No money for Quintana Roo beach rehabilitation projects

A two-year old plan to carry out four separate projects to rehabilitate eroded beaches in Quintana Roo can’t go ahead due to a lack of funding.

The projects, whose total cost is estimated to be 2.6 billion pesos (US $135.6 million), have been listed on the federal government’s online investment platform Mexico Projects Hub since 2017.

However, Quintana Roo Environment Secretary Alfredo Arellano Guillermo said that a coastal management trust created a year ago has failed to attract the funds required to complete work at four stretches of beach.

According to the Nature Conservancy, an environmental NGO, half of all beaches in Quintana Roo are in a poor state, many suffering from severe erosion.

One project would fill two chasms on a beach in north Cancún with 1.5 million cubic meters of sand. Construction of two concrete structures would help to maintain stability of the rehabilitated beach.

A second project in the same city would widen a beach using 2.5 million cubic meters of sand and erect a 125-meter seawall to prevent future erosion.

A third project calls for widening 750 meters of coastline on Cozumel, a small island located off the coast of Playa del Carmen. More than 270,000 cubic meters of sand would be required to extend the width of beaches to between 20 and 30 meters.

The fourth project at an unspecified location between Cancún and Playa del Carmen would dredge sand from the ocean in order to widen a five-kilometer stretch of beach.

The construction of shoreline stabilization structures is also proposed.

The four projects are currently awaiting evaluation by federal authorities to determine whether public money will fund their execution.

The Quintana Roo government has said that it will focus its efforts on carrying out small rehabilitation projects between kilometers 0 and 12 on the coastline of Cancún, where beach erosion is particularly bad.

Source: El Economista (sp)