Founding place of Fontibón, Bogotá, Colombia. Photo: Tequendamia - Eigenes Werk, CC BY-SA 3.0.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) describes itself as a champion of integrity and transparency, working with its Latin American and the Caribbean member countries to strengthen governance and rule of law at local and national levels. As a public institution committed to sustainable development, it has endorsed the principle that “environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens.” However, as the residents of Fontibón, a neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia, recently learned, the bank does not universally apply these standards to its own activities. Fontibón residents are suffering serious harm from an airport expansion project financed by the bank, yet the bank insists on keeping those families in the dark regarding its knowledge and monitoring of that harm.
El Dorado International Airport is bombarding densely-populated neighborhoods on the margins of the airport, including Fontibón, with extreme noise pollution. The impacts on those communities are profound. Studies have found that at least a third of Fontibón residents suffer chronic insomnia and that reports of hearing damage are higher in areas with greater exposure to the noise. Children are particularly vulnerable, with studies in Bogotá (and internationally) finding a relationship between long-term exposure to aircraft noise and developmental delays. When the bank funded the expansion of this airport, it utterly failed to take appropriate steps to protect these residents. It contributed to a dramatic rise in the number of flights using the airport, without ensuring that effective, modern noise mitigation systems were in place.
