Authorization with irregularities farm of 49 thousand pigs in reserve of cenotes in Yucatan 'Immunological amnesia' caused by measles can affect protection against coronavirus

The Yucatan government approved the construction and operation of a 49,000-pig mega-farm in the municipality of Homún, located in the Anillo de Cenotes Geohydrological Reserve, despite presenting a series of irregularities ranging from the granting of the land use and construction license without consulting the Cabildo, and the authorization to start the project without the company that heads it being constituted, until the lack of bibliographic and scientific support in the Environmental Impact Statement (MIA).

The Cabildo revoked the license granted to the company for the construction of the farm, which was returned to it by the Fiscal and Administrative Court of Justice of the Judiciary of the State of Yucatán, considering that it did not represent damage to a social interest or contravened public order provisions.

The foregoing, despite the fact that the project was started three months before the company Producción Alimentaria y Porcícola (PAPO) was established, an “administrative and legal irregularity” that was overlooked by the State Department of Urban Development and Environment .

To these irregularities is added the technical opinion requested from Virgilio Góngora, Ph.D. in Engineering, Environmental Option, who maintains that the MIA "has no bibliographic or scientific support, and only reveals the polluting potential of the project in the Geohydrological Reserve." . The study was prepared by a dental surgeon without technical knowledge in environmental matters and approved by the Secretary of Urban Development and Environment of Yucatán, since rejecting it would have been "discriminatory" according to its owner, Eduardo Batllori.

One more irregularity is found in the refusal to recognize Homún as a native people and, consequently, to consult the residents for their opinion on the project. Those affected denounce that the mega farm has the potential to contaminate the water sources of the Homún cenotes and cancel hundreds of jobs from tourism.

From asking for credit to prospering with tourism

The tangle of diners at Lorena Chan's tortas, tacos and sopes stand begins to thin out around noon. It is when she has a breather after the hustle and bustle of the morning harvest of suckling pig appetizers and she can sit down and talk. Big eyes, round face, kind talk, with the classic Yucatecan accent. She says that for four years she and her husband have had this food business, which has no shortage of customers, in the municipality of Homún, in Yucatán.

“On weekends and the high holiday season, five women help me, because we can't keep up: two serve roasts, two are with the cakes and one for the table. Four of them are separated from their husbands and help each other with work.” Ten years ago, Lorena would not have been able to hold this position. The people in Homún, Yucatán (with around 7,000 inhabitants), had nothing to buy. There were no food businesses, or snacks. "I had two stalls," says Pedro Cabrera Carbajal, a businessman from Homún, "and at 8 at night I told my cousin 'we are going to close', because I already knew that people would come to ask for credit."

All of that has changed, Cabrera says, “now the stores have credit signs, but no one in the community borrows anymore.” Lorena confirms that yes, that a decade ago business did not prosper here. That is why her husband went to work in Mérida, in a light and sound team, which did not prosper either. He lost his job and she encouraged him to start the suckling pig stall. “We do not have an abundance of money, but we are doing well. The people here come and eat. In addition, many visitors from outside arrive through the cenotes tour”.

Homún has prospered with tourism, after having two big failures. In Yucatán there was prosperity, for almost a century, for the upper class and work for the poor thanks to henequen, which became famous in the 1870s, when it began to be used in agriculture, in cereal balers.

But the International Harvester Co monopolized purchases of this material and drove prices down; In addition, hybrids began to be produced that gave a more resistant and flexible fiber. The production of henequen went under and the lack began to settle in the state. In the municipality of Homún you can still see henequen plants on the side of the roads, but no one cuts them anymore.

In an attempt to remedy the shortage, in 1969, the government of the State of Yucatán selected a group of peasants who wanted to dedicate themselves to raising pigs and delivered twenty-three stallions to family groups. It was the first phase of family pig farming, which was favored with credits and delivery of one to four bellies per family. The farms had their downfalls, but they became a good business in the region.

Only there would be no happy ending in this either. The pressures of the commercial opening and the increase in the cost of inputs put the majority of their owners in trouble. That and another issue: the strengthening of the Kekén company, which local producers accuse of becoming a monopoly, which ended up aspiring to small, medium and large pig farmers (some under the figure of sharecroppers: owners of the infrastructure to which that the company gives them the piglets and feed for their fattening).

Pork businessman Carlos Castillo Solís has said in various local media that the Kekén monopoly pressures producers to enter into his scheme, and that he competes unfairly by dominating 90% of the market.

No henequen and no pigs

Now, in addition to henequen, there is something else abandoned in Homún: many small and medium-sized farms. The shells can be seen in the backyards of the houses. Pedro Cabrera, the one with the two stalls, had his but left it just because of Kekén's pressure.

Without henequen and without pigs, the era of asking for credit was installed, of the deserted streets of food stalls, of men going to Mérida to work as masons or workers.

That was Rudi Balam. He worked as a bricklayer's assistant in Mérida. He earned twelve hundred pesos a week, but half of it went to him in fares and food. Now he has a better job. For four years he has been a tourist guide on the cenote route in Homún. “Here I earn 250 pesos for four people on a tour of four to five cenotes, but they also give me tips and the restaurants also give me something for taking tourists. I earn 600 or 700 in a day. In low season I do two tours a week. But I no longer spend on tickets. And in high season (when up to 4,800 tourists arrive per day) we do a daily tour, sometimes up to two”.

Also, now it does a very different job. A few minutes ago Rudi took a good dip in one of the cenotes, while the foreign tourists he is accompanying today did the same. Here it is normal to see the motorcycle taxi drivers and the guides laughing among themselves, talking with the tourists, proudly sharing what they know about these places where they were born and they even look relaxed: their bodies floating as long as they are in the transparent blue water.

“Thanks to tourism we have work and the town has grown. Right now you go anywhere and they sell food and people do buy. Others sell handicrafts, others ride motorcycle taxis or guides or rent life jackets. Tourism has generated about 700 jobs here. There are very few people who go to Mérida to work. Before it was the majority, now only 30%”, says Rudi.

Rudi Balam, tourist guide in Homún. Photo: Andrea Vega.

It was in 2010 when most of the 16 cenotes that today make up the tourist route in Homún began to be enabled. This municipality did not appear before on the map of national or foreign visitors. They all went to visit the cenotes of Cuzamá. But problems between the ejidatarios and the police station divided the tours. One side was left with one cenote and the other with two, without having the option of visiting all three, tourists began to look for better options. And there was Homun.

Everything seemed to line up. The state government published the decree in which the Ring of Cenotes, where this municipality is located, was recognized as a geohydrological reserve. In this place, rainwater infiltrates and tends to go through the preferential conduits towards the coast and, when it reaches the ring, it functions as a landfill, explains the secretary of Urban Development and Environment of Yucatán, Eduardo Batllori. "That is why it is said that it is the largest water recharge area on the peninsula." The area is established as a reserve in order to promote its greater sanitation, adds the official.

With the area declared a reserve and Cuzamá off the map for visitors, small businessmen and cenote owners jumped in to take advantage of the opportunity. José Clemente May, former municipal president for the PAN of Homún, and the restaurant owner Gabriel Pech obtained credits from the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI) to enable their two cenotes for tourism in these Mayan lands.

Ever wondered how to seed a #pomegranate? It's not as hard as you may think: https://t.co/6JEuL5zPqO #FoodTips… https://t.co/SBlVN3SfyI

— Cannon + Belle Thu Feb 22 00:35:04 +0000 2018

At first there were only eight guides. Today there are more than 200. One of the most enthusiastic is Leandro Chan. Four years ago I worked in a maquiladora, in Mérida. I entered at 7 in the morning and left at 7 at night. 12 hours on his feet, performing the same task in a textile factory, for 700 pesos a week.

“Have you seen the little birds that are in cages? Well, that's how I was in the maquiladora. I spent ten years like this, from 20 to 30 years old. I'm not going to tell you here that I earn a lot, but I go out for tortillas and bread and I live happily, like a king, I meet people from many places and I tell them the things my father used to tell me. I work from 11 am to 5 pm and earned 500 or 600 pesos for a tour”.

Leandro's enthusiasm vanishes when he is mentioned the mega pig farm with more than 49,000 pigs that a new company will open in this ring of cenotes, in the Yucatan geohydrological reserve, and that will generate barely 45 permanent jobs. “They are going to destroy our source of work and our environment. With the arrival of the pigs, the tourists are going to leave, because of the bad smell and the contamination of the water”.

The environmental damage of pigs in cenotes

Batllori, who together with Governor Rolando Zapata signed decree 117 in 2013 establishing the protected natural area called the Anillo de Cenotes Geohydrological State Reserve, where Homún is there, he is the same official who later authorized the Environmental Impact Manifesto (MIA) of the project to open a 49,000-pig farm in the area, owned by Food and Pork Production (PAPO).

This is the new company of the owners of Grupo Sipse, a media conglomerate that brings together newspapers and radio and television stations in the state. In accordance with PAPO's articles of incorporation, of which Animal Político has a copy, the company was formed on May 23, 2016 with 14 partners, most of them related by kinship. However, the project for the construction and operation of the pig farm was started on February 19, 2016, three months before the company was incorporated, an administrative and legal irregularity overlooked by Seduma.

The Environmental Impact Statement that PAPO presented for the construction and operation of a pig farm in Homún, and which has Batllori's authorization signature, was prepared by the dental surgeon Gladis del Rosario Alamilla Sanguino, according to her identity card professional. There are no academic records that accredit knowledge in environmental matters. When Batllori is asked if a dentist can perform an MIA, he replies that refusing it would be a discriminatory act.

“There is no register (of professions) by law; in fact, anyone can submit their Environmental Impact Statement. It is discriminatory to say that a dentist can't or what, engineers, architects either?

– But do you have the knowledge to do it?

– It can be a dentist who is dedicated to being a dentist or not but obviously has a work group. You can't do a MIA by yourself, you need someone to go and do a vegetation assessment. You hire him and you pay him. There are several, of course, there are very specialized consultants, but there are individuals who present and carry out their studies. There are architects, urban planners, engineers and there is this dentist. I can't tell him: oh, you're a dentist, no, I won't accept it, because it would be a discriminatory act.

Batllori assures that the mega farm in Homún will not cause a negative impact on the environment. "Since it is in a reserve area, we have asked him to put not only biodigesters (as is done in most farms) but also a water treatment plant." But the owners of cenotes and residents of Homún organized in the civil group Ka'anan Ts'onot (Los Guardianes de los Cenotes) are not convinced that the mega-farm will not pollute, something that is confirmed by the technical report of the PAPO MIA , prepared by the doctor in Environmental Option Engineering, Virgilio René Góngora Echeverría.

According to this document, the same environmental manifestation of the mega farm highlights that the aquifer of the Yucatan Peninsula is highly vulnerable to contamination, due to the high density of fissures and dissolution conduits found in the subsoil and that allow the infiltration of all types of water very easily.

The mitigation measures presented in the MIA regarding water and soil contamination are doubtful, affirms Góngora Echeverría against his technical report. "They have no bibliographic or scientific support, and only reveals the polluting potential of the project in the Geohydrological Reserve."

The specialist also states that, currently, there is no treatment system that can reduce fecal coliforms in pigs to the limits required by regulations. And he adds that the MIA does not consider the emission of odors from the operation of the farm.

Another irregularity of PAPO's Environmental Impact Statement (of which Animal Político has a copy) is that it denies that there are indigenous peoples in the Homún area, when in the 2015 Socioeconomic Indicators of the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples (CDI), Homún is recognized as such. Batllori himself acknowledges that this is a Mayan town; but even so, even with that false information established in the document, the official signed his authorization. The denial of the existence of indigenous peoples exempts the company from consulting the indigenous community for its opinion on the project.

The members of the Ka´anan Ts´onot civil group filed an amparo with the support of the Indignation Team, for the irregularities in PAPO's Environmental Impact Statement. Last Friday, February 2, Judge Rogelio Eduardo Leal Mota, of the second district court of Yucatán, issued a resolution on the case and decided not to grant it. The judge argued that it was not proven that the MIA was irregular, because although it was prepared by a dentist, in the end it was approved by Seduma and what prevails is the presumption of legality since this secretary endorsed the document. Now, the organization will file an appeal for review of this ruling before the Collegiate Circuit Court.

Animal Político sought out the president of PAPO's board of directors, Gerardo García Gamboa, and the company's legal representative, Enrique Ortiz, to find out their version of the project, but they did not answer the calls.

Members of the Guardians of the Cenotes organization. Photo: Andrea Vega.

Nothing to ask

The lawyers for Equipo Indignación claim that the indigenous community was not properly consulted to find out if they agreed with the project. “As a Mayan people, the inhabitants of Homún should have been informed and consulted about the mega farm, but the authorities did not ask them,” claims Lourdes Medina, a lawyer for Indignación. By not asking the community, the state and municipal governments ignored the proper consultation established by ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, regarding megaprojects in their territory.

They also ignored the recommendation of the National Human Rights Commission on the right to prior consultation of the indigenous peoples and communities of the Republic of Mexico, published in the Official Gazette of the Federation, among whose rights is recognized the right to decide the priorities for their development.

In view of the State's omission, the members of Ka'anan Ts'onot promoted a self-consultation in the community of Homún: 772 inhabitants said no to the mega farm, compared to 52 who said yes. Now the organization is awaiting a response regarding whether the state government will endorse the self-consultation.

The scenario before authority is complicated. The community accuses the municipal president Enrique Echevarría Chan of vitiating the process from the beginning by granting the land use and construction license to PAPO unilaterally, without consulting his council. When the residents began to worry about the first works in the area, they were told that a road was being built.

Later they discovered that it was a mega pig farm and the municipal president had to recognize the start of the project under his endorsement. The council then demanded that he call an extraordinary meeting in which the license granted to the company for the construction of the farm was revoked.

The company Producción Alimentaria Porcícola filed a contentious-administrative lawsuit against the city council and the municipal president of Homún before the Fiscal and Administrative Court of the Judiciary of the State of Yucatán, a claim that was filed under file number 91/ 2017.

On July 18, 2017, magistrate Miguel Diego Barbosa Lara granted the company the suspension of the acts they claimed, considering that continuing with the construction of the farm did not represent detriment to a social interest or violate public order provisions .

The residents of Homún claimed to be harmed third parties, but the Court denied their request, for which reason they filed an appeal, which is still ongoing. They also filed an amparo against the authorization, by Seduma, of PAPO's Environmental Impact Statement. In that protection, the suspension of the work was requested, but the judge denied it, arguing that the farm would provide jobs to the town, reports Indignation. Due to this refusal, a complaint was filed, a trial that is still in dispute.

According to PAPO's own Environmental Impact Statement, his mega farm will create 45 permanent jobs. "Of these, half will be for technical personnel who will come from outside, only about 20 will be offered to the people of Homún, as workers, pressing buttons, against the 700 jobs that ecotourism has already generated in the area," says José. Clemente May, owner of a restaurant and a small cenote in Homún and member of Ka'anan Ts'onot.

Why a farm in this area? José Clemente May says that they chose this area because they want to be sharecroppers for Kekén, who will need a lot of meat for their plans to export to China and to achieve this they must comply with certain rules. “There should not be another pig farm within 10 kilometers, for health reasons. Also, here they are close to Mérida and, as in all of Yucatán, there is sufficient availability of water.”

For now, the members of Ka'anan Ts'onot will follow up on the legal resources available to them, under the advice of Indignation. “The balance is tilted towards the company, since we are not rich businessmen, all the authorities have hit us, the judges, Seduma, Semarnat, Conagua, the INAH, all claim they have no jurisdiction or that the process is legal. But if that farm opens, Homún will go back to the time of asking for credit and going to Mérida to work”, affirms José Clemente May.

Karla Garrido, who rents life jackets to tourists and sells souvenirs and sweets, is blunt. “If the company and the authorities were thinking about the well-being of the people, they would not open that farm that is going to end tourism. They are seeing that we already have a source of work and a better life and they want to come clean us up. I will have to go back to collect bottles and cans in the bush to sell, to wash clothes and run errands to have something to eat”.

This publication was made possible through support from the Kellogg Foundation.