Environmental organizations warned about more negative impacts caused by the Tren Maya Project, now due to the import of porphyritic rock from Cuba, whose transfer maneuvers will begin in January 2023.
In a statement issued jointly, Grupo Gema del Mayab, Puerto Morelos Sustentable and Voces Unidas de Puerto Morelos warned that given the draft of the ship that will bring the material it will be necessary to use barges to carry the rocks to the dock.
These maneuvers will pose a risk to the reefs in the area. In addition, the roads from the fiscal dock to the federal highway do not have the characteristics to support the vehicular load, so it is necessary to widen the access road to Puerto Morelos. The work would violate several environmental laws.
According to the text, to unload the rock by barge, due to the depth of the Puerto Morelos fiscal dock, “the maneuvers would be very complicated and costly, in addition to putting at risk the coral reef, declared a National Park in 1998, and an important source of the economy of Puerto Morelos”.
The access that communicates the federal highway with the port precinct measures approximately three kilometers by six kilometers wide. Of this length, 2.3 kilometers cross the extensive and well-known mangrove zone of Puerto Morelos, which environmentalists believe is at risk.
With respect to land transportation, the organizations calculate that in order to comply with the times established by the federal government for the mega project, at least 300 dump trucks will be required to travel daily for a year to unload the stone material, which will affect the mobility and economy not only of the residents of Puerto Morelos, but also of those who travel along the highway that connects Cancun with Playa del Carmen.
“Considering the works being carried out on the federal highway between Puerto Morelos and Cancun and the traffic problems they have caused, we consider that vehicular traffic from Cancun to Playa del Carmen will suffer a tremendous affectation. This will have a strong impact on the economy and quality of life of the inhabitants of the three municipalities.”
In view of the possible economic, mobility and environmental risks that they claim the unloading of the porphyry rock in Quintana Roo will bring, the environmental groups ask the federal government to consider other more viable points for such activity and even propose that the unloading of the material be done in Puerto Progreso, Yucatan, “which has a better infrastructure, connectivity for this type of maneuvers and would not require violating environmental laws to do so“.
TYT Newsroom
