Court orders US firm Calica to repair Playa del Carmen damage

Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo — Amid regional tensions, a federal court in Quintana Roo has reiterated that the U.S. company Calica must repair environmental damage in the area where it extracted limestone for decades south of Playa del Carmen.

By denying a definitive injunction, the Seventh District Court of Quintana Roo determined that the subsidiary of the U.S.-based Vulcan Materials Company cannot have the closure imposed in May 2022 by the Federal Government lifted, as it is a consummated act that can no longer be challenged under Mexican law.

On the contrary, the consulted ruling states that the damage in the area where limestone extraction works were carried out for more than two decades must be repaired.

“The resolution of May 28, 2024, issued in the original administrative file, in summary, shows that said administrative file was resolved, in the sense of sanctioning the current plaintiff with a fine, with the total definitive closure of the works and activities on the property called (…) to comply with corrective measures, as well as to carry out the repair of the damage,” ruled the Seventh District Judge.

This is the ruling of file 1231/2023 of indirect injunction from the Seventh District Court dated last December 12, although with the recess in federal courts the document was only made public just as regional conflicts arise between neighboring countries.

This Monday, jurisdictional work resumed in federal courts throughout the country, after a recess that began in mid-December last year.

“It was determined that the security measure consisting of the total temporary closure of the works and activities of limestone extraction below the water table on the property called ‘La Rosita,’ contained in the final inspection visit report on forestry matters of May 5, 2022, persists,” adds the ruling.

The ruling, in which Calica is the plaintiff, was published after regional tensions that began last Saturday. Mexico claims U.S. intervention in Venezuela for the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

In this context, it was in 2022 that former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ordered the closure of Calica with the intervention of Navy personnel.

In May 2023, this company was again intervened, now by the Army, after a conflict initiated by the cement company Cemex over control of the Punta Venado port, concessioned in favor of the U.S. company.

In March 2025, U.S. congressmen requested President Donald Trump to intervene in the case of the closure of Calica promoted by the former president of Mexico and ratified by President Claudia Sheinbaum.