‘They Should Have Put It on Mars’: Children in Gran Calzada Grow Up Next to Gas Booster

Umán, Yucatán — When asked where she would have placed the natural gas compression station that now sits next to her home in the Gran Calzada subdivision, a young girl gives an answer that captures the community’s frustration: “On another world. They should have put it on Mars.”

For her, the “booster” — part of an expansion by Energía Mayakán, a subsidiary of French company Engie, to move more gas to the Yucatán Peninsula — is no technical abstraction. It is a source of noise, smells and fear that has upended childhood. “I’ve heard it can explode and hurt people. And there are no alarms,” she says.

Since the conflict erupted, words like booster, gas pipeline, explosion, legal injunction and relocation have become part of everyday vocabulary for children who once only knew the neighborhood as the place they were growing up. The facility was built next to the fourth phase of Gran Calzada after many families had already bought and moved into their homes — without, residents say, ever being warned about the neighbor that would arrive.

The girl remembers a day when a strong odor reached her school. “One day the gas smell came all the way over there,” she recounts. Staff had to clean the school after students began noticing the stench. For a child, an unfamiliar smell is not understood in parts per million but through what she hears: there could be a leak, an explosion, and no one has explained what to do.

She has also heard that the infrastructure will improve energy supply, but power outages continue at home. “They say it’s for energy, but our lights still go out. If it gives energy, what is it giving it to? Nothing. The air,” she says.

Early complaints from families went beyond accident fears. During construction and testing, residents reported vibrations, dust, bright nighttime lights, constant noise and odors they linked to the project. Some said their doors and windows shook. Children were among the first to feel the change: mothers reported headaches, trouble resting, and restrictions on playing outside. One mother said she had to keep her house shut and that fear of a leak had changed her children’s routines.

The conflict timeline matters because Gran Calzada was first a home, a school route, a playground. Then came the station. The booster is not the only absence the girl names. She speaks of broken parks, damaged playground equipment, a lack of trees and promised green spaces that never materialized. She recalls a wooden play structure that looked about to collapse and a slide so degraded clothes could get stuck. “Without trees there’s no fresh air. When I walk home, the heat hits harder where there are no trees, where they are knocking everything down,” she explains.

Adults in the community echo the lack of public services. “They imposed a risk that disturbs our peace, that violates my right to live with dignity. We already lack transportation, schools, parks, green areas, places for children to play. And on top of that they put a gas pressurization station on us,” one resident says. She adds that requests for information have gone unanswered and that authorities have offered no support.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child and Mexico’s General Law on the Rights of Children and Adolescents guarantee the right to play, rest, and a healthy environment, and require that a child’s best interest be a primary consideration in decisions affecting them. In Gran Calzada, children have not been heard directly by the officials who will decide the fate of the booster and the families who remain.

Faced with silence, residents organized through the Colectivo X un Yucatán con Energía Segura and the Salvemos Gran Calzada initiative. They have filed official requests, transparency demands, environmental complaints, and the amparo 2113/2025 lawsuit, along with protests and blockades seeking suspension or relocation of the station. Children have joined community activities: the girl remembers a day when kids drew pictures, held posters and used images to show how they see their neighborhood and the dispute. She does not remember every detail, but she recalls drawing people and her father explaining why the neighbors were “fighting with the booster.”

A provisional suspension was granted in November 2025, but later the judiciary refused to permanently halt operations. Since then, residents have continued to demand risk assessments, emergency plans, information on possible compensation, and a dialogue in conditions that allow the community to participate. By July 2026, the Yucatán Energy Agency said Engie-Mayakán proposed buying 33 homes in the closest strip, and that the booster was running at full capacity. Residents responded that they had not been formally contacted and that paying off a mortgage does not guarantee a new home or restore their living conditions. They also rejected moving a meeting originally planned for Gran Calzada to Mérida at 5 p.m., insisting it be held in the subdivision at night so working people can attend and officials can hear firsthand the noise and disruptions they denounce.

The story of Gran Calzada is usually told as a dispute among an energy company, a real estate developer, multiple levels of government and homeowners with 30-year mortgages. Seen from childhood, it becomes the story of a girl who learned too early what a booster is, who links certain smells to danger, who hears adults talk of explosions and relocations, who walks under a punishing sun on treeless streets, avoids broken playgrounds, and waits for a park that never arrives. It is also the story of children who began drawing, holding posters and accompanying a community struggle to defend the place where they live.

When asked what she would like her neighborhood to be, the girl does not ask for big projects or millions in investment. She wants trees, safe parks, equipment that won’t break, and the compression station far from her home and her school. She wants the booster so distant that she can only imagine it on another planet. On Mars.