Punta Colonet, Baja California
Encyclopedia
Punta Colonet north of San Quintín, Baja California
, is one of the most productive agricultural areas in Mexico
's Baja California peninsula
. Its proximity to Mexican Federal Highway 1
and the United States
have spurred the growth of large commercial farming in the area. Punta Colonet is a beautiful, unspoiled area where orchards and farms run right to the ocean's edge. The point, nearby town, bay, and cape are reputedly named after Captain James Colnett
, a British sea captain who explored this section of the Pacific coast in the late 18th century. There has been tremendous growth in the region over the last five years.
and Long Beach
combined. The projected multimodal maritime center would make Punta Colonet the largest port in Mexico and the third-largest in the world, after Singapore and Hong Kong. Port operations will require a city of up to 200,000 people. The project will require a new power plant and a desalination plant. The port will also require a 300 km plus (200 miles) rail line from the Port to reach the United States border and an intermodal facility.
On August 17, 2009, Mexico Transportation and Communications Minister Juan Molinar Horcasitas
announced the project will move ahead, and that a new timetable would soon be issued. On October 8, 2009, Mexico’s Secretary of Communications and Transport Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas said the project would start with a reduced near-term plan to handle one million containers (TEUs) per year, a figure “viable in light of declining Pacific ship traffic.” This is down from the original target of 2 million/year. He also said that bids will be accepted in the range of $1–3 billion, and he reiterated that four groups of companies are expected to submit construction-and-operation bids.
On December 14, 2009, after two years of work and expenditure of $1 million, the Mexican government issued urban and port development plans for the coming mega-port at Punta Colonet. From today’s population of 9,000, Punta Colonet will grow to 48,000 within five years, and 230,000 by 2040, according to the planning document issued by the Urban Development Program of the Center for Population and the City Planning Institute of Ensenada.
where expansion is currently underway to increase volumes, due to congestion at the ports of Los Angeles
, Long Beach
, and Oakland, which is even farther, unless expansion plans in US ports are aggressive enough.
Lázaro Cárdenas is used now on a small scale as a shipping gateway to interior US cities such as such as Chicago
, Kansas City
, and Houston (Houston, TX, is not an inland city; it is a port city connected to the Gulf of Mexico), as it is closer to the heart of the continent than Los Angeles. Puerto Colonet on the other hand would be closer to fast growing Arizona
, Nevada
and other mountain states and could serve as a bypass to the congested Los Angeles region with a comparable distance to those markets, and it would be over a thousand kilometers closer than the port at Lázaro. Currently, ships often have to wait a week to unload in the Los Angeles region, and large truck congestion is a big problem on the Interstate 710
and other connecting highways in the LA Basin. The current situation also causes a problem even for Los Angeles businesses as their cargos on ships are unloaded by time of arrival not proximity of destination.
The port of Guaymas
which has an already existing rail and four lane highway connection to the interior and United States is also seeking to increase its traffic in containers and bulk cargo but further development of Guaymas will not preclude expansion at Lazaro Cardenas or Punta Colonet.
Thus, ports and jobs could be kept in the US, but at a much higher overall cost, as much of California's infrastructure is already maxed out.
The mega-port also would be expected to be a boon to the Baja California
regional economy, providing several hundred thousand jobs directly or indirectly. A city nearby will need to be built, and highways and railways upgraded, providing vast economic growth potential.
, to handle between and of cargo. A mineral rights lobby had a different plan to develop the area as an offshore mining area. However, the mineral rights lobby was bypassed by the Mexican federal government, and the port was planned for bidding and obtained the backing of former President Vicente Fox
of the PAN
. There is also another Mexican mining company with Canadian backing which holds rights to an interior deposit of ilmenite and magnetite nearby.
Los Angeles area ports, likewise, also generally supported the plan as a congestion relief measure. When the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach become congested shipments into the city are not given preference in scheduling unloading over those further inland. Busineses located in Los Angeles were waiting as long as a week for a ship already offshore within sight of California with their cargo to unload.
Ernesto Ruffo Appel
, Baja California's former PAN governor and Mexico's ex-border czar, and Ensenada businessman Roberto Curiel Amaya teamed-up to bid on the project. They claimed then that investors from Asia and Europe were committed to Punta Colonet, but declined to divulge their investors identities.
Their plan is to build 18 berths at the port capable of processing of containerized cargo annually. The consortium also planned to combine the project with an air-freight airport north of Ensenada. It was reported that instead of running a rail line 180 miles (289.7 km) across the Baja California peninsula to and then connect the state capital Mexicali
and Yuma, Arizona
, as the federal plan envisioned, the defunct consortium of HPH/UP ostensibly would have built a line to Ciudad Juárez
in the state of Chihuahua where rail crossings into the United States already exist. But certainly any such rail line necessarily would run through or near Mexicali, the capital city of the state of Baja California for any tie-in with the US transcontinental rail system.
Developers argue that it makes sense to place a major mega-port and intermodal rail freight facility in a less populated area such as Punta Colonet. Appropriate environmental safeguards need to be implemented under NAFTA regulations.
Among the environmental investment required at Los Angeles ports are 80% less-polluting ultra-low sulfur diesel trucks, plus port electricity so waiting ships don't have to burn fuel oil
. These things were said not to be required in Mexico. But Mexico indeed does has environmental safeguards which are now enforced. Environmentalists are also concerned with pollution from port operation of ships, trucks,and locomotives and the discharge of sewage, toxic paint, and invasive species discharged by the boats into the harbor. These concerns are real. Although these are actual truths many changes are being made at this time by many transportation companies such as Union Pacific railroad which is constructing a 90 million dollar solution to the Long Beach/Los Angeles problem of pollution as an inland port where the trucking industry will be reduced for access to the direct port movement of containers unless they wish the customer to be charged a fee for pick up or delivery of the container at the port where the train is exempt from the charge.
s, or small communally-owned farming communities, that own the coastal land upon which the port will be built never were contacted. After banding together with a large property owner, those small landowners gained access to the planning and political processes so that their concerns could be heard and represented by the federal government. At this time the small land owners group have the largest say how the land will be used in relation to the needs of the land owners represented by Jesus Lara. Mr. Lara has family ties in this area for decades and is a southern California businessman with ties to the trucking industry, with a point of view very congruent to the landowners in the area. t
issued an operating concession to Grupo Minero Lobos, to permit mining of titanium and other metals from the sea bed in most of the bay. The concession covers 30,000 hectares - 45 kilometers of coastline and five kilometers into the sea, including the 3,000 Hectares designated to become Puerto Colonet. Grupo Minero Lobos believes that the mining concession automatically gives them the concession for the new port. The Mexican federal government opposes this because the port would lose its competitiveness.
Within the next decade this port may become the largest investment ever made in Mexico. It is likely that the project is going ahead regardless of the legal situation and the withdrawal of HPH and UP. The mining project will need the port as well. The two projects should be able to work together and prosper.
in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir
, already one of the best viewing sites in the world, is already being affected by the light emissions of cities as far as Tijuana. The light requirements of a port as large as the proposed Punta Colonet would bring even more light pollution to the area and basically ruin the observatory.
that had proposed to build Puerto Colonet is owned by Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing, which company controls 35 major ports in the world including the four most important ports in Mexico. There was a concern about the near monopoly ownership of North American ports in the event of a conflict with China.
San Quintín, Baja California
San Quintín is a coastal town on the west coast of the Mexican state of Baja California, in the municipio of Ensenada. San Quintín has beautiful beaches and several places for tourists to stay. Tourists can enjoy fishing, camping, bird watching, surfing, and clam digging...
, is one of the most productive agricultural areas in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
's Baja California peninsula
Baja California Peninsula
The Baja California peninsula , is a peninsula in northwestern Mexico. Its land mass separates the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of California. The Peninsula extends from Mexicali, Baja California in the north to Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur in the south.The total area of the Baja California...
. Its proximity to Mexican Federal Highway 1
Mexican Federal Highway 1
Mexican Federal Highway No. 1 follows the length of the Baja California Peninsula from Cabo San Lucas , at the southern end to Tijuana in the north...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
have spurred the growth of large commercial farming in the area. Punta Colonet is a beautiful, unspoiled area where orchards and farms run right to the ocean's edge. The point, nearby town, bay, and cape are reputedly named after Captain James Colnett
James Colnett
James Colnett was an officer of the British Royal Navy, an explorer, and a maritime fur trader. He served under James Cook during Cook's second voyage of exploration...
, a British sea captain who explored this section of the Pacific coast in the late 18th century. There has been tremendous growth in the region over the last five years.
Proposed Port
There is a proposal to turn the bay (Bahía Colonet) near Punta Colonet, a desolate and sparsely inhabited inlet, into a multi-billion dollar deep water mega-container port able to handle next-generation vessels. The mega-port will cover 30 km² which more than 70 km², making it as large as the U.S. ports of Los AngelesPort of Los Angeles
The Port of Los Angeles, also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT L.A, is a port complex that occupies of land and water along of waterfront. The port is located on San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, approximately south of downtown...
and Long Beach
Port of Long Beach
The Port of Long Beach, also known as Long Beach’s Harbor Department, is the 2nd busiest container port in the USA. It adjoins the separate Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for U.S.-Asian trade, the port occupies of land with of waterfront in the city of Long Beach, California...
combined. The projected multimodal maritime center would make Punta Colonet the largest port in Mexico and the third-largest in the world, after Singapore and Hong Kong. Port operations will require a city of up to 200,000 people. The project will require a new power plant and a desalination plant. The port will also require a 300 km plus (200 miles) rail line from the Port to reach the United States border and an intermodal facility.
On August 17, 2009, Mexico Transportation and Communications Minister Juan Molinar Horcasitas
Juan Molinar Horcasitas
Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas is a Mexican politician and academic member of the National Action Party who has been a federal deputy and, between 2 December 2006 and 2 March 2009, served as director of the Mexican Social Security Institute.President Felipe Calderón appointed him Secretary of...
announced the project will move ahead, and that a new timetable would soon be issued. On October 8, 2009, Mexico’s Secretary of Communications and Transport Juan Francisco Molinar Horcasitas said the project would start with a reduced near-term plan to handle one million containers (TEUs) per year, a figure “viable in light of declining Pacific ship traffic.” This is down from the original target of 2 million/year. He also said that bids will be accepted in the range of $1–3 billion, and he reiterated that four groups of companies are expected to submit construction-and-operation bids.
On December 14, 2009, after two years of work and expenditure of $1 million, the Mexican government issued urban and port development plans for the coming mega-port at Punta Colonet. From today’s population of 9,000, Punta Colonet will grow to 48,000 within five years, and 230,000 by 2040, according to the planning document issued by the Urban Development Program of the Center for Population and the City Planning Institute of Ensenada.
Rationale
If the port is not built, containers may have to be shipped in the port at Lázaro Cárdenas, MichoacánLázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán
Lázaro Cárdenas is a port city that with its surrounding municipality is located in the southern part of the Mexican state of Michoacán. It was formerly known as Los Llanitos, but changed its name as a tribute to Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, a Michoacán-born politician who was president of Mexico from...
where expansion is currently underway to increase volumes, due to congestion at the ports of Los Angeles
Port of Los Angeles
The Port of Los Angeles, also called Los Angeles Harbor and WORLDPORT L.A, is a port complex that occupies of land and water along of waterfront. The port is located on San Pedro Bay in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, approximately south of downtown...
, Long Beach
Port of Long Beach
The Port of Long Beach, also known as Long Beach’s Harbor Department, is the 2nd busiest container port in the USA. It adjoins the separate Port of Los Angeles. Acting as a major gateway for U.S.-Asian trade, the port occupies of land with of waterfront in the city of Long Beach, California...
, and Oakland, which is even farther, unless expansion plans in US ports are aggressive enough.
Lázaro Cárdenas is used now on a small scale as a shipping gateway to interior US cities such as such as Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, and Houston (Houston, TX, is not an inland city; it is a port city connected to the Gulf of Mexico), as it is closer to the heart of the continent than Los Angeles. Puerto Colonet on the other hand would be closer to fast growing Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
, Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
and other mountain states and could serve as a bypass to the congested Los Angeles region with a comparable distance to those markets, and it would be over a thousand kilometers closer than the port at Lázaro. Currently, ships often have to wait a week to unload in the Los Angeles region, and large truck congestion is a big problem on the Interstate 710
Interstate 710
Interstate 710 is a major north–south interstate freeway running for 23 miles through Los Angeles County, California...
and other connecting highways in the LA Basin. The current situation also causes a problem even for Los Angeles businesses as their cargos on ships are unloaded by time of arrival not proximity of destination.
The port of Guaymas
Guaymas
Guaymas is a city and municipality located in the southwest part of the state of Sonora in northwestern Mexico. The city is located 117 km south of the state capital of Hermosillo, and 242 miles from the U.S. border, and is the principal port for the state. The municipality is located in the...
which has an already existing rail and four lane highway connection to the interior and United States is also seeking to increase its traffic in containers and bulk cargo but further development of Guaymas will not preclude expansion at Lazaro Cardenas or Punta Colonet.
Thus, ports and jobs could be kept in the US, but at a much higher overall cost, as much of California's infrastructure is already maxed out.
The mega-port also would be expected to be a boon to the Baja California
Baja California
Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...
regional economy, providing several hundred thousand jobs directly or indirectly. A city nearby will need to be built, and highways and railways upgraded, providing vast economic growth potential.
Proponents
A Los Angeles firm, representing Chinese and Korean concerns, was lobbying the Mexican government to be granted permission to build the multibillion dollar port in the agricultural area of Punta Colonet, 150 miles (241.4 km) south of TijuanaTijuana
Tijuana is the largest city on the Baja California Peninsula and center of the Tijuana metropolitan area, part of the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. An industrial and financial center of Mexico, Tijuana exerts a strong influence on economics, education, culture, art, and politics...
, to handle between and of cargo. A mineral rights lobby had a different plan to develop the area as an offshore mining area. However, the mineral rights lobby was bypassed by the Mexican federal government, and the port was planned for bidding and obtained the backing of former President Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox
Vicente Fox Quesada is a Mexican former politician who served as President of Mexico from 1 December 2000 to 30 November 2006 and currently serves as co-President of the Centrist Democrat International, an international organization of Christian democratic political parties.Fox was elected...
of the PAN
National Action Party (Mexico)
The National Action Party , is one of the three main political parties in Mexico. The party's political platform is generally considered Centre-Right in the Mexican political spectrum. Since 2000, the President of Mexico has been a member of this party; both houses have PAN pluralities, but the...
. There is also another Mexican mining company with Canadian backing which holds rights to an interior deposit of ilmenite and magnetite nearby.
Los Angeles area ports, likewise, also generally supported the plan as a congestion relief measure. When the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach become congested shipments into the city are not given preference in scheduling unloading over those further inland. Busineses located in Los Angeles were waiting as long as a week for a ship already offshore within sight of California with their cargo to unload.
Ernesto Ruffo Appel
Ernesto Ruffo Appel
Ernesto Ruffo Appel is an American-born Mexican politician famous for being the first state governor not belonging to the Partido Revolucionario Institucional since its formation in 1929....
, Baja California's former PAN governor and Mexico's ex-border czar, and Ensenada businessman Roberto Curiel Amaya teamed-up to bid on the project. They claimed then that investors from Asia and Europe were committed to Punta Colonet, but declined to divulge their investors identities.
Their plan is to build 18 berths at the port capable of processing of containerized cargo annually. The consortium also planned to combine the project with an air-freight airport north of Ensenada. It was reported that instead of running a rail line 180 miles (289.7 km) across the Baja California peninsula to and then connect the state capital Mexicali
Mexicali
Mexicali is the capital of the State of Baja California, seat of the Municipality of Mexicali, and 2nd largest city in Baja California. The City of Mexicali has a population of 689,775, according to the 2010 census, while the population of the entire metropolitan area reaches 936,826.The city...
and Yuma, Arizona
Yuma, Arizona
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....
, as the federal plan envisioned, the defunct consortium of HPH/UP ostensibly would have built a line to Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
in the state of Chihuahua where rail crossings into the United States already exist. But certainly any such rail line necessarily would run through or near Mexicali, the capital city of the state of Baja California for any tie-in with the US transcontinental rail system.
Environmental
One US environmentalist was quoted as saying of the project, “This is just another case of exporting California’s dirty environmental problems to the pristine coastline of Baja California. This is one of the last places we can preserve the beauty that once was the entire west coast.”Developers argue that it makes sense to place a major mega-port and intermodal rail freight facility in a less populated area such as Punta Colonet. Appropriate environmental safeguards need to be implemented under NAFTA regulations.
Among the environmental investment required at Los Angeles ports are 80% less-polluting ultra-low sulfur diesel trucks, plus port electricity so waiting ships don't have to burn fuel oil
Fuel oil
Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue. Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash...
. These things were said not to be required in Mexico. But Mexico indeed does has environmental safeguards which are now enforced. Environmentalists are also concerned with pollution from port operation of ships, trucks,and locomotives and the discharge of sewage, toxic paint, and invasive species discharged by the boats into the harbor. These concerns are real. Although these are actual truths many changes are being made at this time by many transportation companies such as Union Pacific railroad which is constructing a 90 million dollar solution to the Long Beach/Los Angeles problem of pollution as an inland port where the trucking industry will be reduced for access to the direct port movement of containers unless they wish the customer to be charged a fee for pick up or delivery of the container at the port where the train is exempt from the charge.
Ejidos
Even though the development of the port was announced and many meetings were held with numerous foreign and domestic business executives, the nearby ejidoEjido
The ejido system is a process whereby the government promotes the use of communal land shared by the people of the community. This use of community land was a common practice during the time of Aztec rule in Mexico...
s, or small communally-owned farming communities, that own the coastal land upon which the port will be built never were contacted. After banding together with a large property owner, those small landowners gained access to the planning and political processes so that their concerns could be heard and represented by the federal government. At this time the small land owners group have the largest say how the land will be used in relation to the needs of the land owners represented by Jesus Lara. Mr. Lara has family ties in this area for decades and is a southern California businessman with ties to the trucking industry, with a point of view very congruent to the landowners in the area. t
Jobs
Also, some US citizens are concerned about loss of jobs in favor of cheaper Mexican labor. Where unions do not have a stronghold to direct employees terms and limits with employers may be the key to this project in relation to California based port operations success.A new view of Mexican labor may be apparent with Punta ColonetMining
Before the port project was started, the federal Economy SecretariatSecretary of Economy (Mexico)
In Mexico, the Secretariat of Economy is the government department in charge of economic affairs...
issued an operating concession to Grupo Minero Lobos, to permit mining of titanium and other metals from the sea bed in most of the bay. The concession covers 30,000 hectares - 45 kilometers of coastline and five kilometers into the sea, including the 3,000 Hectares designated to become Puerto Colonet. Grupo Minero Lobos believes that the mining concession automatically gives them the concession for the new port. The Mexican federal government opposes this because the port would lose its competitiveness.
Within the next decade this port may become the largest investment ever made in Mexico. It is likely that the project is going ahead regardless of the legal situation and the withdrawal of HPH and UP. The mining project will need the port as well. The two projects should be able to work together and prosper.
Astronomy
The nearby National Astronomical ObservatoryNational Astronomical Observatory (Mexico)
Mexico's National Astronomical Observatory was first established on the balcony of Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in 1878. It was later moved to Tacubaya, then on the outskirts of the city, a location remembered in the Observatorio station of the Mexico City Metro, situated nearby...
in the Sierra San Pedro Mártir
Sierra San Pedro Mártir
Sierra de San Pedro Mártir is a mountain range that is one of the Peninsular Ranges of the Baja California peninsula, Mexico. At , the highest peak is the Picacho del Diablo, also known as Cerro de la Encantada or Picacho la Providencia...
, already one of the best viewing sites in the world, is already being affected by the light emissions of cities as far as Tijuana. The light requirements of a port as large as the proposed Punta Colonet would bring even more light pollution to the area and basically ruin the observatory.
Monopoly ownership
The Chinese company Hutchison WhampoaHutchison Whampoa
Hutchison Whampoa Limited or HWL of Hong Kong is a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. HWL is an international corporation with a diverse array of holdings which includes the world's biggest port and telecommunication operations in 14...
that had proposed to build Puerto Colonet is owned by Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing, which company controls 35 major ports in the world including the four most important ports in Mexico. There was a concern about the near monopoly ownership of North American ports in the event of a conflict with China.