Residents of the Alfredo V. Bonfil ejido, in the municipality of Benito Juárez, denounced the daily contamination of Cancún’s aquifer due to the lack of transparency from municipal authorities, who are doing nothing to prevent it. They claim that entire neighborhoods in the area are failing to receive basic services such as drinking water and sewage, as their wastewater is currently seeping into the ground.
After listing a series of irregularities in the ejido, they lamented that after more than 20 years of living in these neighborhoods, they still lack basic necessities due to the lack of legal certainty regarding their properties.
They pointed out that municipal authorities only acted when the current governor, Mara Lezama of the Morena party, won the mayoral election (2018-2021), as they immediately provided services and regularized the area where she resided. Therefore, they demanded an explanation of the criteria being applied to address the same needs of the residents.
At a press conference, a group of residents from the ejido, led by activist Celina Izquierdo, lamented the series of irregularities occurring in their community, where the local government is completely ineffective.
They stated that in recent days, a private individual hired a backhoe to clear an entire green area of more than 130 square meters, which contained enormous trees.
They explained that for any construction project, developers are required to post a notice detailing the type of construction, its characteristics, permits, and dates, but the person who cut down the trees displayed nothing.
They added that, with just a phone call, a group of workers from Aguakán—the municipal water and sewage company—arrived within a few hours to install the service.
They accused the local government of establishing warehouses in the area, some of them meat processing plants, which require industrial quantities of water, a service that the rest of the community lacks. Furthermore, they claimed that the wastewater is discharged directly into the ground, contaminating the aquifers.
They emphasized that the residents are eager to regularize their land tenure and invest, together with the municipal authorities, in solving the problems in the community.
They added that approximately 20,000 people live in this ejido (communal land), and they suffer from the problems caused by groundwater contamination and the lack of public services.
Source: jornada
