Part of the citizens of the Hidalgo municipalities of Tula, Atitalaquia and Tlaxcoapan voted this Sunday during the consultation carried out by the federal and local governments with the following question: “Everyone has the right to a healthy environment for their development and well-being. Do you agree that the ecological and recycling park be built in Hidalgo to expand green spaces, reduce landfills and reduce the pollution it generates? The majority response was negative, with a participation that did not reach 9% of the nominal list. “Yes, the people who didn’t want it there voted there, that’s why the Ministry of the Environment is going to look for another site to be able to develop the Circular Economy Park. We will always be respectful of what people think,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Monday.
Out of a total of just over 12,000 voters, 4,334 (35.35%) voted in favor of the project, while 7,736 (63.10%) voted against. During the consultation, there were 189 invalid votes, which represents 1.54% of the total. In the official statement released by the Government of Hidalgo and the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), they said: “According to the official results published by the State Electoral Institute of Hidalgo (IEEH), a citizen participation of 8.77% of the nominal list was recorded, which is equivalent to 12,259 votes cast out of a total of 139,831 citizens.
In the information provided by the government, we see that if the voters of the municipalities of Atitalaquia and Tlaxcoapan voted against the project, those of Tula de Allende voted mainly in favor. “This citizen participation consultation reaffirms the democratic conviction of the Fourth Transformation, the maxim of which is “with the people everything, without the people nothing”.
As “an act of justice”, that’s what the official advertising said about the Hidalgo Ecological and Recycling Park, which would be built on the land abandoned after the planning of a second failed refinery – under the government of Felipe Calderón – in a place where the three municipalities converge: Tula, Tlaxcoapan and Atitalaquia, in the Mezquital Valley region. “Did you know that due to irresponsible industrial development and lack of interest from neoliberal governments, the Tula-Atitalaquia region has for many years been one of the areas hardest hit by air, water and soil pollution? Entire communities have been living in a sacrifice zone…” says one of the promotional videos on the project’s official website.
This Sunday’s consultation reflected the negative impact of years of neglect in the region, where pollution levels exceeded dangerous limits and where wastewater from the Valley of Mexico and local industries in the region was dumped for decades into the waters of the Tula River – one of the most polluted in the country – and into the Endhó Dam. To cite one example, the federal government, then led by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, admitted in 2021 that the flooding in Tula was not caused by local rains – although heavy – but by the flow and runoff of other rivers, other dams and other sewers. The surplus came in particular from the tunnels which relieve congestion in the Valley of Mexico.
The ecological park and the recycling plant, as promised by the authorities, would have green spaces – in the area of the three municipalities there is no public space with these characteristics -, a nursery, a wetland, training centers, local employment and environmental education. Authorities have insisted at every public appearance that the work would not be a “white elephant” and that the recycling plant would not be another open dump, like the landfill that is already about to reach its useful life in Tula. However, these communication efforts were not sufficient judging by the results of the consultation.
The voices of Yeah and No
Some voters in favor of the project expressed that the idea of having an ecological park and a recycling area was the start of an improvement whose benefits would be reflected in the long term. While those who opposed the project, dominated by the feeling of abandonment and the inaction of the authorities in the face of the problems accumulating in the region, assured that only the construction of the complex would bring more problems to these cities already affected by diseases such as cancer and other serious illnesses.
“If yes wins, we must be united as a society so that things go well. And if no wins, we must still be united and look for alternatives to the garbage problem,” said Jesús González, a resident of Tula, before the vote. José Hernández, another resident of the same municipality, said: “I agree because it is a long-term benefit; maybe now there is unease from a minority group, but they have not yet fully started the work of garbage and sewage recyclers, but I consider that in the long term it is a benefit. If we are already contaminated and someone intends to make improvements and help, then go ahead, it’s worse to do nothing.
Greenpeace México, a voice that spoke out against the project, assured: “Between hasty discussions, green speeches and promises of innovation, the General Circular Economy Law (LGEC) has been approved and the Circular Economy Park project is moving forward in this area of Hidalgo (…) We are talking about an area declared “environmental hell” due to the number of industries present in the area, such as cement factories, as well as the Miguel Hidalgo refinery of Pemex and thermoelectrics. factory, Francisco Pérez Ríos, of the CFE To which is added the management of wastewater from the Valley of Mexico”, they said in a statement before the consultation.
Bessie Cerón, a citizen of the region and specialist in participatory processes, criticized the citizen consultation and stressed that the discussion is not a simple administrative procedure, but requires much more complex processes that have in their hands the future of families and entire villages. “A complex region needs complex questions, and there is no worse question, when faced with a serious environmental problem, than “yes” or “no” (…) A binary consultation leaves aside the nuances, the intermediate scenarios and, above all, the conditions that make a project acceptable or unacceptable for the community. The Latin American experience demonstrates this time and again: when participation processes are reduced to hasty consultations, conflicts increase, territories become polarized, companies lose their legitimacy and governments find themselves stuck between social pressure and the commitments made,” he says.
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