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(UTUADO, Puerto Rico) — Carmen Rodríguez Santiago counts herself lucky to have any water service at home.
Throughout Puerto Rico, electrical outages and faulty generators mean pumps don’t consistently deliver water to residents’ homes and operations are disrupted at water treatment plants.
Hurricane Maria’s destruction knocked out water service to over half of the residents using the island’s utility provider, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The authority provides water to more than 97% of the island.
More than a third of sewage treatment plants were unable to function after the hurricane, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, resulting in raw sewage flowing into waterways residents used for drinking and bathing.
The results of that testing have not been released, according to the water authority.
Nearly 7 in 10 residents received water from a source that violated federal health standards, according to the report.
For the past eight months, she has walked a half-hour with her two children to a local water station maintained by the military to fill up plastic milk jugs for the family’s showers.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues.