Colombia: Airport Expansion

Gloria Molina, spokesperson for Comunidades Unidas, shares information about the MICI report.

Imagine an airport operating so close to your home that you suffer hearing loss, your home shakes, and your children experience developmental disabilities. Imagine jets land and take off just feet from your home at all hours of the day and night, causing headaches, insomnia, and severe stress.  This is the situation for Accountability Counsel’s clients in Fontibón, Colombia.

Fontibón, a locality adjacent to the airport, has a population of more than 300,000 people and many of its residents live directly on the margins of the airport. Houses and buildings, which predate the airport’s expansion, press up against the airport, with only a road and, for some, a dirt barrier separating residents from the runway and aircraft.

Gloria Molina, a business woman and parent from Fontibón, became an advocate to elevate the complaints of her community through the organization Comunidades Unidas Macroproyecto Aeropuerto El Dorado (Comunidades Unidas). Since 2011, Comunidades Unidas has been fighting to hold stakeholders in the airport project accountable for severe noise-related health harm and other impacts caused by the airport expansion. Accountability Counsel partners with Gloria and Comunidades Unidas in this work to ensure the rights of people in Fontibón are respected.

History of the El Dorado International Airport

El Dorado International Airport in Bogotá is the busiest airport in Colombia and the third busiest in Latin America, serving as a major international, regional, and domestic hub. It was constructed adjacent to the Fontibón locality in the northwest of Bogotá in 1959 with no effective buffer zone. While this busy airport undoubtedly brings significant benefits to the city, country, and region, it comes at a high cost to the residents of Fontibón and other adjacent communities.

The airport has a long history of inadequate noise mitigation. However, a recent airport expansion project, financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) as well as other international investors, caused dramatic increases in the number of air operations, significantly worsening noise pollution.

“During its visit to the Project area, the Compliance Review Panel … was able to experience firsthand not only the impact of the noise on the daily life of residents (such as the need to interrupt a conversation or classroom activities when airplanes take off and land because it was impossible for the other person or the teacher to be heard, or the vibrations caused by some aircraft), but also the discomfort produced in some homes by the soundproofing, which in the Panel’s experience is in poor condition, does not really reduce noise, and prevents, among other things, ventilation in the homes. However, as pointed out above, there is nothing in the Project documents to indicate that any analysis was performed to examine these circumstances in the adjacent communities …” — MICI Report

The Airport Expansion and Role of the IDB

The airport is currently undergoing a significant expansion in order to increase the number of flights into the country. In 2006, the Special Civil Aeronautics Administrative Unit (Aerocivil), a semi-autonomous government agency, awarded a 20-year contract to Grupo Operadora Aeropuerto Internacional S.A. (OPAIN) to expand, modernize, and operate the airport. The contract facilitated the expansion of the airport’s capacity through the construction and operation of new passenger terminals, cargo terminals, aircraft docking space, and platform space. In December 2010, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a loan of USD 165 million to OPAIN for the expansion project.

A child living in the worst affected zone suffers hearing loss.

The Harm to the People of Fontibón

The expansion has exacerbated already severe noise-related harm. IDB project documents identify noise pollution as a concern, but failed to require effective, modern, means of noise mitigation. Today, planes land on the runway adjacent to Fontibón up to 24 hours a day, and there is no reprieve from the noise.

Noise levels in the Fontibón neighborhood frequently exceed national noise limits. Noise insulation that Aerocivil is required to install in homes and community premises is incomplete, inadequate, and poorly maintained. Aerocivil has also violated restrictions imposed by the airport’s environmental license including restrictions on the directions and schedules of flight routes to and from each runway. Those restrictions were designed and imposed to mitigate the impacts of noise pollution on neighboring communities, especially during nighttime hours.

Neighboring communities are deeply concerned about the impacts of this excessive noise on their health and wellbeing. Bogotá’s Secretary of Health, health professionals, and academic institutions have all concluded that there is a relationship between the noise generated by the airport and damage to the health of the residents of Fontibón. Studies have found that at least one third of adult residents of Fontibón suffer from chronic insomnia, leading to symptoms such as frequent headaches, irritability, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating.

The noise has also caused hearing damage in children, impacting their development and academic progress, including children like Gabriela.

“When Gabriela was five years old and didn’t talk, it was found that she had 40 percent hearing loss in one of her ears and 20 percent in the other. This has caused problems in the development of her speech, affected her cognitive function and delayed her academic development. Since the moment that these problems were diagnosed, we have had to pay for specialized physicians, such as ENT specialists, speech therapists, psychologists, and for specialized therapies, in order to provide her with complete treatment.  We initiated this process six years ago and it will continue in order to avoid major damage. … Until now, and with a big effort, we have been able to pay for the medical treatments.  However we wonder about other families that could have the same situation with their children.  If they don’t have the economic means to pay for the treatments, this will affect them for the rest of their lives.” — Julio Ramón Acosta Téllez, who lives in one of the Fontibón neighborhoods worst affected by aircraft noise

A woman lives in the zone worst affected by noise yet has no sound insulation in her walls or roof.

However, the IDB insisted that the severe noise-related harm was not the responsibility of it or its client, because the contract between OPAIN and Aerocivil provided that Aerocivil, not OPAIN, would be responsible for noise mitigation. This stance substantially undermined the IDB’s commitment to environmental and social responsibility.

We have closely partnered with Comunidades Unidas on accountability for IDB’s investment. For more information on the case to the IDB’s accountability office, the  Independent Consultation and Investigation Mechanism (MICI), please visit our case page here.

We will continue to work with Comunidades Unidas to demand that the airport operators and their new investors resolve the issues identified by MICI and develop a long-term noise management plan that supports community health and well-being.

Case Partners

Comunidades Unidas Macroproyecto Aeropuerto El Dorado (Comunidades Unidas)

“MICI considers that Management’s argument that neither the Bank nor the Client is responsible for or has any influence on air activities and that the Bank is not involved in any activities on the Aerocivil side is an attempt to be relieved of responsibility and contradicts not only what the Project initially established but also the essence underlying any Bank financing, as reflected in the standards set in Bank policies, particularly Operational Policy OP-703. This policy is a tool that should be used to achieve social and environmental success in any IDB project. There is an express requirement to identify, assess, and manage both direct and indirect impacts and risks, and it is the Bank’s obligation to determine how to manage them, whether they are produced by the Bank’s client or by a third party.” — MICI Report