Public vote set for brewery

On Monday, Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that the public consultation on the future of New York-based Constellation Brands brewery will take place within two weekends.

In his morning press conference, the president said the public vote proposed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources will be organized by the Department of the Interior.

Tentatively, the vote would take place between March 20 and 22, though there is no exact date.

Undersecretary Diana Álvarez has been assigned to be in charge of the vote.

López Obrador promised to install information booths for citizens. These educational booths will include breakdowns of the arguments for and against the plant, data on the permits granted, as well as their dates and possible effects.

“Everything will be informed before the consultation so that the people of Mexicali can, fully informed, decide whether to accept the plant,” the president said. “This also makes us different from the other governments. This is to govern by listening to the mandate, the will of citizens.”After admitting that there have been many pressures, especially from the business sector, the president said federal government intends to allow citizens to decide the future of the $1.5 billion project.

Last year, Mexicali environmental activists gathered more than 20,000 signatures to ask the Electoral Institute of Baja California for a referendum on the subject. The petition was dismissed as being irrelevant by the institute.

To date, construction of the plant is 60 percent complete.

The company, through its office in Mexico, has threatened to move the project out of Mexico if it is put to public consultation. Business organization have opposed the measure as well.

On the other side of the issue, the National Human Rights Commission believes the plant construction and its potential consumption of water resources are illegal and has recommended against its opening to both the state and national governments.

López Obrador said he was respectful of the issue.

“I consider that the most democratic method is the consultation of citizens so there is no influence of any kind, so citizens and not only interest groups or those who oppose for some reason decide,” he said. “People know very well what is convenient and what is not convenient. We are no longer in the time when it was thought that people were underage, that they were dumb, that they were manipulated.”

After highlighting that the plant represents jobs, López Obrador admitted that stopping the project means distrust of the country by private investors.

However, the president observed the country cannot run out of water, adding that economic development cannot be placed above public welfare.

In the end, the president suggested the company move the plant to southeast Mexico basins where water is plentiful. —Arturo Bojorquez, abojorquez@ivpressonline.com