Natives of San Antonio Tlayacapan began raising hell this week after discovering what appears to be a clandestine landfill project encroaching on federal land along Lake Chapala’s shoreline.
Everardo Garcia, president of San Antonio’s Indigenous Community, contacted the local press after tracing the destination of the steady stream of dump trucks that have been sighted rolling through the east end of the town for the past several weeks. It turned out they were dropping their loads of earth on a secluded waterfront property where more than a dozen workmen were spotted building a massive stone breakwall,
“I had noticed the trucks, but didn’t immediately get a fix on where they were headed and what was happening,” he told the Reporter early Wednesday morning as a group of villagers prepared to set up a roadblock across an access from Privada La Paz to prevent any further dumping.“This is obviously a case of illegal building and invasion of the federal zone,” he stated emphatically. “Private parties have been gobbling up the waterfront for years, blocking public access guaranteed under the law. We’re not going to stand for this any longer. ”
When the trucks failed to appear as expected, the protestors headed off to present their beef at the city planning department, reporters in tow. Once there, office chief Enrique Rivas reported that he had received a tip-off the previous day and dispatched city hall inspectors to the site. While revealing that his office had not issued any building or land movement permits for the project, he said the matter was essentially out of his hands.
“I will immediately register a formal complaint with the National Water Commission (Conagua). That is the agency that has legal authority over use of the federal zone,” Rivas said. “We are wrapping up business for the October 1 change of administration, so there isn’t a whole lot more I can do at this point.”
He noted that he has already put Conagua onto similar situations detected at two other points along the lakeshore.
“Conagua’s Guadalajara office has just two inspectors assigned to cover the entire region it manages. They’ve been very lax in enforcing regulations for Chapala’s shoreline,” he said. “In fact, they never responded to our requests for official delineation of the federal zone for inclusion in our urban development plans. They’ve compiled all the technical data, but it still hasn’t been published in the federal government’s Official Diary.”