Eliván Martínez Mercado

Eight years after the hurricane, Gov. Jenniffer González’s administration insists on maintaining the same emergency protocol for electricity-dependent patients that failed under the past three administrations.

The outlook is grim. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced that its secretary will now personally review any grant or contract award exceeding $100,000 before the funds can be committed, the agency told the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

Seven years after the deaths caused by Hurricane María, the Puerto Rican government has yet to agree on a comprehensive plan to identify and mobilize electricity-dependent individuals during disasters like Tropical Storm Ernesto. The Governor now insists that such a registry must be created.

The Puerto Rico Energy Bureau established the minimum performance levels the company must achieve to get incentives, but not the penalties, making its oversight difficult. The Public-Private Partnerships Authority now says that LUMA will only be penalized if any investigation concludes that it failed to fulfill its responsibilities.

The tour through the mountains offers Puerto Rico’s most emblematic natural views, while reflecting government abandonment, the slow pace of post-Hurricane María reconstruction, and the urgency of funds for a new management plan.

Antes del huracán Fiona, el Gobierno no se aseguró de que los suplidores de diésel estuvieran listos para suministrar el combustible.

The day before Hurricane Fiona made landfall, Petra Rodríguez tried to turn on the power generator she had just bought, but it arrived damaged. She needed electricity to power the electric pump with which she feeds her 93-year-old mother, who is bedridden, and to operate the adjustable bed and inflatable mattress, which keep her from […]

The narrative of high-ranking New Progressive Party leaders, such as former Gov. Ricardo Rosselló and his successor, Wanda Vázquez, praised the signing of New Fortress. After Hurricane Maria, which in 2017 destroyed the electrical grid and caused one of the longest blackouts in history, officials described the contract with the company as one of the most important for Puerto Rico.

The area in the switchyard where the Central Costa Sur fire occurred, which caused the general blackout last Wednesday, should have been renovated four months ago, in December 2021, according to the original infrastructure plan through which the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) will access $10.7 billion in federal recovery funds. But, after LUMA’s […]

Influential people with privileged access steer the company that manages Puerto Rico’s electric power transmission and distribution system.

The corporation’s first reliability report confirms that it took almost twice as long to restore power to customers in its first quarter of operations, compared to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

The agency failed to comply with a preparedness and response protocol that it had agreed with the US Government to deal with such emergencies.

Texas-based Sunnova, which has a virtual monopoly on Puerto Rico’s residential solar panel rental market, may no longer do business without being held accountable, but it won’t have to respond retroactively to the hundreds of clients who filed complaints over problems with its service and equipment. The Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (PREB) confirmed that Sunnova […]

Governor Pedro Pierluisi appointed planner Manuel A.G. Hidalgo as chair of the Puerto Rico Planning Board. If approved by the Senate, Hidalgo will be the right-hand man of the governor in the design of public policies for planning, economic development and the protection of natural resources. The nominee has some fifteen years of experience in […]

Hiring a law firm that charges up to $1,245 per hour. The outsourcing of foreign companies such as Alumbra, from Colorado, which has billed as much as $1.3 million in a single month for plans to transform the energy system without having gone through a competitive process. This is how the first six invoices that […]

Two of the major projects after Hurricane Maria, carried out by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), would involve periodic renourishment of San Juan’s famous beaches in Condado and Ocean Park with sand, along with a breakwater field. The federal agency also proposes to place stone revetment along a mile of coastline in Rincón. […]