Another was to give the visitors the opportunity to meet with representatives of the Mexican environmental groups who are opposed to the saltworks. The Mexican Pro-Peninsula Working group included regional and local groups that focused on estuaries and the Baja environment. And there were representatives from the local fishermen's cooperative who make their living from the sea and from the increasingly popular eco-tourism. The setting in the lagoon is visually stunning. Towering mountains in the distance set off the low mangroves that line the estuary and support a bewildering variety of birds and other aquatic creatures, including the black turtle.
Huge cactuses dot the plains offshore where herds of the rare pronghorn antelope live.
And then, of course, each winter, the whales return. If the saltworks is completed, clattering diesel engines will pump 6,000 gallons of sea water out of the lagoon each second , sending it into 116 square miles of evaporation ponds diked and dug out of the surrounding terrain by fleets of bulldozers. A mile-long concrete pier cutting right across the whale's migratory path will transport the finished salt to an offshore loading area that would serve more than 120 salt tankers a year. Every three months a giant diesel tanker would pump its fuel onshore. The risk of oil spills and other accidents would be very high.