Before Building a $400 Million Pipeline, Make Sure Your Neighbors Are On Board

  • Sempra’s natural-gas deliveries halted by indigenous group
  • It’s deja-vu for Mexican planners beset by local opposition

A piece of the Sempra Energy pipeline in the Main street of the Yaquis community of loma de Bacum in Sonora, Mexico.

Photographer: Yael Martinez/Bloomberg
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A chunk of Sempra Energy’s natural gas pipeline sits in the dirt behind a community center in the village of Loma de Bacum in northwest Mexico. Guadalupe Flores thinks it would make a great barbecue pit.

“Cut it here, lift the top,’’ he says, pointing to the 30-inch diameter steel tube. “Perfect for a cook-out.’’