Although the hurricanes may have compounded this problem, having access to clean water is not a new worry for Puerto Rico’s residents, as the territory’s drinkable water was already deemed to be the worst of all the US states and territories.
A 2017 report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDF) reveals that in 2015, 99.5% of Puerto Rico’s population was served by community water systems in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and between 2005 to 2015, more than 33,000 SDWA violations were reported.
The report also states that a total of 201 out of 406 water systems committed 545 health-based violations in 2015.
Before Hurricane Maria, PRASA stated that it would need to invest $2.4 billion over the next decade to fix these ongoing issues, and since the majority of its water and wastewater treatment infrastructure was damaged by the storms, that number is surely much higher now.
Concerning the issue of transparency, in spring of 2017, the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank (GDB), received a hotline complaint from the EPA regarding financial irregularities with Puerto Rico’s Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds, and therefore the OIG conducted an audit based on a reported complaint that the revolving funds had a combined balance of approximately $188 million at the Puerto Rico Government Development Bank.
Although the audit did state that the agencies investigated did not intentionally misuse government funds, much like the citizens of Flint, Michigan who were deliberately misled by state government officials about the safety of the city’s drinking water, with little trust in the government’s ability to protect its citizens health and safety, the people of Puerto Rico have learned to look to their fellow citizens and scientists for help.
Rivera states:“The water comes out of the tap white, and sometimes dark and dirty, with particles in it… Me, my son, my aunt and even the doctor here have got sick in some way.
It’s made me a little paranoid.
Traumatized.” Arecibo became a Superfund site in the summer of 2017, as it is in close proximity to a former battery processing facility that contained corrosive acids.
Rosario-Ortiz and his team went door to door gathering bottles of water from people’s bathroom sinks to test for bacteria, and the results indicated something else– possible lead contamination significant enough to warrant further study.