Cancun, Q.R. — The Nautical Association of Quintana Roo is working to clean up the Nichupté lagoon by removing at least 50 boats. The Association says there are at least 50 that have been left stranded in the lagoon.
Nautical Association Director Ricardo Muleiro López says those boats pose a risk for pollution as well as the navigation of other boats. On a tour at kilometer 4 of Kukulcán Boulevard, several half-sunken boats were located along the shore.
According to Muleiro López, they’ve been there for several years. He said that they are working in collaboration with the Rotary Club of Cancun to clear the Nichupté lagoon of broken down boats. He says the two groups plan to extract 50 sunken vessels they have located.
“There are boats that have fuel and it spills. There are others that may have a system to prevent it from spilling, but the fact that it is sunken is already a visual impact that we are causing to tourism.
“Walking in the lagoon is not only seeing mangroves and the hotel zone in the landscape, but also seeing sunken, damaged, broken boats and that is not what we want for our destination,” he said.
The Navy Secretariat (Semar) is also taking part in the lagoon cleanup through the Port Authority, as well as the environmental authorities since the removal of the boats requires the corresponding permits and procedures, he explained.
He said that the federal authorities have already given legal certainty to carry out the rescue work on these vessels, so they will be working together; in addition, the garbage will also be removed from the body of water.
He said that each owner has the responsibility to take care of his boat, but unfortunately there are some very old ones and their maintenance costs are very high. Repairing them after they have sunk is more expensive than leaving them abandoned, he said.
“The cost of maintenance, of boat engines, electronic systems and devices, radars, GPS, is so high that the person who bought the boat probably did so during good times, but the fact of repairing or maintaining a boat or rebuilding it is more expensive than leaving it abandoned,” he said.
