Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Mexicans give thumbs down to partly built $13B airport

- MARK STEVENSON

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president-elect said Monday that he will respect the result of a referendum that rejected a partly built new airport for Mexico City, effectivel­y ending the $13 billion project.

“The decision taken by the citizens is democratic, rational and efficient,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said after 70 percent voted against the plan. “The people decided.”

It is unclear what will be done with the enormous foundation­s already built on the site, a former lake bed known as Texcoco.

The organizers of the ref-

erendum reported late Sunday that just over 1 million people participat­ed in the referendum. The vote has been criticized, in part because only about 1 out of every 90 registered Mexican voters participat­ed.

Lopez Obrador had pledged during his campaign to cancel the Texcoco project, claiming it was marred by overspendi­ng and corruption.

He instead favors adding two commercial runways to a military air base in the town of Santa Lucia, about 28 miles away. That would imply an improved road to get there from Mexico City and the current 1940s-era airport.

The current, saturated airport would have been closed had Texcoco been built.

Lopez Obrador said he had received assurances from internatio­nal experts that the current airport and Santa Lucia could operate simultaneo­usly. Still, given the distances between the current airport, the planned Santa Lucia terminal and the satellite airport in the nearby city of Toluca, it remains unclear how people could make connecting flights within any reasonable amount of time.

He said Mexicans will save about $5 billion by abandoning the unfinished Texcoco project, which was started with what critics said was little real environmen­tal study by current President Enrique Pena Nieto.

It was supposed to be the signature infrastruc­ture project of Pena Nieto’s administra­tion, though it wouldn’t have been finished for several years more. But the outgoing administra­tion was marked by corruption investigat­ions and allegation­s of insider dealing with contractor­s, which helped propel Lopez Obrador to the presidency.

The referendum held over several days last week marked the first time such a large project had been submitted to a public debate and vote. Lopez Obrador said the decision meant “corruption has ended.”

Mexico’s business community, which overwhelmi­ngly supported the now-canceled project, questioned the referendum, which they said was unofficial, unrepresen­tative and biased.

“We recognize that the citizens expressed their opinion in the referendum,” wrote Juan Pablo Castanon, the head of Mexico’s Business Coordinati­ng Council, an industry group. “But we repeat our position that the referendum, as it was organized, should not be binding and did not offer guarantees of impartiali­ty certainty and objectivit­y.”

Later, Castanon fiercely criticized Lopez Obrador’s decision to obey the vote, saying it “seriously hurts Mexico’s image in the world” and “sends a message of uncertaint­y” to financial markets.

Some questioned whether such a decision, involving complex issues of air traffic control, should be decided in a referendum.

The national Confederat­ion of Chambers of Commerce wrote that “it should be a technical and financial decision, not a political one, based on a popular vote.”

Lopez Obrador called the decision “a triumph for the environmen­tal movement,” saying that the Texcoco project threatened to eliminate the last remaining vestiges of lakes that once covered the Valley of Mexico. Lake Nabor Carrillo had become a refuge for migratory birds but was too close to the Texcoco site and would have posed the threat of birds hitting jet engines.

Lopez Obrador said he hoped that the unfinished site could be used to create “a big sports and ecological center for Mexico City.”

However, much of the environmen­tal destructio­n associated with the Texcoco project is already done: Millions of tons of rock were quarried in nearby towns and transporte­d to the site to fill and drain the swampy location.

Part of the reason why Lopez Obrador — and many other Mexicans — were suspicious of the Texcoco project was the belief that the new airport would have continued sinking into the swamp or flooded.

The decision also spells an end to an ambitious design involving celebrated architect Norman Foster, which would have appeared from above as a giant “X,” an apparent reference to Mexico’s aircraft registrati­on code which starts with X.

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