Cancun Shoring Up for Winter with Beach Restoration

Cancun’s beautiful beaches, which have always been the resort city’s main attraction, are getting a face-lift this fall in time for the winter peak season.

Starting Oct. 19, a $120 million restoration project will pump more than 1 billion gallons of sand onto miles of beaches along the coastline of Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Cozumel that were damaged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

The project is expected to be completed by the first week of December, according to Jesus Almaguer, director general of the Cancun Convention & Visitors Bureau. “It’s necessary for us to maintain our main attraction and continue to have high-quality beaches,” he said.

After Hurricane Wilma, the federal and Quintana Roo state government undertook work to restore the beaches, but much of the sand has since washed away. It’s become an issue in Cancun, which is known for its spectacular white-sand stretches of beach.

The issue made the news earlier this year when the Mexican navy closed off hundreds of feet of coastline in Cancun after a hotel allegedly built a breakwater and illegally used pumps to move sand from the sea floor to the beach.

With this fall’s project, Almaguer said, the beaches will be restored to their previous, pre-Wilma condition, with a width of at least 140 feet.

In addition, an association of state government agencies and the travel industry has been organized to conduct careful monitoring of the beaches so to make sure that sand isn’t moved illegally and that beach erosion is reported as it occurs.

The project is using tons of pipeline to pump the more than 1 billion gallons of sand from a nearby sea floor to replenish the sand on the beaches. Almaguer said it is a much more extensive project and better designed than the restoration after Hurricane Wilma.

A team of researchers studied factors that led to the erosion, such as the variety of climate cycles, with the purpose to provide a permanent and environmentally sensitive solution, according to a statement from the bureau.

A project engineer said the sand that is being pumped to the beach is of a thicker density and, in the event of another hurricane, the volume of loss is expected to be much less than with Hurricane Wilma.

The project will cover eight miles of beach in Cancun, three miles at Playa del Carmen and one mile at Cozumel.