They demand clean air from the State and act against polluting companies in NL

  The State and the Federation know that cleaning the air requires polluting companies located in the metropolitan area as their main regular task, but, instead, they set up work tables, said royal activists.

Hundreds of citizens demonstrated this Sunday afternoon at the Esplanade of the Heroes to demand clean air from state and federal authorities; with banners, they pointed out the toxic emissions of industries such as Ternium, Cemex, Vitro, Industrias del Álcali and the Pemex refinery.

  The Metropolitan Environmental Commission has omitted to address key issues, such as the tightening of federal standards on industrial emissions and measures against companies that emit heavy metals; instead, they would go after polluting vehicles, as published on March 11.

According to the 2018 emissions inventory, only 25 percent of the PM10 pollution in the metropolis corresponds to automobiles, while companies are responsible for 59 percent, and the rest of the sources, for 16 percent.

"I see my friends with allergies, respiratory problems, tiredness, mental illness. This is a systemic problem, and they have wanted to attribute the blame to us, to the citizens, but it is not like that. Companies know this, that they can improve their processes, but they lack will.

"The Ministry of the Environment has also looked very bad on us; (the secretary) Alfonso Martínez should resign. We don't need any more work tables. We don't need any more simulations. They know what they have to do," said activist Karina Villalba.

Likewise, the demonstrators, mostly young people, accused the universities of patronage towards companies, arguing that higher level academic institutions such as the UANL are silent in the face of the problem.

"Universities are not far behind; they also have a historical partnership with Ternium, with Cemex, with Vitro, with (Industrias del) Álcali, with all those companies that are suffocating us," Villalba added.

Although the activists reiterated that the protest was not made in the name of any particular group, the presence of organizations such as Nuevo León Sano, Comité Ecológico Integral, Másciudad, Vecinos del Parque Libertad Nuevo León, Alianza de Usuarixs, Anarquistas del Norte, Mycocultura, among others, was registered.

Some of these organizations signed a petition in which they demand stricter policies for polluting companies, updating the Environmental Contingencies Response Program, strengthening Semarnat and Profepa, compensation for neighbors of polluting companies, and protection of the Santa Catarina River.

The main entrance to the Government Palace was guarded by eight members of the Civil Force. The event was monitored by the State Human Rights Commission.

It was the second massive face-to-face protest over air quality recorded in Monterrey so far in the current state administration; the first was the one organized by the Integral Ecological Committee and We Want Clean Air on March 26, 2024, and had an attendance of 2 thousand people.

On Wednesday, ABC Newsrevealed that ten of 18 metropolitan municipalities were listed in the 2024 ranking of the 50 most polluted cities in North America, when in the previous year only seven appeared, according to data from the Swiss company IQAir.