SEMARNAT granted operating license to Santa Lucía Airport

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Mexico’s Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT)

granted the environmental impact license for the construction of the Santa Lucía Airport , which is subject to a series of conditions , and will have an effect of 50 years for its operations.

Through its portal of Procedural Queries , the SEMARNAT published a resolution of environmental impact for the construction of the air terminal in which it points out that:

“The authorization in matter of Environmental Impact is issued in reference to the environmental aspects derived from the construction of an airport and an interconnecting road constituted as general communication routes , which include the change in land use of forest areas in a surface of 17.22Ha , the development of civil engineering works in the federal zone of water bodies , the construction of a comprehensive rainwater system , the establishment of a photovoltaic field (solar farm) with an installed capacity of 5 Mwp , that includes two substations (with capacity of 120MVA) and a line of electric transmission (2.1km), as well as the handling of Turbosina (19’200,000 1) which is considered a high-risk activity .”

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The document says that the project called “Construction of a Mix Airport Civil/Military with international capacity in the Military Airbase No. 1 (Santa Lucía, State of Mexico), its interconnection with the Mexico City’s International Airport, and the relocation of military facilities ” will have an effect of 33 years to perform the stages for site preparation and construction of the works of the project, which will be divided in four stages; and also an effect of 50 years for the “renewable operation and maintenance in accordance to the reassessment of the valid Master Plan.”

The Environmental Impact Assessment (MIA) of the project, fostered by the Mexico Secretariat of National Defence (SEDENA) , was brought to the Environmental Impact and Risk Directorate (DGIRA) of the SEMARNAT on April 15 of this year with the number of project 15EM2019V0064 ; the public consultation of this document started on May 16th and ended on June 12th , period in which academics, the civil society, and all those interested in the project issued their observations .

Last July 17th , the DGIRA issued the Resolution of Environmental Impact and notified the next day the Mexico Secretary of National Defence (SEDENA) ; the project is located in the municipalities of Zumpango and Tecámac in the State of Mexico .

Among the conditions established by the Semarnat it is noted that the SEDENA must present Programs of Rescue and Relocation of Vegetation and the Preservation and Management of Wild Fauna , a Program for Environmental Restoration , a Program of Annual Monitoring of Birds ; measures for the reduction of greenhouse gases , the implementation of a system for mitigating noise levels , a Program of Sustainable Use of Water , a Program of Waste Management for the handling and disposal of urban solid waste, of special handling and hazardous, among other measures.