Coral Mountain Resort City Council Meeting - Oral Comments
Good evening Mayor Evans, council-members, city staff. My name is Colin Barrows. I’m speaking tonight as a La Quinta Resident - I live on Avenida Mendoza in the La Quinta Cove.
I’ve been participating in the public comment process on this project for almost a year now, and carefully fact checking many of the claims made during planning commission meetings and publicly available documents.
For example, the applicant has made repeated claims about the supposed sustainable water use of this project. Even before the additional draw on the aquifer this project would create, these claims are directly contradicted by a publicly available report, jointly prepared by the Coachella Valley Water District and the Desert Water Authority, quote: “Currently, groundwater levels are declining.”
Another example: In a letter to the editor published in the Desert Sun a month ago today, the project applicant claimed, quote: “The amount of water stored has increased by 840,000 acre-feet since 2009”. Why start counting in 2009? From 2010-2012, the Metropolitan Water District used our aquifer to store water from the Colorado River. This raised our water levels, but that water belonged to MWD, not the Coachella Valley, and we have been paying back that debt ever since. The Coachella Valley Water district confirms this on their website, quote: “regulatory restrictions and drought have limited the districts’ access to its imported water entitlements in recent years.”
Counting all available records dating back to the 1970s, the true magnitude of the water shortfall is clear - more than 1.7 trillion gallons of water are gone from our aquifer, enough to supply the entire population of Earth with drinking water for 6 months! To top it off, the National Weather Service is forecasting only more drought for the region, due to a nearly unprecedented third year of La Nina conditions and more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time in the last 4 million years.
The climate crisis is here, and no amount of outdated water projections or wishful thinking can make it go away. However, there is hope! And you can be a part of the solution.. The city can work with developers and towards responsible, sustainable, and resilient projects to increase housing, outdoor recreation amenities, and tax dollars in our city by offsetting new projects with turf removal programs, significantly reducing or removing outdoor water features, encouraging native desert plants in outdoor landscaping, and communicating to residents what the city is doing towards the essential goal of eliminating our carbon emissions. The Coachella Valley has shown great leadership in the past by not only balancing environmental protection with development, but actively building a more attractive destination, prosperous economy, and healthy community by embracing our truly unique desert home. I urge you to continue that leadership today by denying this project as presented. Thank you for your time.