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Osprey
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Baja Sur Fresh Water
Water Works
What is fossil water? The term intrigued me enough to want to know more about our water here in Baja California Sur.
Fossil water is that million year old fresh water waiting, way down deep below the surface, to be sucked up and used when we can’t think of anything
else to do.
There are three kinds of water, oceans, above ground and in the air and Baja Sur has very little of the parts without the salt. The skinny peninsula
is not laid out for wetlands – much of it is a narrow strip of land surrounded by salt water with a ridge of mountains running in a ragged line down
the center. Don’t look for Lake Baja Sur. When it rains, the rare fresh water downfall runs down the mountain slopes and canyons to the shoreline
flats where it is pushed, drawn, hurried along to the sea. On the trip only miniscule amounts of fresh water seep beneath the surface to become part
of the shallow, tenuous water table.
As the rain water beneath the sand meets the salt water near the shore, the waters mix – the brackish water is often too salty for humans or
agriculture. There are a few areas where the flats between the mountains and the shore are low enough, vast enough to have formed deep basins that
hold huge but yet to be measured fossil water aquifers.
Right now, globally, most wells are no deeper than 100 meters and their aggregate drawdown is about a foot a year. Our wells are few, very shallow and
the drawdown is dramatic and getting worse with each year of drought. Seventy percent of the water goes to agriculture and livestock – agriculture
here leaves behind an unwanted deposit of salt that eventually goes back into the shallow water table. If we continue to use more water than the
recharge and the wells dry up, some of them will not find again enough pressure to bring the water to the well – that will also happen when we
overdraw deep fossil water reserves in the same way we lose access to deep pools of oil.
Here’s how we stack up with our neighbors when it comes to available fresh water. What hydro guys call flow and stock, streams and rivers, the
internal renewable water resource in the regular water table. The figures are for the year 2000 but they could be for any recent year. The amount
shown below is that available fresh water resource per inhabitant PER YEAR in cubic meters.
Baja Sur 35
Mexico 4,338
Central America 20,370
At my place my wife and I pay for about 20 cubic meters each PER MONTH. So in a year we use 240 cubic meters.
Now here comes the good part. What are we going to do about this emergency? Nothing, not a damn thing. Nobody lived here for the 4,000,000 years it
took to build any fossil water basins. Now we have come along and we are using up hundreds of years of late water and every drop we catch from
monsoons and storms. The driest areas will begin to ration fresh water when we run out of the surface stuff. One little village will have enough for a
hundred more years, another will run out in 20 years, etc. etc. When it finally gets critical enough (for agriculture, livestock and people) we will
dig way down deep and get at all that slightly radioactive old stuff until it runs out.
You and I will be long gone. It’s not our fault, it was bound to happen = ni modo. Gotta ask yourself “Why would anyone want to live in a desert?” My
answer would be “It was great while I was there and we had all the water we wanted.”
Footnote: A deal has been signed by Sitka, Alaska to ship 80 million gallons of fresh water from Blue Lake to a Mumbai bottling plant. The big tanker
ships, that usually hold oil, are being refitted at this writing. We could maybe make a deal to have some of the ships stop down here. Is it on their
way? I’ll have to look that up.
[Edited on 9-22-2011 by Osprey]
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David K
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Nice article Osprey.
Once the water is gone, so will go the people... at least down to the numbers the local supply can furnish.
I first read of the use of fossil water at Rancho de Wilson (near today's town of Vizcaino) in the Lower California Guidebook, also in Erle Stanley
Gardner's 1962 book 'The Hidden Heart of Baja', and in Tom Miller's 'The Baja Book' where he talked about fossil water at Vizcaino and the Magdelena
Plain.
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Russ
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On average I use 3 cu. meters/mo. But we are charged a pretty high price. $50 pesos per cu. m. by the private supplier. And of course there is no
power or phone lines here either. And we get to pay probably the highest property tax in Mulege municipality. Oh, did I mention we have to pay for
maintenance on our dirt road too?
Sorry about the highjack. I started off with water related and got carried away. 
[Edited on 9-22-2011 by Russ]
Bahia Concepcion where life starts...given a chance!
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Osprey
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Ah, but you are ALL BY YOUR LONESOME. What's that worth?
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Russ
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Absolutely Priceless
Almost......
[Edited on 9-22-2011 by Russ]
Bahia Concepcion where life starts...given a chance!
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bacquito
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Thanks for the "eye opener". Frequently in Ensenada we have no city water available for a day or more. There is concern for the future.
bacquito
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Skeet/Loreto
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Osprey:
The lack of a good supply of water in Baja was the Main reason I made several Comments on this Board about the Limited Supply whem Bay of Loreto
started building in Loreto.
I went through a 7 years Drought while living in Loreto and know how bad it can get.
If we have another Drought in Loreto the people will have to leave of start hauling water from WHERE??
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Osprey
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I think Pam Bolles posted about an ad hoc meeting with the water resource guy from Loreto Bay one time. As I recall he got off his moto to join Pam
and co for an after dinner drink and when they gave him their concerns said this:
"Not to worry. We will be planting very special kinds of trees all around the project that will cause this whole area to be a rain forest so there
will be ample water."
Maybe we should ask Pam if she got the guy's card or phone number.
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Cypress
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The "water issue" in Baja could get real serious? Hillary might be the answer to more than a few prayers.
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castaway$
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De sal technology will continue to improve and will eventually be cost effective when the need (demand) becomes critical enough to warrant the further
research into the viable processes that are currently being used or developed.
Live Indubiously!
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Cypress
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No water= no people!
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Pescador
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| Quote: | Originally posted by castaway$
De sal technology will continue to improve and will eventually be cost effective when the need (demand) becomes critical enough to warrant the further
research into the viable processes that are currently being used or developed. |
Not necessarily so. I did a lot of research on this for a potential client and the biggest problem is the byproduct of de-sal, which is some pretty
toxic stuff. Water is a very elastic product and anytime you want to change some property that is present in the water, you find that the water tries
its darndest to return to it's normal state. When you lower the PH, for example, the water tries very hard to return to its original state. The
same thing was true of Salt Water, and it tries to return to its original chemical composition and requires a lot of energy to convert it. The lay
person assumes it is a quick and easy process to take the salt out and have water, but the process is very expensive and right now you need a way to
get rid of the byproducts. If a project the size of Loreto Bay had gone pure desal, it might have raised the salinity level beyond recoverable
levels, since it is already so high in the Sea of Cortez.
Like most of the "Green Technology" that gets pushed by subsidies and political agendas, this one has some major problems that will need to be
overcome before it is a viable alternative.
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Osprey
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Don Jorge, in the summer months the humidity hangs around 70% for months and if you lived here through 16 of those like I have you might begin to
think the word Tropical is apt. Most mornings find my plants dripping with fresh water droplets. If it is an illusion, I'm part of it now and some of
my neigbors consider me the king of Chisme.
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capn.sharky
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Water, water, everywhere---but not a drop to drink.
There is more water in Baja than one would think. Building small dams in the foothills to catch and save storm water is one solution (plus adding
recreation areas to Baja). Also, desalination is another answer when lack of water becomes a problem. So much of Baja Sur is not lived on or ranched
so no one has really explored for underground water is much of the land. I would guess there is plenty to go around for many years to come. Los
Angeles was a great desert at one time and we have figgured out how to bring in water.
If there is no fishing in heaven, I am not going
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Osprey
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Capn, I was trying to explain that it is hard to imagine great untapped aquifers in the Laguna mountains -- they rise very abruptly (almost 7,000 ft)
and that defeats the theory that the underground water would somehow defy gravity and stay up there until we need it and until we can find ways to dig
deep wells in high mountains. That's partly what the piece was about -- the layout says you're probably wrong. But, so am I.
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Cypress
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It's a desert, no rainfall, no snow, and no rivers. And praying for a hurricane to bring rain? Careful what you pray for.
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wessongroup
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No hijack intended.. but for drilling "high in the mountains.. these guys are pretty good... have no idea of costs... but, if "it's" there ... think
these guys could hit it....
Emergency Mine Rescue: Nova
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/emergency-mine-rescue.html
Even in Baja in the mountains... but, then that would really solve the long term problem... would it...
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Udo
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Jorge...
It's very obvious you did a greg deal of research on your water piece. It sure is not a good sign when you have to pray for hurricanes to fill your
water supply wells.
On another note, It looks like Hillary will fill a few wells this time around.
Udo
Youth is wasted on the young!
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Oggie
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In Bahia de los Angeles the main source of water is fossil water from the dry lake west of town. It is highly mineralized and will kill plants over a
couple of years and render the ground sterile. A developer is floating a plan to build a resort with a golf course. Go figure!
A man never stands as tall as when he kneels to help a child.
Knights of Pythagoras
Funny how falling feels like flying
for a little while - Bad Blake
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Osprey
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Udo, 7 to 10 inches of water from a hurricane is possible in the Lagunas. That's a year's water for Baja Sur. It comes raging down the canyons in
muddy rivers of power, trying to get to the sea. You could not begin to measure the part that seeps down thru the granite, basalt and sand/sandstone
beneath the surface that will, in a few days, weeks, months make a small rise in a 30 ft well the sole source of water for villages between the
mountains and the sea. It is not meters or feet, it is inches.
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