Government officials in the Riviera Maya are inching closer to green-lighting a project to reconstruct the area’s beaches that were eroded during last year’s Hurricane Wilma. The beach recovery project would include about eight miles of beach between Xcalacoco (north of Playa del Carmen) and Playacar (just south of Playa del Carmen). Under the terms of the project, sand would be harvested from the ocean bottom in an area just north of Cozumel and would be pumped in underwater pipes to the beaches, where it would be spread about to reform a beach between 100 and 120 yards wide.
The project would have a cost of around $6 million USD and would take a few months to complete. Once built, the beaches would begin to erode again, but would take up to 10 years to disappear again.
Many tourists to the area have reported that the beaches seem to be wider than the last time they were in the Riviera Maya. Historically, the beaches go up and down through the year, depending on the season, the weather and the tides.
This project is very similar to the beach recovery efforts that Cancun underwent recently. In that city, the recovery was deemed to be very successful, which led Riviera Maya officials to consider a similar project here. Final decisions should be made by early 2007, with the project starting shortly after that.
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