Cancun, Q.R. — More hands and more money are needed to deal with the never-ending arrival of sargassum on Cancun beaches. City trustee Miguel Ángel Zenteno says the city could tap in to the Right to Environmental Sanitation trust for the additional resources.
“We always need to find resources to address this contingency which this year, has been very abundant. There’s not enough money or enough hands,” he said.
Miguel Ángel Zenteno, the Municipal Trustee of Benito Juárez, says they could use some of the money generated in the trust (Derecho de Saneamiento Ambiental) since that is why it was created. He says although the sargassum situation is not considered an emergency, the money in the trust is labeled for hydrometeorological phenomena use.
“Remember that we have a percentage allocated to a contingency fund in case of hydrometeorological phenomena. It’s labeled as such so that possibility could be explored given the arrival of sargassum which we’re seeing is quite abundant this year,” he explained.
He said last year, revenue from the Right to Environmental Sanitation tax was close to 800 million pesos. Unused money is returned to the trust at the end of the year for use in new projects.
If they were to explore that avenue, it would need to be run past the Technical Committee of which half is made up of hotels. From there, they would have to modify the operating rules, something that is a possibility and could help with the cost of dealing with the sargassum.
