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Forget drugs... the new hot commodity in Mexico is sand
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A tourist climbs over police tape after Mexican federal environmental authorities and navy sailors closed a section of beach built by illegally pumping sand from the ocean bottom to combat erosion at a hotel in Cancun, Mexico, Thursday, July 30, 2009. Five people were detained in the incident. While Cancun suffers severe beach erosion problems caused by recent hurricanes and storms, authorities say such unauthorized private efforts only worsen the problem. (AP Photo/Israel Leal)
The Associated Press reported Thursday that the beach at the Gran Caribe Real Hotel in Cancun had been closed by Mexican environmental enforcement officials after allegations that the hotel was illegally accumulating sand.
Having enough sand on Cancun’s beaches has been a problem since Hurricane Wilma struck the area in 2005. The Mexican government spent $19 million to pump sand from the sea floor onto the beaches, but the AP notes that much of that sand has washed away.
The hotel is accused of building a breakwater to retain sand on its beach and keep it from flowing naturally to neighboring beaches.
“Today we made the decision to close this stretch of ill-gotten, illegally accumulated sand," said Patricia Patron, Mexico's attorney general for environmental protection. “This hotel was telling its tourists: ‘Come here, I have sand ... the other hotels don’t, because I stole it.’”
Mexican sailors assisted the environmental officials in sealing off the beach with crime-scene tape.
The move irritated tourists staying at the hotel.
“They promised us a beach,” said Maria Bachino, a travel agent from Uruguay. “This is very unpleasant; we feel bad.”
Patron apologized for the inconvenience to tourists, but said the law must be enforced. Officials said the hotel had ignored requests that it remove the breakwater.
Thus far, hotel officials have been mum on the allegations. The company’s website continues to promote the five-star resort as “better than ever and stretching along a quarter mile of white sandy beach.”
Hotel officials did not return an offer to present their side of the story.
The breakwater at the hotel beach is nothing new. It was touted by the resort in May 2008 as part of the government's efforts to retain sand in Cancun.
In the early 1970s, before development at Cancun, the beach here was nearly 200 feet wide, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Beach erosion accelerated after developers filled in four natural canals that provided an outlet for large waves during storms.
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