Spring 2025 Newsletter
PDU Battle Update
On February 6th, it was reported that La Paz published their PDU to replace the Todos Santos developed PDU, despite two pending lawsuits against the development process—one filed by John Moreno and another by the Todos Santos Ejido due to lack of community involvement as required by law.
On February 19th, a judge ruled in favor of the Ejido and voided the La Paz PDU, which means the process needs to start over from the beginning. However, on February 26th, the municipality announced they were appealing the ruling so now it goes before three judges.
Because of these events and since it was published, John Moreno decided to back up his first lawsuit with a lawsuit against the actual document. He filed the lawsuit in both the State and Federal courts.
The appeals process could take months for the court to resolve. We hope that the municipal department IMPLAN will provide the Todos Santos community with the document and allow community members to edit the plan to make it sustainable and to make it comply with the rules for what the plan must include.
Visit our website to read Protect Todos Santos list of what we want in any new PDU. There you will also find a link to the General Law of Human Settlements (the rules covering plan development) and the recent Supreme Court ruling on the PDU for Puerto Morelos. The Supreme Court ruling is very conclusive and why the courts will agree with John and that their plan should be voided.
New Lack of Infrastructure Page on Our Website
Our resident power and water survey identified ongoing infrastructure problems that are not being addressed by the municipal government, OMSAPA, or CFE and are worsening due to the rapid growth of our community. This new page not only describes the problems but offers solutions. It also provides graphs showing deficiencies in water, power, and wastewater treatment under both our current PDU and the proposed PDU.
Would Going Solar be Good for You?
To reduce brownouts, even out voltage entering your home and to provide backup power, you might want to consider a solar energy system for your home. Todos Santos has an abundance of free, clean renewable solar energy to be harvested. Solar panels are now highly efficient and more affordable. Two local companies, Energy Cabo and Lifestyle Energy offer free estimates and payback analysis.
If you are interested, you can contact Alex Pogue at Energy Cabo. His email address is alex.a.l.pogue@gmail.com The contact for Lifestyle Energy is Diego Placidos at info.lifestyleenergy@gmail.com
Our Plan to Stop the Landfill Fires
Our local landfill regularly burns, sending toxic smoke into the air. Our new page outlines our plan to address this issue and describes the health effects of smoke affecting Pescadero residents. We also provide tips on how you can help prevent fires by separating your garbage and composting kitchen waste at home.
New Todos Santos Real Estate Report Page
Our new real estate report page provides valuable information for residents and people considering purchasing a lot or home including graphs showing the growth and decline in the number of sales and the average sales prices over the past six years for lots, homes and condos. The drop in the value of condos in the last two years is significant, which may hopefully result in fewer being built.
Updated Solving Our Water Crisis Page
We updated our Solving our Water Crisis page with details on the problems with the Todos Santos aquifer including over-extraction, an invasive plant infestation, and saltwater intrusion. We also added a section on how you can significantly reduce water use at home so check it out.
Community Comes to the Aid of the Ranches
Due to low rainfall last year, cattle and goats have lacked sufficient water and food so our good friend Nancy Serfas established a GoFundMe page for purchasing alfalfa, and Quirino Cota organized the distribution. Thanks to community support, weekly truckloads are being delivered and distributed to ranchers. So far, the campaign has raised over 850,000 pesos ($42,500). Donations are still being accepted to support the effort to save the ranches and their animals if you want to help.
Can Baja Sur Handle 289,000 New Residents?
In addition to the growth created by the Todos Santos PDU we recently analyzed the proposed PDU’s for Los Barriles and Los Planes to determine the impact of all three on our state. Together the three La Paz PDU’s add 202,582 more residents than the current PDU’s in place and 50,645 more homes, assuming four people per home. This data is summarized on the following charts.
Here is the problem. The aquifers that supply water to the 3 regions are over-extracted by 66%.
Huge Cabo Santos Project Applying for Environmental Approvals
Protect Todos Santos will be opposing the proposed mega project on 307 hectares of land near the El Faro Beach Club. The developer is seeking approval for 500 hotel rooms and 1,452 residences. According to their submittal, each home or hotel room will use approximately 1,000 liters (or 1 cubic meter) of water per day. As a result, the project is estimated to add 600,000 cubic meters of water per year to the Todos Santos aquifer deficit, increasing it from 2.9 mm3 to 3.5 mm3.
Additionally, if the proposed changes to the Todos Santos PDU are enacted, it would potentially add about 28,000 residences, increasing over-extraction by 10 mm3 to 13.5 mm3 on an aquifer with an average annual recharge of 3.7 mm3. This would mean if this project and the La Paz PDU were enacted 3.65 times more water would be extracted from the aquifer than is recharged in an average year. It should be noted that any over-extraction of aquifers is illegal in Mexico, something the La Paz government does not seem to understand.
There is currently a comment period open for the project that will be followed by a presentation to SEMARNAT in Todos Santos. PTS will submit comments and aims to have a significant presence at the presentation to express our stance on the project. The date and location for the presentation have not yet been announced, but once available, we will let you know and hope to see you there.
Our Organizations Goals for 2025
Prevent permits for four resort projects currently in the approval stage.
Ensure the La Paz PDU is voided or amended to the community’s satisfaction.
Continue to address our water situation through conservation, education, modeling, monitoring, and exploring aquifer enhancement opportunities.
Pressure the Municipality to stop issuing permits for illegal condo projects.
Work on finding and implementing solutions to prevent landfill fires.
Promote electrical grid enhancement to reduce blackouts and stabilize voltage to protect the pumps and appliances of residences and businesses.
Encourage members to conserve energy and water through conservation programs and to promote solar energy to reduce the grid load.
Thank you everyone for your ongoing support,
The Team at Protect Todos Santos
