2021-08-23 OPPOSED - BURGESONMonday, August 23, 2021 at 12:14:15 Pacific Daylight Time
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Subject:RE: Coral Mountain Resort
Date:Monday, August 23, 2021 at 9:46:42 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From:Cheri Flores
To:John Burgeson
CC:ConsulGng Planner, Danny Castro
AFachments:image001.png
Mr. Burgeson,
Thank you for your comments. They will be part of the materials given to the
Planning Commission and City Council for the public hearings. Have a wonderful
day.
Cheri L. Flores | Planning Manager
City of La Quinta
78495 Calle Tampico La Quinta, CA 92253
Ph. 760-777-7067
www.laquintaca.gov
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services when possible. Thank you.
From: John Burgeson <jburgie@mac.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 8:20 AM
To: Cheri Flores <clflores@laquintaca.gov>
Subject: Coral Mountain Resort
** EXTERNAL: This message originated outside of the City of La Quinta. Please use proper judgement and cauGon when
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40 Ridge Circle
Stratford, Conn. 06614
August 23, 2021
La Quinta Planning Commission
Civic Center Campus
78495 Calle Tampico
La Quinta, CA 92253
Dear Members of the Planning Commission:
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You may be wondering why a person from Connecticut is writing you about an issue in your city. I am close friends
with three people in La Quinta who told me about the Coral Mountain Resort proposal. It was clear, after studying
the developer’s impact reports, that this ranks among the most wrongheaded economic development proposals in
the United States.
I worked for 40 years as a newspaper reporter covering mostly local governments, and I have seen scores of
development projects rejected in a number of towns and cities for a variety of reasons, such as traffic, noise,
congestion and so forth. Coral Mountain has all of those downsides, too, but those issues fade when one looks at the
project’s estimated water consumption.
Using the developer’s own figures, Coral Mountain Resort will draw 956.6 AF/YR from the CVWD. That works out
to about 856,000 gallons per day. Now, as you know, nearly all of the CVWD’s water is derived from groundwater,
and the district admits on its website that its aquifer is receding.
I don’t think that I have to remind you of the extreme water emergency that the American Southwest faces, and that
your city receives about 6 inches of precipitation a year. I know that there are advantages to this development, too,
such as construction jobs, permanent jobs, an increase in the grand list and so forth. But given the fact that La
Quinta is situated in a desert and that this is a very water-intensive project, its construction and operation could
very well threaten your supply of drinking water.
Now, if this proposal offered humanitarian assistance, such as housing for the homeless, one could argue that it
deserves a second look. But Coral Mountain Resort is little more than a soggy playground for the wealthy.
I realize that CMR does come in a little under the CVWD’s MAWA of 962 AF/YR, but here again, as commission
members, you duty to the citizens of your city requires you to rethink the MAWA concept; if 10 developers proposed
projects that each consumed 850,000 gallons/day, would you feel duty-bound to approve all 10? That would mean a
loss of more that 8.5 million gallons per day, something that the water district clearly could not sustain.
As an aside, I’ve also read the CVWD’s Appendix M, which you might want to revisit. It barely touches on the topic
of evaporative losses, which could be much greater than estimated. In addition to the low humidity and high air
temperatures of your region, you’ll also see increased evaporative losses from the wave feature. Surly a large wave
sloshing back and forth for 15 hours a day would generate aerosols that would quickly dissipate.
Here in Connecticut, major development ideas never make it through the door of Town Hall for the opposite reason
— there’s no practical way to handle their sewage because those communities rely entirely on septic tanks and leach
fields. Sure, they would offer all of the advantages that CMR would, but they can’t go forward because of public
health concerns. My point here is that even though it’s difficult to turn down a development, sometimes it’s the only
reasonable decision to make.
Some of you may think that human-caused climate change is a hoax, but you can’t argue with the rain gauge. The
Southwest has seen below-normal rainfall and above-normal temperatures for the last two decades and there’s no
relief in sight. Your city already has 23 golf courses, and each one (according to the CMR reports) consumes in
excess of 900 AF/YR. The time is long overdue to begin rejecting water-intensive projects.
And I’m sure you have read in the papers that the Bureau of Reclamation last week declared a water shortage in the
Colorado River Basin for the first time. The CVWD relies on this river to recharge its aquifer, so it follows that the
Colorado River — which doesn’t even make the “Top 35” list of American rivers — won’t be as dependable as a
primary recharge source moving forward.
I would like to thank you for your time and consideration, and also for your service to the people of your city.
Sincerely
John Burgeson
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John Burgeson
jburgie@mac.com
40 Ridge Circle
StraZord CT 06614-3241
Home: (203) 377-7988
Cell: (203) 260-8906