CANCUN, Mexico – Replacing the beaches washed away during Hurricane Wilma in 2005 at the Mexican Caribbean resort city of Cancun has begun and is expected to be finished by the end of the year, officials said.

Quintana Roo state Gov. Felix Gonzalez Canto made the announcement at the end of a brief tour of the hotel district where he checked on the works getting underway.

The governor said that a decision will be taken in the coming days as to where the rest of the sand will come from that is needed to restore the beaches washed away by the sea at Cancun and the rest of the Maya Riviera.

The project requires something more than 7 million cubic meters (247 million cubic feet) of sand, but the sand bar that is the current source, known as La Ollita, has only 1.5 million cubic meters (59.9 million cubic feet) of sand, Gonzalez said.

The project to restore the beaches along the Quintana Roo coastline was halted when the Citymar environmental group obtained a cease and desist order from a Mexican court.

While the judicial status of the sandbanks located close to Cozumel Island is being decided and to avoid increased costs from equipment standing idle, authorities and businessmen decided to restart the work of restoration with sand from the shoal closest to Cancun, which is near Isla Mujeres.

The La Ollita sandbank is located between Isla Mujeres and the Cancun hotel district.

The first replacement of sand on the beaches was done in 2006 with an investment of more than $27 million.

A series of problems, however, led to the beaches being lost once more and this time a 10-year maintenance plan is on the table. EFE