One of Playa
del Carmen’s most popular stretches of pristine Blue Flag beach has been earmarked as a
location for inclusion in an infrastructure scheme that will connect Cozumel to
mainland Mexico.
The
200-square-meter stretch of coastline known as Playa 88 has been awarded to the
CFE (Comisión Federal de Electricidad) for use in an installation project that
will run a 19-mile underwater power cable to the offshore island of Cozumel.
According to Riviera
Maya News, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat)
greenlit the CFE to use the land for this ongoing project earlier this week,
signaling the imminent loss of this picturesque public beach area.
Mexico's federal government,
through the Ministry of the Interior, made the authorization final when it recently
published the decision in its Official Gazette of the Federation (DOF).
The document
specifies that access to Playa del Carmen’s Playa 88 will be restricted to use
by the CFE for, “the underground construction of a transmission line with
submarine cable corresponding to the LT Playa del Carmen-Chankaanab II project.”
It will be roughly
a month before the beach will be closed to the general public, who will not be
allowed to access the area once work on the site begins.
Lourdes Várguez,
Secretary of Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change and ZOFEMAT, said
the municipality of Solidaridad, will contest the decision with all its power
and fight to keep the beach as a recreational space.
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