translated from Spanish: Works of the NAIM without land plan dismantled in Texcoco

At 8 am, in front of one of the gates of what was to be the new international Airport of Mexico (NAIM) in Texcoco, still congregate the few workers who continue to go to work in the perimeter. But they no longer build; On the contrary, they are dismantling the facilities that the participating companies had assembled for the work.
This same month, as their bosses have told them, the work will be over, they will have removed all the machinery and offices, and the project will be completely abandoned. The only thing that will continue is the construction of a bridge, one of the three that had been raised for access, and that as is the only one that was already advanced will end. It will connect the rock-Texcoco highway with whatever happens in that terrain.
Neither the secretariat of Communications and Transport (SCT) nor Airport Group of Mexico City (GACM), the state-owned company that built the NAIM, have reported the fate of the place or what will happen to the foundation that had already been made for the Project, which, according to the new government, had a real advance of 21%.
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Alejandro Vázquez is an employee who had been working in slab supervision for a year. Although since July, Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the presidency, he talked about canceling the NAIM, and in October the transition team organized a consultation that supported this cancellation, Vázquez tells Political Animal That was until January when the construction really stopped and began to fire people. He is one of the few who has continued his work.
“Monitoring the Slabs: if you’re plunging, you’re not plunging. They already are, they have already thrown the concrete, “he explains.
-What have they told you about the suspension? — you are asked.
“To us nothing. Only the skipper said: No more 15 days left us to work. ”
Other employees stopped working for a couple of months, like Fernando Jiménez, of electromechanical projects and Assemblies of Mexico, because in January they finished the contract they had to build and in early April they called again, with the same salary, But for a new purpose: to withdraw everything.
“Right now what we are doing is dismantling the construction structure, properly, in this case are concrete that we are retiring, which were to produce concrete for the work,” he says. “We worked half a year, three concretes were installed.”
None of the workers consulted received any offer to go to work at the airport Felipe Ángeles that the current government proposes to build from the air base of Saint Lucia, instead of Texcoco. Jimenez’s only information is that next week he’s out of work and the work is completely abandoned.
READ: Santa Lucía Terminal to be inaugurated in 2021 but will operate at full capacity at 2069
Gonzalo Padilla, who works for the cement company HOLCIM, estimates that there are only 2% or less of the staff who came to work in the NAIM. Before, remember, there were people 24 hours, because it could be that the company told them that it was necessary to strain concrete at night. Now, on the other hand, they only cover a shift from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“We’re talking about, I don’t know, 300 people, 500; Nothing. Of 12000, 15000 people who had been working. The number of people who are now is nothing, rather they are administrative, guards, people dismantling plants, offices, nothing else, “he explains.
Padilla agrees that the only information they have is that this month is delivered everything that is pending and the work is finished, after starting in January contracts began to stop, it was stopped supplying concrete and went down to the staff.
— Did you vote in the October consultation? — He is questioned.
Not. Well, it was our job, it was like stabbing myself. ”
He coordinated a team of 60 people, some of them who moved to Texcoco, in three houses that the company rented with that goal.
The morning of this Tuesday, just happens to pick up five workers in a van that is one of the few vehicles authorized to enter the work, which will soon be closed definitively.
Photo: Elizabeth Cruz
A work “in suspension stage”
The environmental Impact Statement (MIA) of the NAIM, approved since 2014, foresees that if the promoter of the work, ie Airport Group of Mexico City, desists from the execution of the project, has to present an ecological restoration program that Describe the actions aimed at “the restoration of the site and the demolition, removal and/or alternative use of the construction carried out”.
On 2 December, a day after the start of the new government, there was an extraordinary session of the Board of Directors of the GACM in which it was ordered to evaluate the work so that the “Council can instruct the Director General to carry out the suspension of the work” , as recorded in the Minutes of the sitting, of which Political Animal It has a copy.
The head of the SCT and President of the Council, Javier Jiménez Espriú, revealed at the beginning of the year that the order was given on December 27th. But despite the fact that more than four months have passed, no project has yet been presented for the terrain of what was to be the airport or the work was completely cancelled.
“The Ecological Restoration program is not applicable because the project is in the stages of suspension and early termination, and therefore some activities are carried out with the aim of protecting the structures and equipment, which require Monitoring of applicable mitigation factors and measures, “GACM said in response to a request for information last March.
Social Communication from the airport group confirmed that the situation between the SCT and the National Water Commission (Conagua) is being studied, and there is still no alternative plan.
As could be seen in a visit to the area, the interior work has continued until this may, and the outside will continue a few more months: a kilometer from gate 7, which entered the terrain, half a hundred workers continues the construction of a bridge vehicul AR, in charge of the company Coconal.
Workers say they are not allowed to give information; One ensures that he is not even sure if the bridge is part of the airport, because he has only heard that it is “for something of the military.”
A supervisor, who prefers not to give his name, says that this contract continues until September, and once the bridge is over, the whole area will be empty.
“That bridge was already started and to leave an unfinished bridge… There’s no point. It is also a bridge that will serve the track, when they want to access, because they are going to enter there, “he explains.
From the rest, he says, from January onwards, the companies focused on seeing what was needed to close the contracts, according to the Public Works Act, and retire.
“It is delivered according to what is the environmental issue, as the feasibility marks it. For example, if you placed a concrete plate, it is demolished, the rubble is collected and delivered in a place that is accredited to receive the rubble. It doesn’t mean you’re going to leave the iron, unless it’s useful for people, “he says.
He explains that the companies are removing their machinery and the offices they installed in the camp, but that the material that had already been paid for the work stays there, and that is why the Federal police are guarding it.
Indeed, the patrols that make patrols constants are visible from outside the gate that delimits what would be the airport. In this impenetrable zone, the plants have been growing in a garden that with stones and Wood announced “NAIM”, and already begin to wear out or to be vandalized the signs that warned “men working” or that they offered telephones to denounce any act of Corruption.
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Original source in Spanish