them also. If it's FONATUR, they will be "de-placated" when the money stops rolling in. Their deal with LBC is that they get money as the UNITS are sold. LBC has not bought all the land they're planning on developing. It's a "rolling" deal.

[Edited on 8-8-2007 by oldhippie]

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 07:09 AM

Larry, see my post above yours. We were probably writing at the same time.

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 07:16 AM

I have to get to work (the paying kind). The company I contract with gave me a b-tchin' Dell laptop with a docking station, dual 19" monitors, and wireless keyboard and mouse. I have to set it up and get back to building their Intranet.

I wonder how much Telnor would charge for a T1? 8^)

Don Alley - 8-8-2007 at 08:44 AM

Greenwashing

One of the immediate benefits of greenwashing a development is it makes your press releases more media friendly.

There may be other benefits in the new wacky world of "carbon credits" as well. LB may be able to sell all of its eco and sustainability features to a coal fired power plant in China, or a hogfarm in North Carolina.

I doubt it would be productive to get in a peeing match with various Loreto developers over the environment; I doubt that it's a big factor with the majority of buyers. Those buying to flip will take their risks, and those buying for sunny warm beaches will figure it out eventually.

But if I were to talk to anyone thinking of "investing" in Loreto, I'd stress these simple points:

A study by a University if Arizona hydrologists suggests that the water source may be near exhaustion.

Rejecting that report, Mexico did their own study.

When Mexico's study was finished, the results were not made public. But water restrictions were immediately placed on water use in Loreto. Hmmm...

So, ready to invest a few hundred grand here, or would you rather go somewhere else with water?

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Don Alley
Greenwashing

One of the immediate benefits of greenwashing a development is it makes your press releases more media friendly.

There may be other benefits in the new wacky world of "carbon credits" as well. LB may be able to sell all of its eco and sustainability features to a coal fired power plant in China, or a hogfarm in North Carolina.

I doubt it would be productive to get in a ******* match with various Loreto developers over the environment; I doubt that it's a big factor with the majority of buyers. Those buying to flip will take their risks, and those buying for sunny warm beaches will figure it out eventually.

But if I were to talk to anyone thinking of "investing" in Loreto, I'd stress these simple points:

A study by a University if Arizona hydrologists suggests that the water source may be near exhaustion.

Rejecting that report, Mexico did their own study.

When Mexico's study was finished, the results were not made public. But water restrictions were immediately placed on water use in Loreto. Hmmm...

So, ready to invest a few hundred grand here, or would you rather go somewhere else with water?

Press releases are THE way to get a good Google ranking (besides paying for it). Why? Because there are many websites that collect press releases and then link to them. I explained before Google's main method for ranking is citation. Hyperlinks are the citations.

"But if I were to talk to anyone thinking of "investing" in Loreto"

You are, many people read this website. I think only a small percentage post. Maybe an administrator could provide the actual numbers.

oldhippie - 8-8-2007 at 10:00 AM

You're right, I don't want one. That was coming out of the old days when I did it all, before hosting services.

Now I gotta get to work. This website is addicting.

wilderone - 8-8-2007 at 10:24 AM

I agree that many of the people who are buying a unit in the Villages do not care a whit about the environment. I'm sure many are speculators who bought at inception when the real estate market was hot all over, and a beach-side condo for $200,000 seemed like a bargain a few years ago, and that was the end of the analysis. However, as you can see, many units are now for rent and some for sale - at high prices which are over and above what can be bought elsewhere - without the water problem or incomplete infrastructure of all types (a "vision", a promise). Take a look at the overbuilt Florida real estate scene now, and the foreclosure market resulting therefrom. Why would it be different in Baja? The economics is the same.

In so many other ways, the Villages project is unprecedented and its overall premise is simply not viable. To clarify, the "Villages" is just that - planned to be a community of families, living and working together in their small mini-town, eventually self-governed and managed through the HOA. The management of most condo complexes is daunting enough, with exhorbitant budgets and strict regulating guidelines. Is there a counterpart to HOA management and accountability in Mexico? There are CCR's for the Villages, but what is the recourse when there is mismanagement, you're not on-site, there isn't a quorum to convene a meeting to confront the Board (that is the avenue for dealing with condo management). There are annual financial statements to be prepared, with required Reserve amounts, invested safely, and reviewed by outside accounting firms. Will the standard be the same? Or will every HOA ill become the norm: broken community area faucets, dirty beaches, littered streets, dying foliage, pothole repair, escalating HOA dues, no reserves, no accounting.

And that's just one aspect. The LB people keep referring to Civano as one of the feathers in their cap. If you look at Civano, you will see that it is beginning it's Phase III construction NOW. Civano has approx. 1,200 homes built over the last 9 years. There is an extremely involved and active HOA and neighborhood organization, that keeps Civano on track. This will not be the case at the Villages. At Civano, the residents work in the nursery. At Civano, the success of the reduction of water use compared to Tucson (which is their yardstick), is due to almost 100% native, draught tolerant landscaping. No so in the Villages, where they use only 30% native plants, and the remainder are tropical requiring more water. This is nonsensical given that LB Co.'s mantra is "sustainable" and the water issue is so serious.

The success of Cancun and Cabo is due to vacation resorts and hotels - not residential units for foreigners. Short-term rental of the Villages units - like hotel rooms - is not viable. There is no mechanism to manage them as hotel rooms, and that is not happening. And what segment of people are looking to rent at $2,000+/mo, when you can more for less elsewhere? The snowbirds who traditionally come to Baja, Arizona and Nevada and swell the populations there, come in their RVs or rent homes for $600-900 in Lake Havasu City and Phoenix where the rents are low. They're retirees from Minnesota and Wisconsin and cannot afford high rent. So there is limited possible success as far as a rental property.

If you're a buyer wanting to live full time in the Villages, what will you do all day - 365 days a year? Yes, there are many recreation opportunities in and around Loreto and Baja. Is a totally frivolous life of fun-seeking fulfilling? Really? LB envisions a place where life is more abundant. What does this mean? If you read the rest of their "Mission" rhetoric, LB is dedicated to build a Village "to demonstrate that humans can play a regenerative role in the eco-system, while creating positive social change and bring economic prosperity to Central Baja Californa." Personally, I would rather not live in a demonstration project; any social changes can be addressed within the town of Loreto as needed, and prosperity is relative and objective. Why do you see so many grinto alcoholics living in Baja?

What makes you happy? Being with your good friends? Having a BBQ in the back yard? Spending time with your grandchildren? Puttering around the house? Planting a garden? Going fishing in your own boat? Dropping in to see familiar faces in the local bar? Concerts? Do you like privacy, solitude and quiet? Christmas and Thanksgiving with your friends and family? Diversity or exclusivity in your neighborhood? I can't answer these questions for you - but you need to envision your own reality - not adopt some specious promise as your path for fulfillment.

And consider that it will be years, if ever, that all the promises and "build out" will come to pass. Civano had the support of Fannie Mae, the City of Tucson, HUD, and the city invested $3 million on roads, water and sewer projects to make it happen - and Civano is only 1/4 the size of the Villages. And despite what LB Co. states, Civano was designed and planned by a collaborative effort involving some 17 heavyweight consultants, the City of Tucson and the expertise of developer Case Enterprises. See: http://www.terrain.org/unsprawl/5/ and http://www.wapa.gov/es/pubs/esb/1999/99Apr/at_civano.htm
Do you see Trust for Sustainable Development mentioned anywhere?

And speaking of the laurels LB Co. claims, Bamberton was indeed planned, but never got built because (1) the project was more than twice the size of the entire population of Bamberton; (2) the slide show presentation for the people of the town to convince them this was a good idea, depicted photos of Italian hillside development, when most of the proposed site was flat, and (3) it was just plain ill-conceived and (4) the town essentially didn't trust the developer. How many of you could dream up some development some place - propose some outrageous construction with any conceivable solution that technology could offer just to get it built? Anyone could. It doesn't mean that it makes sense and will be successful by any standards, including the environmental criteria that has come to light in the past 10 years.

Roberto - 8-8-2007 at 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by lencho
Why would you want one? That's only 1.5 mb/s, right?

The reason would be for hosting - T1 is a SYMMETRICAL 1.5mb/s. Both up and down. If you're not hosting stuff, I agree, the payback ain't there.

oldhippie - 8-9-2007 at 08:15 AM

wilderone, thanks for the paragraph breaks - and the paragraphs.

But you just shot to hell my plans:

"Is a totally frivolous life of fun-seeking fulfilling? Really?"

I guess not, damn it!

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