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 Angeles 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.
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