New Airport in Mexico Risks Extinction of 120 Species, Senator Says

"The Lake Texcoco area is a flood zone, making it less than ideal for an airport," Encinas, a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD, said in a statement.

President Enrique Peña Nieto said last Tuesday that the new airport, which will be four times larger than the existing facility, would be constructed in a nature preserve on Lake Texcoco.

The new airport will cost 169 billion pesos ($12.15 billion), have six runways and handle 120 million passengers annually, or four times the volume that the currrent airport handles.

A September 1995 study prepared . . .