Residents of 60 communities in three states in southern Mexico are protesting the construction of a thermoelectric power plant that they consider to pose a threat to the environment, their economic livelihoods and their safety. The state-owned Federal Electricity Commission is planning to build a 160-kilometer gas pipeline through the southern states of Morelos, Puebla and Tlaxcala, in an area near the Popocatépetl volcano, which has been active since March.

“The people didn’t know what they were planning to build. And now that we know, we don’t want it, because it is not going to improve air quality. In addition, this is an area of high volcanic risk,” Alejandro Estudillo, a member of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land and Water of Morelos, told Tierramérica.

The gas pipeline will feed an electric power generator located in the indigenous village of Huexca, which will consume over nine billion liters of natural gas daily.