Article by PBI-Canada

PBI-Mexico accompanied the FPDTA-MPT at a march on November 28, 2020, just days after the National Guard raided the Cuautla River blockade.

Jacob Alabab-Moser reports in Latino Rebels: “Operations at the newly constructed thermoelectric plant in Huexca, Morelos could begin in the near future, despite years long delays caused by vocal opposition and unresolved legal issues.”

Alabab-Moser continues:

“Grassroots resistors forming the Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra y el Agua de Morelos, Puebla y Tlaxcala (Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Earth of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala) have protested outside of the facility since December.”

“To cool the turbines at the plant, the adjoining aqueduct must draw 50 million liters of water daily from the Cuautla River, despite a statement by the state-owned electricity utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (Federal Electricity Commission) that said that the plant would only draw from only treated sewage.”

“The river sustains 32 ejidos, or communal agriculture lands. Many of the ejidatarios —who collectively regulate use of increasingly scarce water supplies for irrigation through the Asociación de Usuarios del Río Cuautla (Cuautla River Users Association)— warn that the project will deplete remaining supplies and return to the river contaminated water.”

“Although the government approved the Manifestación de Impacto Ambiental (Environmental Impact Statement) necessary for the thermoelectric plant to be constructed, that assessment took into account neither the aqueduct’s full impacts on the Cuautla River nor [the Cuautla Rivers Users Assocation] members’ water rights, said Juan Carlos Flores Solís, a lawyer representing the FPDTA-MPT.”

PBI-Mexico began to accompany the FPDTA-MPT in early 2020.

On November 23, 2020, PBI-Mexico posted: “We express concern about the eviction by the National Guard of the Apatlaco blockade which they had maintained for 4 years in opposition to the Huexca thermoelectric plant and PIM.”

This likely refers to the Esperanza open-pit gold mine near Tetlama, Morelos reactivated by the Toronto-based mining company last year.

To read the full article by Alabab-Moser, go to Indigenous, Rural Mexicans in Morelos Fight Against Energy Project That Threatens Their Water Supplies.