Airport neighbors predict heavy pressure on depleted water resources

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September 17, 2019

airport water protest — 'No to the airport, I prefer water.'

More concerns have been raised about the impact that the new Santa Lucía airport will have on already depleted water resources in nearby México state communities.

Environmentalists have already warned that the project to be built at the Santa Lucía Air Force Base might lead to water supply problems and now people who live near the site – located about 50 kilometers north of central Mexico City – have voiced their concerns in interviews with the news agency Reuters.

Filiberto Mena Laiza, a 54-year-old former indigenous farmer who operates a taco stand in San Lucas Xolox, a town five kilometers from the Santa Lucía site in the municipality of Tecamac, expressed doubt that there will be sufficient water to supply the airport.

“Water is a vital liquid that moves us all,” Laiza said. “Where will all the water that will be needed to maintain this monster come from?” he asked, referring to the 36-square-kilometer airport project.

“The process of human development can’t be stopped,” Laiza conceded before adding: “What worries me is what are we going to leave for those that come after? . . . Just garbage.”

Mateo Martínez Urbina, a doctor in Tecamac and president of the local water board, said the US $4.8-billion airport will attract complementary infrastructure, which will place even more pressure on natural resources and alter the countryside.

“Logically, casinos, hotels and shopping malls are going to arrive,” he said. “More than benefits, [the airport] is going to bring us much harm.”

Federal Environment Secretary Víctor Manuel Toledo Manzur told reporters this month that the operation of the airport won’t cause any major water supply problems because water will be carried to the site from the Mezquital valley in Hidalgo via an aqueduct to be built by the National Water Commission.

But environmental experts say that residents’ concerns about water supply are well founded.

A 2015 study by the federal government found that the aquifer beneath the Santa Lucía site and surrounding areas was operating at a deficit of 58 million cubic meters per year. But according to a scientist and professor at the Latin American Technological Institute, the deficit is much greater.

Eric Galindo Castillo told Reuters via email that the government figures don’t take into account dozens of illegal wells in the area. The real water deficit is closer to 400 million cubic meters annually, he said, adding that the figure will increase further once construction of the airport begins.

“It’s unimaginable,” Galindo said about the airport project. “It lacks planning. You put more infrastructure, you’re going to take more water. But from where?”

The academic said the plan to bring water from Hidalgo is not viable because of the size of the airport project, adding that the aquifer in that state is heavily contaminated.

“Pollution [in the Hidalgo aquifer] is primordial,” Galindo said. “The moment you extract more water, you’re going to leave all those contaminants in the subsoil.”

Construction of the airport is currently held up as the government seeks to resolve more than 80 injunction requests filed by #NoMásDerroches (No More Waste), a collective made up of civil society organizations, law firms and more than 100 citizens.

The group said in June that it believed that reviving the abandoned Texcoco airport project, which President López Obrador canceled after a legally questionable public consultation last October, is “legally possible.”

One of several legal rulings handed down by judges in the collective’s favor overruled the environmental approval granted for the project by the Environment Secretariat in July.

However, López Obrador, who claims that the group’s opposition to the airport is politically motivated and that its injunction requests amount to “legal sabotage,” is adamant that the project will go ahead. The president says that once construction begins, the Secretariat of Defense will complete the project in a period of three years.

Despite the delays, local residents have resigned themselves to the fact that the airport will eventually be built.

“We’re not going to be able to stop it, we have to be honest with ourselves,” said Laiza, the taco vendor. “I just want them to respect my town.”

Source: Reuters (en)

Guanajuato has more to celebrate than being No. 1 for homicides

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Cody Copeland

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September 17, 2019

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Guanajuato may have led the country in homicide rates in August, but it can celebrate the fact that it also tops the list for organ donations.

The state has promoted the culture and professionalization of organ donation through its Alerta 7 Código Vida (Alert 7 Code Life) program.

The Código Vida alert is activated when a potential “hero donor” presents signs of brain death in one of the state’s participating hospitals. The objective of the protocol is that all personnel help with diverse activities — from transportation to lab testing to imagery to operating room tasks — in order to successfully procure organ donations.

The program coordinates hospital administrations, transportation officials, emergency rooms and private and public hospitals in order to procure donations.

It makes the procurement as effective as it can, aiming to obtain the most organs possible from a single donor. It also creates a culture of donation in hospitals, changing organ donation from an anecdotal idea to a structured process ingrained in every hospital employee.

So far this year, hospitals in Guanajuato have performed 69 organ procurements, totaling more than 270 donated organs, including kidneys, corneas, livers, hearts, lungs, bone tissue and skin. In 2018, there were 400 transplants performed in the state.

“The state is in first place nationwide in the rate of organ and tissue donations, and we will continue working to reduce the need for kidneys and corneas in children, for which we will increase organ transplants through the Alerta 7 program,” said Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo.

The pro-donation environment has caught on in the state, and more and more people are joining the organ donation movement as trust and interest in the concept and process grow. There were 92 donors in 2018, the result of years of work on the part of the current and past administrations.

“We strive to make children the primary beneficiaries, so in the Pediatric Hospital of León there are as many transplants as in national institutes like the Mexico City Children’s Hospital or the National Pediatrics Hosptial,” said Sinhue. “In Guanajuato, saving the lives of children will always be our priority, which is why we’re trying to reduce the organ donor waiting list.”

Source: Milenio (sp)

Marijuana’s future is not stoners, but industry and medicine, says industry group

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2019

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As Mexico moves towards the legalization of the cultivation, sale and recreational use of marijuana, the head of the recently formed National Association for the Cannabis Industry (ANICANN) says that the biggest potential for the plant lies in industry and medicine rather than the stoner market.

“The first thing that we have to understand is that stoners isn’t where the big business is,” Guillermo Nieto told the news website Ozy.

The president of ANICANN, which represents about 200 companies interested in taking advantage of the upcoming legalization of marijuana, said he believes that industrial and medicinal marijuana will be more profitable in Mexico than that produced for recreational use because most Mexicans, especially those outside the capital, hold conservative views about the psychoactive plant.

“There’s a lot of misinformation, and we’re fighting against that. Some 70% of Mexicans think cannabis is bad,” Nieto said.

While a 2018 government survey showed that more than two-thirds of Mexicans are opposed to recreational marijuana use, the poll also showed that more than 86% are in favor of the availability of medicinal marijuana and almost 50% of respondents said that they support the industrial use of hemp in products such as paper, clothes and biodegradable plastics.

Luis David Suárez Rodríguez, president of the Mexican Medicinal Marijuana Association, said earlier this month that Mexico could become the biggest medicinal marijuana producer in the world in five years if the government gives the green light for the cultivation of the plant.

However, observers of the process to legalize the cultivation and recreational use of marijuana – debate on a range of proposals is taking place in the Senate this week – have questioned who will ultimately benefit from legalization: only big business or also communities where the plant has been cultivated for years.

Nieto, however, believes that Mexican farmers in states such as Durango, Sinaloa and Guerrero – who have long grown marijuana illegally for the recreational market in the United States but have recently seen their income dwindle as a result of legalization in some U.S. states – won’t be cut out of a legal cannabis market that, according to some estimates, could be worth US $2 billion annually in Mexico.

The ANICANN chief said he envisioned a contract model in which licensed farmers produce industrial cannabis and supply it to companies at an agreed price.

“Let’s not think about marijuana. Let’s think about cannabis as a whole plant – as fiber, CBD, paper,” Nieto said.

“Right now the big problem with the campesinos [farmers] is that they do it underground and when you do it underground, you don’t have the right technology. Without the right seeds, nothing is going to work. You need the right fertilizers and supervision,” he added.

Cultivating hemp for industrial use rather than THC-rich marijuana for recreational purposes would not only provide a guaranteed income for farmers but also allow them to not have to deal with dangerous criminal organizations, Nieto said.

“Industrial cannabis for those growers up in the mountains is a sure deal and a way of getting out of poverty,” he said.

“We have so many people in that business and in poverty that if we’re able to scale up their lives just by a small percentage we will be able to turn around the gross domestic product of the country.”

However, security analyst Jaime López took a different view, telling Ozy that small-scale marijuana farming likely won’t survive due to big business’s hunger for profits.

“It’s an idea with distinct PR value but little evidence to back it,” he said.

“Depending on how it plays out, big agribusiness might put most of them [small cultivators] out of business. Legal marijuana, from an economic perspective, would be like any other high-value crop: subject to economies of scale and highly attractive for big businesses and niche, artisanal producers,” López said.

Details about what the government will and won’t allow in a legal marijuana industry are expected to become clearer in October, when draft legislation is expected to be completed.

Jesusa Rodríguez Martínez, a senator with the ruling Morena party and a marijuana advocate, said that a five-day summit held last week on the legalization and regulation of marijuana, in which more than 90o people participated, would allow Congress and society to together “form the best legislation” for the plant’s cultivation, sale and use.

Citizens’ Movement Senator Patricia Mercado said that staging of the summit shows that progress is being made towards compliance with the rulings of the Supreme Court, which published eight precedents in February on the recreational use of marijuana that determined that prohibition of the drug is unconstitutional.

Source: Ozy (en)

Long-awaited pipeline begins shipping natural gas from Texas

By

Simon Schatzberg

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September 17, 2019

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The Texas-Tuxpan pipeline route. The gas is now being shipped.

A pipeline whose inauguration had been held up by a dispute between contractors and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has begun sending natural gas to Mexico from Texas, the Mexican company IEnova announced on Tuesday.

The South Texas-Tuxpan pipeline has a capacity to transport 2.6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, representing an increase of 40% in Mexico’s natural gas supply. The gas will be used for electricity generation.

The pipeline, built by IEnova and the Canadian company TC Energy, had been ready to start moving gas in July but the start of operations was delayed by a CFE initiative to renegotiate the contracts, which were signed before President López Obrador took office.

On August 27, López Obrador announced that the government had reached an agreement with the companies that would reduce the burden on the public purse by US $4.5 billion and extend IEnova’s concession for 10 years.

In a statement sent to the Mexican Stock Exchange, IEnova celebrated the agreement and noted that the pipeline was built with a US $2.6-billion investment.

“These agreements satisfy the interests of both parties, and allow a benefit for the CFE, maintaining the integrity of the contracts,” they said. “IEnova reiterates our commitment to keep investing in Mexico to strengthen the country’s energy infrastructure, and contribute to national development.”

Source: El Financiero (sp), La Política Online (sp)

How does a jailed mayor give the independence cry? By telephone

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Simon Schatzberg

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September 17, 2019

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Mayor-elect Miranda gave the shout of independence from his prison cell.

How does a mayor give the annual cry for independence if he’s locked away in a jail cell? By phone connected to a PA system.

Mayor Alfonso Miranda Gallegos of Amacuzac, Morelos, had to give the traditional Grito de Dolores on Sunday by telephone because he remains locked up in a federal prison in Durango.

Municipal officials set up a loudspeaker system connected to a phone line at the municipal palace so that the mayor’s voice could be heard.

As Miranda gave the traditional speech first made in 1810 by independence fighter Miguel Hidalgo, the mayor’s son Gabriel, who is also the municipal government’s general secretary, fulfilled the other part of the ceremony — ringing a bell meant to evoke the church bells rung by Hidalgo in Dolores, Guanajuato.

A member of the Labor Party (PT), Miranda had previously served as mayor of Amacuzac between 2009 and 2012, and later as a state deputy.

He was arrested during his 2018 campaign, when he ran under the Morena party coalition banner, accused of organized crime and kidnapping.

His main opponent was also a target of authorities. Incumbent Jorge Miranda, who also happens to be Alfonso Miranda’s nephew, was arrested before the election on suspicion of homicide.

Alfonso Miranda handily won the July 2018 election but has not been able to take office, technically making him mayor-elect. However, his allies have taken control of the municipal government, and he effectively governs the municipality from his cell.

Both Alfonso and Jorge Miranda are related to Santiago Mazari Hernández, the leader of the Los Rojos gang who was arrested in Guerrero earlier this year.

Source: El Universal (sp), Milenio (sp)

Amnesty law is for people of modest means ‘who didn’t have lawyers’

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2019

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President López Obrador said on Tuesday that his proposed amnesty law is designed for people of modest means who were incarcerated without having access to an adequate legal defense.

Speaking at his morning press conference, López Obrador said the draft bill he sent to Congress on Sunday will release indigenous people, women and senior citizens who were convicted of non-serious crimes.

“This proposal is for humble people who weren’t helped, who didn’t have lawyers . . .” he said.

Mario Delgado, leader of the ruling Morena party in the lower house of Congress, said previously that women imprisoned for having an abortion and young people convicted of minor drug offenses would also be among the beneficiaries of the amnesty law.

López Obrador said that victims of crimes will be consulted about the law and their approval will be sought before it is passed by Congress. He added that prisoners must make a commitment not to reoffend before they are released.

The president said the release of political prisoners will be more complicated but explained that authorities are currently working on the details of how the process will work.

Teachers imprisoned on “fabricated” charges of money laundering are among the political prisoners who could be released, López Obrador said.

The president said that the amnesty law is not part of the strategy to pacify the country, explaining that the government’s welfare programs, the National Guard, the campaign against the consumption of drugs, preventing corruption in the justice system, respecting human rights and confronting arms trafficking are all part of the plan to bring peace to Mexico.

“There are several links in the strategy, which is making progress little by little,” López Obrador said.

Source: Reforma (sp)

Record-breaking August: average temperature 3 degrees higher than normal

By

Simon Schatzberg

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September 17, 2019

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weather — Chilangos find some relief from record-breaking temperatures last month.

It’s been a hot year in Mexico, and August was no exception. According to the National Meteorological Service (SMN), average temperatures were the highest ever for the month since the SMN started keeping records in 1953.

The average nationwide temperature in August was 27 C, 3.3 degrees higher than normal.

Previously, the hottest August on record was in 2015, when the average temperature was 26.4.

Some municipalities broke records this year, including Eduardo Neri, Guerrero, where temperatures reached 47.5 degrees on August 3, and Aldama, Chihuahua, where the mercury rose to 45 on August 6.

In Mexico City records were broken between August 14 and 18. Hottest of those days was the 16^th, when the temperature reached 28.6.

Column 1 shows average temperatures this year and Column 2 the averages between 1981 and 2010. Column 3 indicates the difference between the first two.

It was also the hottest August on record for Coahuila, Chiapas, Durango, Hidalgo, Nuevo León, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Tabasco, Tamaulipas and Yucatán.

The SMN noted that every month in 2019 has been hotter than average. One contributing factor has been low rainfall, which is currently at 78% of the average for the period.

“The rain accumulated across the country between January 1 and September 1 in 2019 was 384.1 millimeters, while the climatology for the period is 493.5 millimeters, which means that it’s only rained 78% of what it usually rains,” said the SMN. “That could be associated with low cloud cover, increasing short-wave radiation which arrives to the surface, and low humidity, which decreases evaporation that lowers surface temperatures.”

Source: Reforma (sp)

Independence parade celebrates the 4T rather than might of armed forces

By

Cody Copeland

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September 17, 2019

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A future marine salutes during yesterday's Independence parade in Mexico City.

Just as Sunday’s “cry of independence” from the National Palace in Mexico City was markedly different from years past, so was Monday’s Independence Day parade.

The parade commemorating the 209th anniversary of Mexican Independence celebrated the ideals and actions of the government of President López Obrador instead of exalting the military might of the country’s armed forces.

There were also two firsts for women in the military.

The show kicked off with 15 paratroopers landing in front of the presidential balcony of the National Palace. Among them was Cecilia Canto, the first female paratrooper to take part in an Independence Day parade.

Later in the ceremony, female pilots were at the controls of two air force planes, also for the first time ever.

A float carrying seniors celebrated senior citizens' social programs. — A float carrying seniors celebrated senior citizens’ social programs.

Of special significance this year was the presence of the National Guard, the security force that is the centerpiece of López Obrador’s strategy to suppress historic levels of violence.

But it was the president’s so-called Fourth Transformation, the 4T, that was the focal point of the one-hour and 40-minute parade, and what the administration sees as its achievements to date.

Floats representing the previous transformations of Mexico — Independence, Reform and the Revolution — preceded displays glorifying the new one, beginning with a representation of the government’s efforts to curb petroleum theft.

They were followed by children representing the president’s decision to transform the Islas Marías prison into an arts center, a display highlighting the cleaning of sargassum from Quintana Roo’s beaches, and another showcasing the administration’s reforestation project titled Sembrando Vida (Sowing Life).

Then, some 40 minutes after the parade began came the contingents of soldiers and sailors. As they circled the zócalo, F-5 Tigers and other military planes and helicopters flew overhead.

With the contingents of Mexican military marched visiting soldiers from Argentina, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland.

Tanker trucks marked the government's defense against pipeline theft. — Tanker trucks marked the government’s defense against pipeline theft.

According to official reports, 13,111 people, 416 vehicles, 74 airplanes and helicopters, 218 horses, 155 dogs and 68 charros or horsemen participated.

Source: El Financiero (sp)

Citizens’ aggression against military seen as organized crime tactic

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MND Staff

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September 17, 2019

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Organized crime behind military attacks: retired officers.

Recent acts of aggression by citizens towards soldiers could have been ordered by organized crime groups, according to retired military generals.

Clashes between residents of states such as Michoacán, Guerrero and Querétaro and the Mexican army have become increasingly common in recent months.

Examples include an attack on September 7 by residents of the Queretaro municipality of San Juan del Río, who threw stones at soldiers after they arrived at a location where a train was being looted, and two incidents in Michoacán late last month in which military personnel were assailed with firearms, shovels and brooms.

According to Benito Medina Herrera, a former army general who is now a federal lawmaker for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, it is possible that at least some of the acts of aggression towards soldiers were ordered by criminal groups.

He said that in some parts of the country, gangs order women and children to confront the army when their interests are threatened because they know that soldiers won’t retaliate against them.

“. . . They take advantage of those circumstances in order to be able to confront the armed forces . . .” Medina said.

“In other places, I believe there are families . . . that are involved in organized crime or crime in general and they go out to defend [their interests] . . .” he added.

José Francisco Gallardo, a retired general who is now a professor at the National Autonomous University, agreed with Medina that citizens’ aggression towards soldiers could be linked to organized crime.

He described attacks on the army as “demeaning” for soldiers and charged that they don’t have sufficient training to deal with them.

Gallardo also said that there is a lot of discontent among soldiers because they are forced to carry out public security tasks. He claimed that there have been almost 1,000 desertions since the new government took office in December.

While Federal Police are unhappy about being transferred into the National Guard, soldiers are angry about having to do the work of a policeman, Gallardo said.

Source: El Economista (sp)

Mid-East drone attack won’t affect gasoline prices: AMLO

By

MND Staff

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September 17, 2019

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Prices will remain stable, president says.

The drone attack on oil installations in Saudi Arabia won’t affect gasoline prices in Mexico, President López Obrador said on Tuesday.

“. . . Despite the upward adjustments to crude prices . . . we’re protected and I can say to Mexicans that there will not be variations in gasoline prices, we’re going to continue to maintain the commitment that fuel prices won’t go up in real terms,” López Obrador told reporters at his morning news conference.

The price of WTI crude rose 14.7% to US $62.90 per barrel on Monday two days after Saturday’s pre-dawn attack on facilities owned by Saudi Aramco, the Middle East nation’s state-owned oil company.

The coordinated strikes on the company’s facilities disrupted about half of Saudi Arabia’s oil capacity, or 5% of daily global supply. Authorities were forced to cut oil output by 5.7 million barrels per day as a result of the attack, for which Yemen’s Houthi rebels claimed responsibility.

Ricardo Sheffield Padilla, head of the consumer protection agency Profeco, explained that prices at gas stations in Mexico will remain stable because the Secretariat of Finance (SHCP) has the power to increase or decrease gasoline subsidies and a stimulus scheme that is designed to alleviate the burden of the IEPS excise tax applied to each liter of fuel.

López Obrador said that officials from the SHCP and the state oil company Pemex will meet today to discuss the situation in the Middle East and its effect on petroleum prices.

“. . . On the one hand, the price increase benefits us because we sell crude oil abroad but as we are buyers of [foreign] gasoline and diesel, it can [also] harm us,” he said.

Source: El Financiero (sp)