Critics cast the decision to build on the salt-encrusted Texcoco lakebed, 14 miles
                 (23 kms) west of Mexico City, as a threat to migratory birds that nest nearby and a
                 step backward in efforts to restore the lakes that once encircled the island city.

                 Communications and Transportation Secretary Pedro Cerisola said the new terminal
                 could be built safely on the boggy terrain at Texcoco. Cerisola said the federal
                 government could no longer put off a decision already delayed by more than a
                 decade.

                 "From an aeronautical point of view, the best option was Texcoco," Cerisola said.
                 "Also in terms of the economics."

                 The announcement came in response to an urgent need: The current international
                 airport is an inner-city terminal operating at capacity and cannot be expanded.

                 An August study by experts found no environmental advantage in the only other
                 alternative site, on farmland in the neighboring state of Hidalgo, 50 miles (80 kms)
                 north of the city.

                 The study noted that both sites could damage the environment by extending urban
                 sprawl, overusing dwindling water supplies and generating enormous amounts of
                 construction rubble.

                 The $ 2.5 billion project, expected to be completed in about six or seven years,
                 would mean closing the current Benito Juarez airport. The new terminal would
                 meet the needs of growing air traffic, which is expected to increase from 21 million
                 passengers in 2000 to 29 million annually by 2005.

                 Operators of the new terminal would presumably have to frighten away, or remove,
                 thousands of geese, ducks and other birds that nest at a nearby lake.

                 Environmentalists have said that would result in a massive slaughter of birds,
                 possibly endangering air traffic if they were sucked into plane engines.

                 "As usual, the politicians and their cronies are going to profit from this deal, and the
                 victims are going to be hundreds of thousands of migratory birds," said
                 environmentalist Homero Aridjis.

                 "We're going to file a complaint with the (NAFTA) environmental cooperation
                 commission, because these are birds from the United States and Canada."

                 Mexico City Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the decision was a
                 reflection of personal and political interests winning out over what was best for the
                 citizens.

                 "It's absurd to construct an air port (in Texcoco), because among other things it
                 would exacerbate uncontrolled urban sprawl in an area that doesn't have water or
                 infrastructure," Obrador was quoted by the government news agency Notimex as
                 saying.

                 Mexico City, founded on the site of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, was surrounded
                 by lakes and an intricate system of dams and canals.

                 Those lakes were drained by the Spanish conquerors, creating unhealthy, dusty
                 plains around the world's second-largest metropolis. Since the 1960s,
                 environmental authorities have worked to refill some of those lakes.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.