Liked on YouTube: Stalled mega power project in Mexico stirs discord

Stalled mega power project in Mexico stirs discord

(24 Feb 2020) The thermo-electric power plant looms over the smattering of homes and cows munching on dried corn stalks in Huexca, a tiny farm community in central Mexico where many residents view it as a sleeping monster ready to roar to life. During test runs of equipment in the still idle power plant, residents say, the noise reached more than 110 decibels, as loud as a jet engine at takeoff and roughly 50% above levels considered tolerable for the average human pain threshold. People say they experienced intense headaches, children vomited and some residents suffered hearing loss. Huexca means "place of happiness" in the indigenous Nahuatl language, but the town of fewer than 1,000 inhabitants has become a place of discord. Some people want the plant put into operation. Others are vehemently against it, saying it will destroy their rural life and possibly force them to abandon the only land they have ever known. The power plant is part of a mega-energy project that includes a natural gas pipeline that traverses three states. It is at the heart of a years-long, contentious battle, and is now raising questions among some people about the commitments of the new leftist government to indigenous land rights. Dozens of mostly indigenous communities along the 159 kilometres (nearly 100 miles) of pipeline have united to fight the project, which they believe will deprive them of water for their crops and contaminate the soil and air. Hundreds of environmentalists marched in Mexico City on Friday to show their discontent with the government's big infrastructure plans. In addition to the mega-energy project, there are plans for a tourist train through Mayan lands and a cargo rail line in the south that activists say puts business interests ahead of the wishes of indigenous communities, while endangering flora and fauna. The power project has advanced in fits and starts for more than a decade. It's essentially complete, but legal stays and blockades by locals have prevented connection of the last few hundred feet of pipeline needed to fire up the power plant. In the town of San Pedro Apatlaco, men from villages along the pipeline route take turns sleeping under a tarp on the banks of the Cuautla River to make sure the final tubes aren't laid down. Those pipes would carry water between the thermo-electric power plant and a water treatment facility. The men have camped there for over three years, next to abandoned tubes. Residents complain that the pipeline was laid down surreptitiously and without consultations and worry that the close volcanic region could pose an extra risk for the pipeline to leak or even explode. The first phase of the project involved building the pipeline under communities around the Popocatepetl volcano, which stands between the sprawling Mexican capital and the industrial city of Puebla. The national human rights commission agrees that the project trampled indigenous rights. Teresa Castellanos is a lifelong resident of Huexca who has fought against the government project since 2012. She said the community did not want the thermo-electric power plant and it was imposed on them. Castellanos said she has received death threats and told that her daughters would be sold into prostitution if she keeps fighting the plant. She said the threats came from other residents of Huexca she accuses of being paid by government or private sources to generate local support for the project. "I live like I am a caged bird," she said, while roosters crowed outside. Find out more about AP Archive: https://ift.tt/1CUvJt1 Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://ift.tt/2mlr9BZ Google+: https://plus.google.com/b/102011028589719587178/+APArchive​ Tumblr: https://aparchives.tumblr.com/​​ Instagram: https://ift.tt/2G5Qog8 You can license this story through AP Archive: https://ift.tt/2vhBSTr
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