The Government of Mexico insists on disembarking the 30,000 tons of rajón stone from Cienfuegos (Cuba) in Puerto Morelos. According to the head of the Integral Port Administration of Quintana Roo (Apiqroo), Vagner Elbiorn Vega, there is no legal impediment to the unloading of Cuban stone and this month it will restart.
The official explained that the disembarkation was stopped for “technical reasons” not for “an amparo.” A few weeks earlier, this same person confirmed that the maneuvers generated a high price and therefore the operation was cancelled.
Elbiorn Vega “doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he tells 14ymedio the activist José Urbina, known as Pepe Shark. “The whole plan was absurd because they couldn’t unload all this stone on the Puerto Morelos reef” and he insists that the ships melody and gazibey “They can’t download the material because it’s illegal.”
They ask me about the possibility of trying again to unload ballast in Puerto Morelos, according to these statements. Here my answer. https://t.co/3nXmUTrmf5 pic.twitter.com/0mxOR9B0bQ
— Pepe Shark (@tiburon_pepe) June 16, 2023
The activist recalls that due to the lack of “environmental impact investigations and the corresponding permits to do so” there was environmental damage. In March, the Melody ship, which arrived in Puerto Morelos with 20,000 tons of porphyry stone, damaged the corals. “By dropping the herringbone (iron ring at the top of the anchor), the crew did so over a coral reef that takes years to grow and mature.”
The biologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Unam), Roberto Rojo, denounced the “federal crime” because among the destroyed corals there is a species protected by the NOM-059 standard of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.
The Mexican Secretary of Tourism, Miguel Torruco Marqués, described this Monday as “amparos”, referring to the legal appeal of the amparo that they are resorting to to stop the construction of the Mayan Train in the southeast of the country and assured that all the priority works of the current Administration will conclude without delay.
Torruco Marqués thus referred to the protests by various environmental organizations such as Greenpeace or Sélvame del Tren, among others, as well as indigenous groups from the Yucatan Peninsula who have insisted on stopping the construction of the “misnamed Mayan Train”, which will travel 1,500 kilometers between Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo, because it implies “ecocide”.
The misnamed Mayan Train is also affecting the Bacalar Lagoon and several archaeological remains. What do the authorities do? @INAHmx and @SEMARNAT_mx to avoid so much loss?
Nothing, on the contrary… just obey orders and affect our biocultural heritage. pic.twitter.com/MRN2tDbCiP
— SELVAME (@SelvameMX) June 26, 2023
“Everything will have to be concluded, despite the obstacles that have been placed on us by a new cartel, but they run errands for us because the people rule and we will move forward for the good of tourism in Mexico,” emphasized the Secretary of Tourism. “We will close on September 30 of next year. In this administration there will be no unfinished works,” Torruco said.
The activist José Urbina insists that in addition to the environmental damage, bringing ballast from the Island has been very expensive for Mexico. “The ships have been roaming the Caribbean for months.” A week ago the ship melody turned off his GPS, weeks before he did gazibey.
The Cuban porphyria stone has generated high costs for Mexico. Between February and March, the Gazibey ships with 17,000 tons and the Melody with 20,000 left for the construction of the Mayan Train from Cienfuegos. Failure to comply with the disembarkation dates has generated a debt, according to the latest data, of eight million dollars.
Faced with the impediment for the disembarkation of the Cuban porphyry stone, the Government of Mexico has bought ballast from the Veracruz company Osoialfa, which has delivered 500 tons. To comply with the shipments, the owner of the company Daniel Alfaro invested in the acquisition of eight vessels and the same number of tugboats.
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