Conagua dismisses new Mexico City airport concerns

The proposal to build a new airport for Mexico City on land currently used as a regulating reservoir to protect the capital from flooding is not a cause for concern, said David Korenfeld, director of water commission Conagua.

"Engineering can solve everything, we see no problem with constructing an airport there," said Korenfeld at the presentation of the 2014-2018 national water plan.

The transport and communications ministry, SCT, announced plans in December to build a new airport on federal land adjacent to AICM. It has since invited international architecture firms, in partnership with local firms, to design it. The airport is expected to cost 120bn pesos (US$1bn).

But former Conagua director José Luis Luege has argued that the construction on the site is prohibited by law and puts the city at risk of flooding.

The suggestion that the land is protected under the national water law as a controlled flooding area is incorrect, according to Korenfeld. "There is not a single impediment to building on that land."

Many of the capital's rivers and drainage tunnels converge on the area, and during the June-November rainy season, the land acts as a "buffer zone" during storms, as excess rainwater can be diverted to the land to ease the capital's drainage capacity.

Conagua is carrying out a series of works to increase the drainage infrastructure in the area so that flooding of the land will not be required, said Korenfeld.

Conagua has already published tenders for flood protection infrastructure in the Nabor Carillo lake and plans to tender the enclosure of other drainage infrastructure in the area.