SALT WORKS?After a five-year debate in which their breeding grounds hung in the balance (see "A Sea of Troubles," cover story, January/February 1998), endangered California gray whales will finally be able to blow a breath of relief. Mexican President Ernest Zedillo announced in March that plans for a 116-square-mile saltworks salt·works pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) A place where salt is produced commercially. Noun 1. saltworks - a plant where salt is produced commercially , to be located in the heart of the Vizcaino Biosphere biosphere, irregularly shaped envelope of the earth's air, water, and land encompassing the heights and depths at which living things exist. The biosphere is a closed and self-regulating system (see ecology), sustained by grand-scale cycles of energy and of Reserve, a United Nations World Heritage Site in Baja, Mexico, would be canceled. Plans to expand the world's largest salt evaporation evaporation, change of a liquid into vapor at any temperature below its boiling point. For example, water, when placed in a shallow open container exposed to air, gradually disappears, evaporating at a rate that depends on the amount of surface exposed, the humidity plant, a Mexican government/Mitsubishi-owned operation already located in a nearby lagoon, drew fire from more than 50 environmental groups, 40 California cities, 34 internationally respected scientists and 15 top mutual funds. Besides the gray whale, activists feared that noise pollution, population growth, physical disturbances and secondary development would threaten the 72 animal species, including endangered antelope, sea lion sea lion, fin-footed marine mammal of the eared seal family (Otariidae). Like the other member of this family, the fur seal, the sea lion is distinguished from the true seal by its external ears, long, flexible neck, supple forelimbs, and hind flippers that can be and sea turtle species, which share the San Ignacio lagoon San Ignacio Lagoon was originally discovered by whaling captain Jared Poole, brother-in-law to captain Charles Melville Scammon. The first whaling expedition to San Ignacio Lagoon occurred in 1860 led by Scammon and six whaling vessels. and its surrounding wild areas. CONTACT: International Fund for Animal Welfare, (508) 744-2076, www.ifaw.org. |
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