Residents of the Esperanza neighborhood in Guánica have been waiting for nine months for emergency decontamination coordinated by the EPA to kick off and for the broadening of an investigation to identify the extent of the contamination.
The Center for Investigative Journalism reveals how the rules for company AES in Puerto Rico were changed backstage. In addition, officials from government agencies react to the coal ash problem.
The whereabouts of the millions of tons of coal ash that have been spilled on the island expose its effects on health and their potential threat to the Southern Aquifer.
Eight years have passed but Amparo Andújar Maldonado does not forget. She lost her first child while she was approaching the fifth month of her pregnancy. Nor does she erases from her mind giving birth to a disfigured fetus, with cranial malformation, something incomprehensible for a healthy 27 year old woman, counting with quality prenatal care. But Amparo was not alone. From 2005 to 2008, the rate of miscarriages and premature births rose suddenly in the Encantado neighborhood of Arroyo Barril, a working-class rural and coastal town, north of the Dominican Republic.
