Category: PR_CN Water_SLR_CN

After Hurricane Maria, conflicts over public beach access on the island have become more complicated and frequent. And residents aren’t waiting for the government to step in — they’re banding together to protect their rights.

Conservation and community groups sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security today over their plans to rebuild Puerto Rico’s centralized electric grid back to the fossil fuel status quo instead of investing in the distributed renewable energy Puerto Ricans need.

Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm is under fire for making her fourth visit to Puerto Rico in five months.

The frequency of the trips has led to claims of hypocrisy from a former top Trump administration official, who said the visits are an example of the Biden White House’s “rules for me versus rules for thee.”

In the densely forested mountains of central Puerto Rico, nonprofit Casa Pueblo has captured the world’s attention for its efforts to turn the municipality of Adjuntas into the island-commonwealth’s first solar town. Residents call it an “energy insurrection” in their battle with the effects of climate change.

The sun shone brightly on a recent Saturday morning in Puerto Rico as a group of three dozen people grabbed mangrove roots from a bucket provided by organizers. Some of the planters were clad in waders while others wore flip-flops and board shorts, but all came to the beach town of Isabela for the same purpose: to restore the mangrove forests to their former glory in hopes of preventing the beach from moving inland.

The latest financial restructuring plan for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) proposes borrowing $5.7 billion to pay off the utility’s legacy debt. The new debt would add an average of 4.4 cents/kilowatt-hour (kWh) over the next 35 to 50 years to Puerto Rico’s current 28 cents/kWh electricity charge, the highest in the nation.

With miles of beautiful beaches and the only tropical rainforest on U.S. territory, Puerto Rico is often touted as a paradise for vacationers. But for the people who live there, rampant development and the worsening effects of climate change have bred a sense of ecological anxiety that drives many to fight for the environment.

The case for microgrids in Puerto Rico became clear five years ago when Hurricane Maria shut down its entire grid and parts of the island had no power for 11 months.

But the pace to bring resilience to the island has been slow, delayed by bureaucracy and lack of funding. Some microgrids were built — largely the result of donations and community sweat — but they are far too few, as subsequent disasters revealed

In Adjuntas, Puerto Rico — where Hurricane Maria left some without power for a year — two soon-to-be community microgrids mean so much to the town, it plans to hold a parade to celebrate its activation March 18.

The Opportunity Project (TOP) wrapped up 2022 with a collection of new federal open data products produced by and for Puerto Rican communities.