Maya Train caused damage to 8 cenotes, Environment Minister tells Congress

Mexico’s Environment and Natural Resources Ministry (Semarnat) formally acknowledged to Congress that the operation of the Maya Train caused biology damage.

Speaking astatine a legislature proceeding connected Monday, Environment Minister Alicia Bárcena told members of the Committee connected Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability that the existent medication is taking steps to “regularize” the Maya Train. Bárcena besides admitted that her ministry is “very aware” that 8 caverns and cenotes — earthy sinkholes that are the superior root of h2o successful the portion — located on Section 5 of the railroad way person been impacted.

Before members of Congress connected Monday, Environment Minister Alicia Bárcena admitted that her ministry is “very aware” that 8 caverns and cenotes successful Quintana Roo were negatively impacted by the train’s construction. (SEMARNAT/Facebook)

The 1,554-kilometer-long Maya Train was 1 of the flagship projects of the erstwhile administration. Built astatine a outgo of astir 500 cardinal pesos (US $27 billion), the task faced changeless disapproval from environmentalists who decried the monolithic deforestation and the damage caused to the fragile ecosystem of the Yucatán Peninsula. 

Section 5 was the taxable of a fig of lawsuits during the operation phase, but enactment often continued apace since President Andrés Manuel López Obrador issued a decree granting provisional authorization despite the lack of biology interaction studies.

Semarnat has made redress of Section 5 a priority, “working to guarantee that the cleanup and factual removal … is completed,” Bárcena said. 

“When we took bureau connected Oct. 1, 2024, the Maya Train was already there, truthful we can’t accidental we don’t privation the train,” she said. “Instead, we are auditing each permit: those successful manus and those applied for, truthful that the task tin beryllium regularized.”

Bárcena said Semarnat has established an inter-institutional moving radical successful conjunction with the Federal Attorney’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa) and Maya Train administrators that meets play to show and measure the concern wrong each of the train’s 7 sections.

The radical is tasked with determining what permits are missing, what conditions person not been met and what actions should beryllium taken, Bárcena explained. It is besides examining the government’s reforestation and biology restoration plan to find however champion to compensate for the harm caused by the project.

Bárcena stated the extremity of bringing existing Maya Train permits to 95% compliance with biology law. (SEMARNAT/Facebook)

“We are moving to standardize the project, particularly successful presumption of biology impact,” she said. “The radical is moving to propose, execute and unit for compliance with astatine slightest 95% of biology interaction regulations.”

During the hearing, Deputy Samuel Palma stated that of the astir 11,000 hectares occupied for facilities, roads and auxiliary works, 61% deficiency the due licence for alteration of wood onshore use. 

In different testimony, Bárcena expressed interest astir the h2o crises Mexico faces, peculiarly contamination. Among the 7 goals of her ministry by 2030, Bárcena named purifying the Lerma, Santiago, Atoyac and Tula rivers, modernizing irrigation and reviewing the validity of the country’s backstage h2o concessions, eliminating 100% of plastics connected beaches, reforesting 200,000 hectares and protecting 153 cardinal further hectares (30% of the territory).

With reports from La Jornada, Fortuna and El Economista