La Sedena desists from building a new airport in Tulum and suspends procedures
The Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) withdrew from continuing one of the two procedures entered before the Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) to obtain the environmental impact authorization of the Tulum International Airport, in the municipality of Felipe Carrillo Port.
By means of official letter 533-MCA-2022, dated September 13, 2022, the Sedena presented the withdrawal to continue the Environmental Impact Assessment Procedure (PEIA) for the project called “Construction of a Civil Military Air Base and the Felipe International Airport Port Carrillo”.
The Army sought the authorization of environmental impact and land use change in forest lands, through a first Unified Technical Document (DTU) —which includes an Environmental Risk Study (ERA)— that Brigadier General Gustavo Ricardo Vallejo Suárez, entered on August 23 before Semarnat.
This DTU was prepared by the Institute of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). For reasons not stated, the Sedena decided not to continue with this first procedure, identified with the file number 23QR2022V0047.
The captain and construction engineer, Robinson Ismael Ramírez González, was the one who presented the withdrawal document, in his capacity as the person in charge of Environmental Studies of the project.
When presenting this notification, the General Directorate of Environmental Impact and Risk (DGIRA) concluded the evaluation of this first procedure, which began on September 7, which it informed the Sedena through the resolution SRA/ DGIRA/ DG-05567- 22, dated last October 27 and consulted by EL UNIVERSAL.
Despite the above, the environmental impact assessment of the project is maintained through a second procedure initiated by the Sedena on September 15, under another file number: 23QR2022V0050.
This procedure also corresponds to a Unified Technical Document on environmental impact and land use change in forest land, whose evaluation began just yesterday, after the file was integrated, on September 29.
This is the project in Tulum
The Tulum International Airport with its Military Base is intended to be developed in a 1,200-hectare polygon, with a 321-kilometer access road located in the Chunyaxché ejido, in the Mayan municipality of Felipe Carrillo Puerto. It is located 21 kilometers from Tulum, very close to Section 6 of the Tren Maya megaproject.
The total area of the project amounts to 1,521.19 hectares, of which only 513 hectares require land use change in forest land, which would imply the total removal of that forest area, contemplating timber and non-timber species.
With its construction, it seeks to boost tourist demand for the southern Riviera Maya, with emphasis on the Playa del Carmen – Tulum-Chetumal corridor and attend to the surveillance functions of the air space on the southeast border.
