Cancún Orders Removal of Grounded Boats From Nichupté Lagoon

Cancún, Quintana Roo — The Regional Port Captain’s Office has formally notified the owners of six boats grounded in the Nichupté Lagoon System that they must remove their vessels, giving them a legal window of 90 days to carry out the work.

In parallel, authorities and representatives of the nautical industry announced that a cleanup operation will begin on Sept. 17 to pull out 23 abandoned and disused boats in its first phase.

Regional Port Captain Pedro Murillo Garay said the maritime authority is maintaining a priority registry of 28 vessels as part of a legal regularization process. Of that group, officials have identified the owners of six boats by reviewing their registration records, and those owners have now been formally notified.

Once the 90-day period ends — or if the boats are moved to municipal storage yards — the maritime authority will continue with the procedure to declare the vessels abandoned, scrapped or destroyed. The case will also be referred to the Federal Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection (Profepa), which will determine any environmental and administrative sanctions within its jurisdiction.

The cleanup program is the result of coordination among the three levels of government, the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (Conanp), the municipal ecology department and the Nautical Association.

Together, the agencies have identified roughly 50 abandoned boats inside the lagoon system, some of which have been submerged for more than 40 years.

Francisco Fernández Millán, president of the Associated Nautical Businesses of Quintana Roo, said the extraction work will be carried out gradually and in phases.

The first phase begins Sept. 17 and will cover 23 boats floating along the margins of Kukulcán Boulevard. Crews will later recover semi-sunken vessels using specialized dewatering pumps to refloat them.

The work will require cranes and barges to remove boats that, after so many years of abandonment, may be partially buried in mud. It will take place inside the Nichupté Mangroves Flora and Fauna Protection Area, an internationally significant ecosystem recognized as a Ramsar site.

Removing the vessels aims to reduce contamination risks from oils, fuels, leachate, cables and batteries.

To support the operation, the Tourist Police and the Municipal Transit Department will handle road logistics and assist with transporting the boats overland once they are pulled from the lagoon.