Stalled mega power project in central Mexico stirs discord
HUEXCA, Mexico (AP) — The thermo-electric 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.
“We didn't want the thermo-electric plant. They imposed it on us," said Teresa Castellanos, a lifelong resident of Huexca who has fought since 2012 against the government project.
Huexca means “place of happiness” in the indigenous Náhuatl 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’s 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 kilometers (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, those plans include a...