Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — The Municipality of Solidaridad is moving forward with its challenge of a recent ruling in favor of a beachfront hotel. María de Lourdes Barrios Ocampo, Secretary of Sustainable Environment and Climate Change says the municipal government has requested legal notification of the resolution.
The ongoing dispute began after the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection (Profepa) put a stop to their beach sand dumping project in November of 2022. The hotel challenged the Profepa closure and lost, however, they have since been awarded a go-ahead.
Ocampo says the municipality has requested legal notification of that resolution from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat). She says the municipality wants to see the resolution granted to the Wyndham Alltra Playa del Carmen hotel to recover its concessioned coastline and, if applicable, nullify that resolution.
Ocampo reported that the federal authority has to be part of the project so that they can give their technical opinion. She says it is not possible for the hotel to carry out isolated work in the federal zone since it will inevitably affect other areas.
Ocampo also noted that their solution to the beach erosion — removing sand from one end of the beach and placing it in front of their hotel — is only a temporary one since any added sand will simply wash away again in a few months.
“If you allow Alltra to carry out these recovery actions on its beach where it has a concession, taking sand from one place to put it in another, we know that it will not work because after a few months, that sand will be gone again,” she said.
Ocampo says studies are being done to combat erosion on Playa El Recodo in central Playa del Carmen with the placement of breakwaters. She says those studies are pending because they must be carried out on specific dates.
“Normally, wave and tide studies are done in the first months of the year. We hope that in March the tide will go down a little so we can see how El Recodo behaves and how the other beaches behave and to be able to do complete studies of currents and tides,” she explained.
This will help us to know the viability of the breakwaters in certain points of this beach to achieve a comprehensive project and not affect other areas such as Fundadores she said.
