Another Flint? Why Puerto Ricans no longer trust water after the hurricane
Of all the things that were obliterated when Hurricane Maria crunched into Puerto Rico in September last year, trust may end up being the hardest to repair.
Residents of the US territory are openly disdainful of the efforts of government, from Donald Trump downwards, to provide the basics of disaster relief, to correctly count the dead and even to express concern over their continuing plight. This breakdown in trust now extends to the island’s drinking water.
Marta Rivera, who lives in the city of Arecibo, on the northern coast of the island, had her house completely destroyed by Maria and is battling cancer. She blames her illness on water contaminated by the hurricane.
“The water comes out of the tap white, and sometimes dark and dirty, with particles in it,” she said. “Before the hurricane, the water wasn’t like that. My house was full of water; it smelled really bad. 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 sits next to a former battery processing facility – a hulking, rusting complex where batteries were dissolved in acid. It became a Superfund site in the summer of 2017, allowing for federal intervention to clean it up. Shortly afterwards, the hurricane swept over it.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spokesman said there were “no indications that contaminated material left the facility” and infected Arecibo’s drinking water supply during the storm. But local residents are taking no chances. Much like in Flint, Michigan – where local officials declared the water safe more than a year ago – people aren’t taking assurances on face value.
Alberto Escobar now lives in a simple brick home with his daughter, son-in-law and Galito, a macaw that has learned an impressive array of swear words. His own home was wrecked by the hurricane and he spends much of what little money he has on bottled water.
“I get it from Walmart,”…
