Climate Change and Health Seminar: “Energy System Transformation in Puerto Rico: Enviro/Racial Justice and Public Health Implications”

Transcript

• 00:01- It's our great pleasure today
• 00:02to have our speaker, Ruth Santiago
• 00:05from Comite Dialogo Ambiental.
• 00:09Also as a renowned lawyer and environmental health advocate,
• 00:14Ruth is a resident of the municipality Salinas
• 00:19in Puerto Rico, where she has worked with community
• 00:23and environmental organizations, fisheries associations
• 00:26and many other groups over the past 30 years
• 00:30on projects ranging from a community newspaper
• 00:33to a rooftop solar energy pilot project.
• 00:37So she has helped the establishment
• 00:40of broad alliances to prevent the water pollution
• 00:43from landfills, power plant emissions
• 00:46and the discharges and the coal combustion residual waste.
• 00:50Mrs. Santiago earned degrees
• 00:52from the Lehigh University and at Columbia Law School.
• 00:56She is also the recipient of the Sierra Club's-
• 00:58- [Whitney] We maintain the pace
• 00:59but I expect peace to actually increase.
• 01:02- Whitney, if you can mute yourself, thank you.
• 01:05- [Whitney] Yes, I'm sorry.
• 01:07- Mrs. Santiago is also the Sierra Club's
• 01:102018 Robert Bullard Environmental Justice Award awardee.
• 01:16So without further ado, please join me
• 01:19in welcoming Ruth for giving her presentation.
• 01:25- Hello, everyone.
• 01:27Thank you, Dr. Chen and doctors Du Brow
• 01:30and for all of the students and others
• 01:33who are tuning in to this meeting.
• 01:37I'm happy to be with you
• 01:40and I'm so glad that you're interested
• 01:42in the environmental justice, climate justice
• 01:46and health issues here in Puerto Rico.
• 01:49And so what I'll do now is I'll pull up my...
• 01:52I have a presentation with some slides
• 01:56just to facilitate the talk.
• 02:03Okay. Here we go.
• 02:04So I hope, can everyone see that okay?
• 02:10- Yes.
• 02:11- Okay, great.
• 02:13So this is obviously a talk
• 02:17about what we're working very intensely on
• 02:23and for the transformation in Puerto Rico
• 02:26of the energy system or the electric system in particular,
• 02:31and the environmental and racial justice implication,
• 02:35public health implications of the current system we have.
• 02:38But first I'm gonna go actually
• 02:40to what our community-based
• 02:46and civil society based solutions are
• 02:50for achieving environmental and racial justice
• 02:55in public health.
• 02:56Justice, you can say as well.
• 02:59Well, I love to show this map
• 03:01because sometimes people don't really know
• 03:05where Puerto Rico is.
• 03:07And so you can see here it's in the Caribbean Sea
• 03:13and it's called the smallest of the larger Antilles
• 03:17and the largest of the smaller Antilles.
• 03:19And it's a relationship on energy issues
• 03:23throughout the whole Caribbean
• 03:25which I'll discuss a little bit later.
• 03:28So as I said, I wanna go to the positive aspect here first.
• 03:32And I'm sort of using this terminology
• 03:35about a Green New Deal
• 03:38and applying it to the local context
• 03:41to talk about the work that I'm doing
• 03:44with not only Comite Dialogo Ambiental
• 03:46but other community, environmental, civil society groups
• 03:50in general, which I'll show you in a little while
• 03:53the list of at least the founding organizations.
• 03:58So basically, we are proposing community empowerment
• 04:04through participation in the electric system
• 04:06as what are known as prosumers,
• 04:09not just passive consumers, but communities,
• 04:13people being able to participate
• 04:15in the electric system as producers.
• 04:18And that usually means with rooftop solar,
• 04:23and often coupled with battery energy storage systems.
• 04:27And although we have been working for quite a few years
• 04:31on this proposal, obviously with Hurricane Maria
• 04:37in September of 2017
• 04:41and other so-called natural disasters.
• 04:44And I say so-called, because hurricanes of course
• 04:48are natural phenomena,
• 04:50but we know that they are being aggravated.
• 04:54They're becoming more intense and more frequent
• 04:56with the climate crisis.
• 05:00So what happened, especially after Hurricane Maria
• 05:03although it's happened for the past 30 years
• 05:05that I can recall is that the electric grid,
• 05:12what what was known as the transmission
• 05:14and distribution system, T&D system,
• 05:18was totally impacted, brought down
• 05:21and was not able to transmit or distribute power
• 05:26throughout the island.
• 05:28And so there were many lessons that we learned
• 05:34and one of them was certainly
• 05:35that communities must become energy literate
• 05:39and can actually implement measures
• 05:44to mitigate, to some extent, the damages
• 05:49related to these centralized fossil fuel-based
• 05:56energy systems that we see
• 05:59and that prevails here in Puerto Rico.
• 06:02So communities should be active participants.
• 06:06And our public utility, which is known as PREPA
• 06:08the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
• 06:11Another big lesson learned was that PREPA needs
• 06:14a radical transformation, both in terms
• 06:17of the technology that it uses and as to its governance,
• 06:22to be more representative
• 06:23of the civil society sectors here in Puerto Rico.
• 06:27And then of course, after every major disaster
• 06:32declaration or situation that has happened here
• 06:36in Puerto Rico, and as Puerto Rico
• 06:37is a territory of the United States,
• 06:40And by the way, we are,
• 06:42Puerto Ricans are American citizens, US citizens.
• 06:47The federal agencies came in,
• 06:50both the Federal Emergency Management Agency
• 06:52and Housing and Urban Development,
• 06:54to provide funding which did not materialize.
• 06:58And to a large extent,
• 07:01especially the more permanent repairs reconstruction funding
• 07:08has not yet arrived even.
• 07:11So we are proposing that when these funds do arrive,
• 07:17do get actually transferred
• 07:19to the government of Puerto Rico,
• 07:22that, and prior to that transfer,
• 07:24that the federal government earmark those funds
• 07:28so that the public utility, PREPA,
• 07:31works with organized communities and local
• 07:33renewable energy contractors to totally transform
• 07:39the way that our electric system is built,
• 07:44and do so in a way that permits energy participation
• 07:52by prosumers, I should say, communities,
• 07:54the civil society here.
• 07:56And we call that energy democracy.
• 07:58So I actually have a little note there.
• 08:02And if anyone is interested in collaborating,
• 08:04we do need help in convincing FEMA and HUD
• 08:09to earmark those funds
• 08:11and basically enable the transformation
• 08:17of the electric system
• 08:18to a prosumer friendly approach,
• 08:22as opposed to the centralized approach
• 08:24that I'll talk about later
• 08:25and you'll see some of the slides and see what I mean.
• 08:28So, one of the reasons why
• 08:32we are proposing primarily rooftop or onsite solar,
• 08:38battery energy storage systems,
• 08:40energy efficiency programs and energy literacy programs
• 08:44is because the groups, including Comite Dialogo Ambiental,
• 08:48but also many other groups,
• 08:49about 10 other groups that we're working with
• 08:53have participated as what are known as interveners,
• 08:58formal interveners, in a process called
• 09:00the integrated resource plan for PREPA,
• 09:04Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
• 09:06And so many jurisdictions have these very intense
• 09:11planning processes for the future of the electric grids
• 09:15in their respective jurisdictions.
• 09:18So I'm pretty sure Connecticut has one,
• 09:22but, I shouldn't say, but many, many jurisdictions
• 09:27have public utility commissions.
• 09:30They might call them something different.
• 09:31Sometimes they're called public service commissions,
• 09:36et cetera, that require electric companies
• 09:41to submit to them the planning for say,
• 09:46maybe the next 20 years, the period can vary.
• 09:49But it's to try to determine what the energy needs will be
• 09:53in a certain timeframe.
• 09:54Although usually there's like an action plan
• 09:56for the first five years
• 09:58and the document obviously can be revised
• 10:02in three years sometimes.
• 10:04That's the case here.
• 10:06And as it's a pretty sophisticated process
• 10:08that requires a lot of inputs
• 10:10in terms of demand projections, energy demand projections,
• 10:16evaluating the current fleet,
• 10:17determining new technologies, forecasting fuel prices,
• 10:23et cetera, et cetera, just population trends,
• 10:26just a lot of inputs in order to come out,
• 10:29and modeling, to determine what the best mix
• 10:34of energy infrastructure or programs.
• 10:38It can be non-wire alternatives
• 10:43which if you wanna get into that,
• 10:45we can talk about those, but basically we participated
• 10:49in this process, both in the first one
• 10:52and now on the second proceeding and discovered
• 10:56that PREPA's contractors, Siemens Industry,
• 11:01actually found that onsite, customer-sited alternatives,
• 11:07that's basically rooftop solar.
• 11:08Could be micro wind as well.
• 11:11Customer-sited alternatives are the most economic option
• 11:16in Puerto Rico for energy generation.
• 11:20And it would be significantly lower
• 11:22than the total rate that PREPA would charge rate payers
• 11:29if say, we did business as usual.
• 11:33But it's something that we never understood
• 11:36in this process was that in fact, in spite of the fact
• 11:39that rooftop solar was by its own admission,
• 11:43the PREPA's contractor, Siemens Industry,
• 11:45saying this is the cheapest way,
• 11:47at the end of the 20-year planning period,
• 11:50they only included about 10%
• 11:54of onsite or customer-sited solar or energy generation
• 11:59in the generation mix at the end of the planning period.
• 12:02So this made no sense to us.
• 12:04And that's why we've been working very hard
• 12:08to actually push this alternative
• 12:13and steer away from the other things
• 12:15that I'll show you a little further along,
• 12:17and we have lot of support for that,
• 12:21and not the least of which
• 12:22is a recent National Renewable Energy Labs study
• 12:27that indicates that Puerto Rico has four to five times
• 12:30the rooftop potential or residential solar potential
• 12:40than the actual demand on the island.
• 12:44And that over a decade ago,
• 12:46faculty at the University of Puerto Rico said
• 12:49pretty much the same thing
• 12:50and coined this phrase about the rooftop resource.
• 12:54Any of you who've been here
• 12:55or know anything about Puerto Rico
• 12:57is as you saw on the map,
• 12:59it's a limited geographic extension
• 13:02but very sprawling kind of development.
• 13:08You might call it the LA model of development.
• 13:11Sprawling housing projects and the commercial centers.
• 13:17And so there's lots of rooftop space here.
• 13:22And what we've also been able to show
• 13:26is that renewables plus storage
• 13:29can supply even the critical energy needs.
• 13:31That is hospitals, first responders,
• 13:36water supply, et cetera.
• 13:38And that coupled with energy efficiency programs,
• 13:42smart metering, demand response time reviews
• 13:46can even reduce further the need for energy generation.
• 13:52I'm sorry for all this wording on the slide.
• 13:54So basically, let's see, did I jump?
• 13:59Okay, where am I here?
• 14:01Okay.
• 14:02So yeah, this is a simple sort of representation
• 14:06of what we're saying.
• 14:07People can now participate in energy generation.
• 14:11And at the community level, it's even better
• 14:13because we can have micro grids in case for whatever reason,
• 14:17given rooftops are not appropriate.
• 14:21And so this is another way
• 14:22to explain basically the same thing.
• 14:25We're really talking about beyond technology.
• 14:29A technological change.
• 14:30This is not just a techno change,
• 14:32not just going to renewables.
• 14:34Not all renewables are sustainable, we posit.
• 14:39Because first of all,
• 14:44we are not in favor necessarily
• 14:47of land-based renewable energy systems
• 14:50and actually don't favor that for many, many reasons.
• 14:56And we do believe that it's more sustainable
• 15:00to use existing structures and not impact open land
• 15:04or ecologically sensitive areas or agricultural land.
• 15:08I know California has a similar provision
• 15:11about protection for agricultural lands.
• 15:14And we do favor, as I mentioned, community shared solar
• 15:18so that the socioeconomic benefits of this generation
• 15:24is received by the communities.
• 15:29And it entails citizen empowerment.
• 15:35Coupled with this technology
• 15:37to achieve social and environmental justice.
• 15:41And so this is the actual site
• 15:45for our civil society proposal.
• 15:47It's called Queremos Sol.
• 15:49We want sun is the translation.
• 15:51And the groups, the founding groups are down here.
• 15:54And they include not just community environmental groups,
• 15:58but also you will see that the PREPA,
• 16:02the largest PREPA union is here.
• 16:05The Professional Workers Association,
• 16:10faculty members at the University of Puerto Rico,
• 16:13the Institute for Energy Economics
• 16:15and Financial Analysis, et cetera.
• 16:18Alright, so that was the...
• 16:22I wanted to put the solutions first.
• 16:25I think it's important that people know
• 16:27that we we have a very viable alternative
• 16:30that we've studied very closely
• 16:32and are convinced that it can be implemented.
• 16:35But, now bringing you back to where we are,
• 16:42we have in Puerto Rico about 97% fossil fuel generation
• 16:50in terms of energy supply.
• 16:54And part of that is a coal burning power plant called AES.
• 16:59It's headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.
• 17:02The full name is Applied Energy Systems,
• 17:04but the plant here is called AES Puerto Rico.
• 17:09And it's been a very problematic operation
• 17:16both in terms of an environmental,
• 17:19health and racial aspects and I'll explain why.
• 17:24I'll start this with a trip that we participated in
• 17:30to Colombia, South America,
• 17:35which happens to be the fifth largest exporter
• 17:37of coal in the world.
• 17:38And they export just all over.
• 17:40Turkey, Ireland, Puerto Rico, the US everywhere.
• 17:43And we actually visited El Cerrejon in La Guajira,
• 17:48which is one of the largest open pit mines in the world.
• 17:51But a lot of the coal that is burned here by the AES plant
• 17:55and here in southeastern Puerto Rico is,
• 17:58it comes from El Cesar in Colombia as well.
• 18:01And so these are...
• 18:04As you can see,
• 18:09transnational companies,
• 18:10like really big names in the energy field.
• 18:13BHP Billington, Anglo American, Glencore.
• 18:15Those are European, but previously it was ExxonMobil
• 18:18that was operating at Cerrejon.
• 18:21And they pay royalties to the Colombian government
• 18:24but the impacts have been just terrible
• 18:29in terms of public health there
• 18:31and displacement of the Wayuu
• 18:34and Afro-descendant communities.
• 18:37Many of the communities claim
• 18:38there've been no previous consultation or informed consent
• 18:42in order to use their lands, their water,
• 18:45the water resources that we saw,
• 18:47and I'll show you a photograph terribly impacted.
• 18:51And in addition to that, when we visited the mine
• 18:56and all of the open pits,
• 18:59we saw that there's a lot of water usage
• 19:02to do a lot of dust control at the mine.
• 19:04And yet outside in the towns nearby,
• 19:07people often do not have running water.
• 19:10So terrible environmental justice issue there.
• 19:14And this is the smallest open pit mine, El Tajo Patilla,
• 19:20they call it.
• 19:21And Dr. Hilda Lorenz and I participated in this meeting
• 19:29with a group called witness for peace
• 19:34organized by Dr. Aviva Chomsky.
• 19:39And so this is one of the tributaries
• 19:43to Rio Rancheria that we saw
• 19:46a couple of years ago on our trip,
• 19:48and that has now been...
• 19:49It was in the process.
• 19:50There was an ongoing controversy
• 19:53about whether the mine could change the course
• 19:56of this tributary and it did,
• 19:58and this would be the 14th tributary
• 20:01that was impacted by the mining operations.
• 20:06And so people understandably are very concerned
• 20:10about their lack of access to water.
• 20:12You can see in the sign.
• 20:13It says, "We're defending our access to water."
• 20:17And the mining companies basically are the primary culprits
• 20:23for the lack of access to water in Colombia,
• 20:26in those mining communities.
• 20:28So let's get back to Puerto Rico.
• 20:30And as you can see, this is sort of a picture
• 20:35of the trajectory of the hurricanes in the past.
• 20:38I think this is the past 100 years.
• 20:42And they all usually come in through the east
• 20:45and then go out through the west.
• 20:46And the next slide will show you what that means
• 20:50in terms of the electric system.
• 20:52So these are the major electric lines.
• 20:54I'm here in Salinas and AS is here in Guayama.
• 20:58This is southwestern Puerto Rico.
• 20:59And what you can see, these big, blue lines,
• 21:01they're high voltage transmission lines.
• 21:04So Puerto Rico has a peculiarity
• 21:05that most of its energy generation
• 21:07is on the southern coastal.
• 21:09You see those big numbers, those are the big power plants.
• 21:12And most of its energy demand is on the north coast
• 21:16in the San Juan Metro area and other places in the north.
• 21:20And so these lines, think of it again,
• 21:23are impacted constantly, not just after Hurricane Maria
• 21:27by hurricanes coming in and taking down in part,
• 21:32usually it was in part, right after...
• 21:35I mean, I don't wanna go into all the detail,
• 21:37but Hurricane Hugo on, part,
• 21:40always part of these lines were impacted.
• 21:43And Hurricane Maria was, well,
• 21:45it's sort of unique in that everything went down.
• 21:51So we were 100% without power.
• 21:53So basically what we see
• 21:55is that the current electric system
• 21:57is this very centralized transmission distribution,
• 22:01lots of fossil generation.
• 22:04PREPA owns about 4,630 megawatts of fossil generation
• 22:10and about 100 megawatts of hydroelectric
• 22:13but only about 60, maybe even less are functional
• 22:16in the hydro generation.
• 22:20PREPA also has contracts.
• 22:22What they call power purchase and operation agreements
• 22:24with private companies.
• 22:26One is called EcoElectrica.
• 22:27It's a gas-fired power plant in southwestern Puerto Rico.
• 22:30And I mentioned AES,
• 22:33which I'm gonna get into more detail further along
• 22:36is a coal burning power plant.
• 22:41Also PREPA has some renewable energy projects,
• 22:45very small amount that it has
• 22:47power purchase and operation agreements with.
• 22:50Problem with these projects are not just
• 22:52the land requirements involved, but also that they depend
• 22:56on this vulnerable centralized transmission
• 22:58and distribution system, because they're sited far away
• 23:02from the the man center.
• 23:06So where the energy is needed.
• 23:07So they were also out of service after the hurricane.
• 23:14And, but there is some...
• 23:17And this has increased probably about 100 megawatts
• 23:19of installed, distributed or onsite generation.
• 23:22And that held up the best after the hurricanes.
• 23:26And we need to realize that energy demand in Puerto Rico
• 23:31is decreasing constantly.
• 23:34And it is now, right now, it's under 2000 megawatts.
• 23:38And in the summer, it goes up a little bit more,
• 23:40but as you can see, we have about three times
• 23:44the installed generation capacity as the demand.
• 23:48So this is sort of a pie chart that I prepared
• 23:52talking about our energy mix showing,
• 23:54and then what Siemens Industry
• 23:57along with PREPA were proposing.
• 23:58And it's basically a, this.
• 24:02It's a huge, huge rollout of what is known as natural gas.
• 24:11Otherwise, methane gas.
• 24:15And the gas as you know, is largely,
• 24:23the gas boom is largely a result of the fracking industry
• 24:28that especially has started.
• 24:32Or since I guess about the early 2000s
• 24:37just took off in the States and elsewhere now.
• 24:40So there's fracking in a lot of other countries as well
• 24:43and so basically a glut of fracked gas
• 24:47that is being pushed onto places like Puerto Rico,
• 24:54Jamaica, other places in the Caribbean,
• 24:56Mexico, Latin America in general.
• 24:59And this was part of Siemens' plans
• 25:02Siemens and the government of Puerto Rico plan
• 25:04in the IRP to build all of these terminals,
• 25:09both offshore, onshore, LNG terminals.
• 25:13And the reason why it's liquified natural gas
• 25:16is because you probably all know that gas
• 25:19in its liquid state is a smaller volume.
• 25:24A lot smaller, takes up a lot less space
• 25:27and that's how they can transport it
• 25:29to the Caribbean and other places.
• 25:32But so that was the plan.
• 25:35And also you probably all know
• 25:39that Puerto Rico was even before the hurricane
• 25:44in the midst of an economic and fiscal crisis,
• 25:48in addition to the climate crisis.
• 25:50We've also had earthquakes
• 25:51and now of course, the COVID pandemic.
• 25:55And unfortunately we have not been able to respond
• 26:00to all of these crises due in large part
• 26:05to the development policies that have been implemented
• 26:09since the late 1940s, starting with what was known
• 26:13as Operation Bootstrap, which centered on...
• 26:18Operation Bootstrap was a rapid industrialization project
• 26:21moving away from say, Shirky monoculture,
• 26:24which was what happened
• 26:26during the first half of the 20th century in PR.
• 26:30So this rapid industrialization project was,
• 26:34or program by the government was centered
• 26:36on incredibly generous corporate tax exemption policies
• 26:41at every level, right?
• 26:43It was at the Puerto Rico state level, municipal,
• 26:47just all kinds of tax breaks
• 26:50to entice foreign corporations,
• 26:53mostly US-based corporations, a lot of Canadian as well
• 26:56and European corporates interests coming in
• 27:02to invest in Puerto Rico.
• 27:04And that was also coupled by even federal tax exemptions,
• 27:08what was known as the IRS code section 936,
• 27:10although it had different iterations.
• 27:13But basically the idea was to attract these industries
• 27:17and have them create jobs locally and alleviate poverty
• 27:22but it didn't work.
• 27:25And so we still have currently
• 27:26about a 46% poverty rate and a very high unemployment rate.
• 27:33And in Salinas here in southeastern Puerto Rico,
• 27:37Salinas, Guayama, Arroyo, it's even higher.
• 27:40It's much higher.
• 27:41The median household income here is about one third
• 27:44that of the US, and yet we pay
• 27:47about the second or third highest electric rates
• 27:51of any US jurisdiction.
• 27:54And the government is heavily indebted.
• 27:57Has a huge debt, which you may know
• 28:00has led to a bankruptcy type case
• 28:05for the Puerto Rico government.
• 28:07And it's coupled with an emergency management
• 28:10and bankruptcy provisions.
• 28:13And there's been mass migration.
• 28:15About some 100,000 people,
• 28:17mostly working aged people.
• 28:19And lots of professionals, doctors.
• 28:22And so what we're seeing, especially in this region
• 28:26in southeastern Puerto Rico known as the Guayama region
• 28:29is even higher poverty rates and unemployment rates.
• 28:32Schools and hospital closings.
• 28:35And this is what we call...
• 28:39So then, sorry, the name of the statute is PROMESA,
• 28:42the Puerto Rico Oversight Management
• 28:43and Economic Stability Act.
• 28:47There's been no economic stability.
• 28:48It's just leading to poverty as the sign says.
• 28:51(speaking in foreign language)
• 28:52And so those statistics that I mentioned
• 28:56in terms of southeastern Puerto Rico are one part
• 29:00of the environmental justice problem here.
• 29:04The other part of the environmental justice problem here
• 29:06is that most of the...
• 29:09The two most contaminating power plants on the island
• 29:12are located in this region, in Guayama region
• 29:15here in southeastern Puerto Rico.
• 29:17And they are, as I mentioned,
• 29:18the AES coal-burning power plant,
• 29:20and the largest electrical complex in Puerto Rico,
• 29:23the Aguirre Power Complex.
• 29:26So they are one and two in terms of toxic emissions.
• 29:30And you'll see something else
• 29:32about AES in the coming slides.
• 29:36So obviously, coal combustion from the AES plant
• 29:42includes CO2 emissions, mercury, many other heavy metals.
• 29:50But in addition to that, people are also impacted.
• 29:53And very few people think
• 29:54about the energy water nexus,
• 29:57but it's very critical here because AES
• 30:03extracts water from what is known
• 30:04as the South Coast Aquifer.
• 30:07That South Coast Aquifer is the sole source
• 30:10of potable water for tens of thousands of people.
• 30:14And then in addition to that, AES discharges,
• 30:20for a while, it was supposed to be
• 30:22a zero water discharge facility
• 30:25but it was actually from the beginning
• 30:27illegally discharging contaminated water into the bay.
• 30:32And it also has contaminated the South Coast Aquifer,
• 30:36not only extracting water
• 30:38but also contaminating the water with coal ash waste
• 30:42or formerly known as coal combustion residuals.
• 30:45Because this plant, incredibly has no disposal facility
• 30:50for the millions of tons of coal ash waste
• 30:53that it generates or it has generated.
• 30:56It's about 300,000 a year.
• 30:58This is the slide.
• 30:59So if you look at this photograph on the left here,
• 31:04my left, I hope it's your left.
• 31:07This is coal ash waste.
• 31:08And as you can see, it's going into a storm water system.
• 31:14And that means, of course, that other water bodies
• 31:18will be contaminated with this coal ash waste.
• 31:21So coal ash waste or coal combustion residuals
• 31:25are basically a...
• 31:28What's left after burning coal.
• 31:31And because it's inorganic, are the heavy metals
• 31:35and the radioactive isotopes
• 31:37and that's what coal ash waste is.
• 31:40And by the way, this is a huge problem
• 31:41in the States as well.
• 31:43Because as you can see, about 100 million.
• 31:45That's even with the closure of all the coal plants,
• 31:48of many coal plants in the States
• 31:50there's still quite a few operating
• 31:52and they generate about 100 million tons of coal ash waste.
• 31:58Some of it is used, what they call as a beneficial product.
• 32:03And some of it is encapsulated in gypsum board.
• 32:07But a lot of it, most of it is either disposed
• 32:11in impoundments which leach the contaminants
• 32:15into other water bodies or at waste hills,
• 32:19which if not properly lined and managed can also leach.
• 32:22So that, as I said, that the AES plant here generates.
• 32:26And this is what it looks like.
• 32:29And this coal ash mountain was exposed,
• 32:35is constantly exposed to the hurricane winds
• 32:39or just regular Caribbean breeze.
• 32:42And also, especially after, during the hurricanes,
• 32:47it gets dispersed quite a bit.
• 32:50And so this is the sort of the detail
• 32:53of the kinds of things that we found
• 32:55in a test of the coal ash waste
• 32:57here on the AES coal ash.
• 32:59So you can see these are pretty hefty,
• 33:02heavy metals of concern.
• 33:04Arsenic, barium, boron, manganese, selenium, vanadium,
• 33:08among other elevated levels of metals and alpha particles.
• 33:12And so it is, it does include radioactive materials.
• 33:17And so the reason why this has been happening
• 33:23in the States for over a century and here in Puerto Rico
• 33:26since the AES plant opened up
• 33:28was because the test that was used
• 33:34to determine the leaching potential of coal ash waste,
• 33:38that is the ability to release these heavy metals
• 33:42into the environment, was for many years not the right test.
• 33:47And so this new test is, we were able to get
• 33:52the coal ash here tested with this new framework,
• 33:55which does determine the leaching capacities
• 33:59of this coal ash waste into groundwater surface,
• 34:03superficial water into the land.
• 34:07And so what happened as a result
• 34:10of all of these investigations
• 34:12is that we were able to get
• 34:14the University of Puerto Rico Graduate School
• 34:16of Public Health do two epidemiological studies.
• 34:20And they both basically confirm
• 34:23that the communities in Guayama closest
• 34:26to the AES coal plant have multiple times the incidence
• 34:31of respiratory disease, cardiovascular diseases,
• 34:35cancers obviously, and even spontaneous abortions,
• 34:41more so than the control community
• 34:44in northeast Puerto Rico,
• 34:46not impacted by the coal ash waste.
• 34:51And so, as I said, that the coal industry
• 34:57for a very long time has promoted
• 34:59the so-called beneficial use.
• 35:01They even call it, they give it these really cute names
• 35:05like Agremax here in Puerto Rico,
• 35:07and in Florida, I think it's called easy...
• 35:13I'm sorry, I forget what it is
• 35:14but the coal industry has really marketed
• 35:19its coal ash waste very well.
• 35:20But as you can see in the photograph,
• 35:24this is a housing development that was being built.
• 35:26I talk about sprawling housing construction here.
• 35:29Here is an example, but it was filled
• 35:32with coal ash waste, coal combustion residuals.
• 35:35And during the construction,
• 35:37all of the fuel treated dust was constantly in the air.
• 35:40And it was used primarily in flood prone areas
• 35:44above the sole-source aquifer in proximity to wetlands
• 35:47and ecologically sensitive areas.
• 35:50And also heavily populated areas
• 35:52because Puerto Rico is one
• 35:53of the most heavily populated places in the world.
• 35:58And this, by the way is also a very big problem in India,
• 36:01in many other places.
• 36:04So, it has led to unsustainable development
• 36:08and impacts to, for example, mangrove, canals, et cetera.
• 36:14And this, in the photograph you can see,
• 36:17this was a storm water retention pond
• 36:20built with coal ash waste.
• 36:22So obviously this leeches into the water.
• 36:26That connects with the groundwater
• 36:28and also discharges into a nearby river.
• 36:32So this is getting to be a very widespread problem.
• 36:41So we do now have a law to prohibit the use
• 36:50of the coal ash waste as film material
• 36:51and for these uses.
• 36:56But it is very much a race to the bottom phenomenon,
• 36:58where industries or jurisdictions
• 37:02both in the US and globally seek to attract low cost.
• 37:06And I put that, you know, within air quotes.
• 37:10Low cost, except the externalities are very high cost.
• 37:15And then, so this is a classic definition
• 37:17of environmental injustice
• 37:19that jurisdictions that have the ability to regulate
• 37:23do not exercise or do not implement
• 37:26those protective elements.
• 37:27There's lax enforcement and really insufficient resources
• 37:32on the part of the government
• 37:34to enforce any existing provisions.
• 37:37And so you see more and more of it.
• 37:40This is what we call environmental and racial injustice.
• 37:44That was actually in the photograph.
• 37:46A child playing among a pile of coal ash waste
• 37:52of heavy metals and radioactive materials.
• 37:58And so that coupled, this disproportionate impact
• 38:04and burden on people,
• 38:06coupled with the environmental justice criteria
• 38:10that include a higher than average
• 38:13or higher than the Puerto Rico average
• 38:15Afro-descendant community, closing of hospitals
• 38:21and the high poverty rates
• 38:24creates a situation where people are unjustly burdened.
• 38:32But as I said, the AES corporation
• 38:38actually marketed this coal ash
• 38:40and created a sham recycling operation
• 38:43till about, as I recall, 2012.
• 38:48And we are getting some kind of regulation now.
• 38:52As I mentioned, there is a law that was passed last year
• 38:56and we're awaiting a regulation to prohibit
• 38:59the use of the...
• 39:00The unencapsulated use of coal ash waste.
• 39:04And this is just citing authorities
• 39:06about how political bodies like municipal governments
• 39:09have what is known as the police power
• 39:13to safeguard the health and welfare of residents.
• 39:18And of course, there's this problem with federal preemption
• 39:24and which set of laws will actually apply.
• 39:30And in effect, although we've gotten about,
• 39:34I think it was about 15 municipal ordinances
• 39:38out of the 78 municipalities here in Puerto Rico
• 39:40had passed provisions to prevent the use of coal ash waste.
• 39:46Basically, that was preempted later on.
• 39:50But then we got the law passed that prohibits the use
• 39:53of the coal ash waste.
• 39:56And that's just
• 39:56like citing the Resource Conservation Recovery Act
• 39:59that the states within the federalism system,
• 40:06and Puerto Rico for that purpose
• 40:08is considered a state, are not prohibited
• 40:12from either the state or its political subdivisions.
• 40:15That is like the municipalities, counties, et cetera.
• 40:19from imposing stricter requirements
• 40:22on these kinds of operations,
• 40:25such as, including site selection and imposing regulations.
• 40:32But of course, the regulatory and litigation costs are high
• 40:36in order to achieve the kinds of provisions
• 40:43that are protective of human health and the environment.
• 40:46And so it puts the burden
• 40:49on environmental justice communities
• 40:52and state governments or local government entities.
• 41:00So now, I'm jumping over to the Dominican Republic
• 41:03just because I wanted to close the circle
• 41:05about how we saw in Colombia,
• 41:08the extraction process going on.
• 41:10Here in Puerto Rico, it's the combustion of the coal
• 41:16that creates a coal ash waste
• 41:17and all of the emissions and water contamination, et cetera.
• 41:21What happened with the coal ash waste in Puerto Rico
• 41:24was that it was taken to the Dominican Republic,
• 41:29to a place called Arroyo Barril
• 41:32and people were told that they could use this
• 41:37as film material, or they can use this
• 41:40as construction material within their own homes.
• 41:44And apparently did so.
• 41:46And suddenly, children were born with defects.
• 41:51As you can see in the photo, the child is missing his arms.
• 41:56And there were quite a few cases
• 41:58that were brought and ultimately settled by AES.
• 42:02This is the first settlement agreement
• 42:04when AES was sued by the government of Dominican Republic.
• 42:12And then let's go to another island in the Caribbean
• 42:15that is trying to move away from fossil fuel generation.
• 42:19And I really liked what...
• 42:22This was a conference I attended on the climate crisis.
• 42:26And the message that they were transmitting
• 42:34is that the key to success was that energy prices
• 42:38in the US Virgin Islands were high,
• 42:41but they are no higher than what energy prices should be
• 42:43if the external costs of burning fossil fuel,
• 42:47pollution, climate change, and it should say,
• 42:49health impacts are considered.
• 42:54Okay, so this is...
• 42:56Well, I think this is my next to last slide.
• 42:59This was a symbolic protest that was held here
• 43:02in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria.
• 43:05The shoes represent people who passed away
• 43:09as a result of the hurricane
• 43:11and to a large extent of not having electric power.
• 43:16And that number is disputed
• 43:19but it's anywhere between about 3000, 5000 people that died.
• 43:24And so this in the map here on top shows Puerto Rico
• 43:30prior and after the hurricane.
• 43:34And so, I wanna emphasize
• 43:38that when we talk about the transformation
• 43:41that's needed here in Puerto Rico,
• 43:43it's not just about not burning fossil fuels.
• 43:46It's also about not transmitting energy long distances
• 43:51because as we said, these transmission systems
• 43:55and distribution systems are vulnerable and can,
• 43:58even with renewable energy projects being,
• 44:00say, down here in Southern Puerto Rico,
• 44:03they need to be transmitted.
• 44:04And so that's why we talk about onsite and rooftop solar
• 44:08as being a better solution.
• 44:11And because these transmission systems lose energy
• 44:15on the way, and also are very expensive
• 44:18and represent sort of an opportunity cost
• 44:21against actually onsite energy generation,
• 44:29which by definition has to be cleaner
• 44:32so as not to impact public health.
• 44:35And so that I think is the issue.
• 44:40Should we be rebuilding with the existing
• 44:43centralized fossil fuel system?
• 44:45Or can we convince FEMA, HUD and the federal government
• 44:50to allow for onsite generation.
• 44:54Rooftop solar primarily coupled
• 44:55with battery energy storage systems
• 44:58and thereby protect public health here.
• 45:03And that I think is all.
• 45:07And if you have any questions, please feel free.
• 45:12- Thanks, Ruth.
• 45:13This is very wonderful presentation.
• 45:15And you talk about the environmental and racial justice
• 45:19not just within Puerto Rico
• 45:21but also in the frontline communities in Colombia
• 45:25and also in the Dominican Republic.
• 45:28So a lot of powerful messages here.
• 45:31I do have a lot of questions students already submitted.
• 45:35And for all the audiences, if you have questions,
• 45:39please type in your questions in the chat box.
• 45:42So Ruth, you mentioned about the coal ash waste
• 45:48and how it could be, you know, during the hurricane,
• 45:52during the big storms, the ashes can flood into the water
• 45:57and this makes no doubt
• 45:59that the coal ash waste are very vulnerable
• 46:03to this climate disaster.
• 46:06For the students that are actually wondering,
• 46:07a lot this clean energy options
• 46:10like the solar, roof solar energy projects.
• 46:14Have you considered
• 46:16how that this new renewable energy system,
• 46:20the resistance to the climate disasters
• 46:24in particular, the hurricanes?
• 46:27- Okay, well, if I'm understanding correctly,
• 46:30so, are you saying how resistant
• 46:34are rooftop solar installations to the climate,
• 46:38to the increased hurricanes?
• 46:40Well, what we found is that they do pretty well because...
• 46:46I don't have official data, but it's between
• 46:49five and 10% of the panels were impacted by the hurricane
• 46:53as opposed to 80% of the transmission system.
• 46:57And the interesting thing about panels.
• 47:01One, is they can be hardened to withstand very strong winds.
• 47:06Second, because of the latitude where we are,
• 47:08especially here in Puerto Rico, they're almost flat.
• 47:11They don't need that 45 angles,
• 47:14as, you know, further a jurisdiction further in the north.
• 47:17And third, people here even have contests
• 47:22to take down their panels and see how fast they can do it.
• 47:27So I've heard 20 minutes for a very smaller rate.
• 47:31We also promote very smaller rates for critical needs
• 47:34within the household, like four to six panels and batteries.
• 47:39And so they can be taken down as well.
• 47:41So there are many options.
• 47:43And like I said, even what we saw is that solar farms
• 47:51and wind farms did not hold up during the hurricane
• 47:54as well as the panels on rooftops.
• 47:57For example, there was a wind farm
• 47:59on the eastern coast of Puerto Rico, which no longer exists.
• 48:01It was called Punta Lima.
• 48:04The hurricane took it away.
• 48:07And the panels on the east coast there
• 48:09that were on a wind farm also would severely damaged.
• 48:16But yeah, the rooftop holds up pretty well.
• 48:20- I think, yeah, that's very promising
• 48:22and very interesting.
• 48:25That is great news to the transition.
• 48:29This second question the students are kind of wondering
• 48:32is regarding the renewable energy.
• 48:35Here, we're mostly talking about the solar energy,
• 48:38but have you, could you give us more information
• 48:41regarding other types of renewable energy
• 48:44like the tide power or other, like offshore wind power?
• 48:53- Right. Yeah.
• 48:54We've discussed that a lot of those other options.
• 48:57Offshore wind largely has the problem with the hurricanes.
• 49:01I think jurisdictions that are prone to hurricanes
• 49:06would be probably better served by systems
• 49:13that don't don't have these vertical structures
• 49:17because they are impacted by hurricanes.
• 49:21And as you know, even the hurricanes now
• 49:25are even reaching the northeast US.
• 49:30So I don't know how well offshore wind
• 49:35is gonna hold up to that.
• 49:36That remains to be seen.
• 49:38That on the one hand.
• 49:39In terms of tidal energy,
• 49:42there's an experiment going on right now
• 49:44in southeastern Puerto Rico offshore.
• 49:47I don't know too much about it, but I am concerned
• 49:50and I think those of us who are in the environmental field
• 49:54are concerned about impacts to the water column,
• 49:57because a lot of the reproduction
• 50:00of marine species like egg larvae,
• 50:05and egg and fish larvae and eggs can,
• 50:09I think be impacted by a manipulation of the water
• 50:15from the shallow, sorry, the bottom part of the ocean
• 50:20to the top.
• 50:21And I think that's how basically it works.
• 50:23So I think that might create some unexpected impacts
• 50:27in the marine environment.
• 50:30So that also to me is a question mark.
• 50:34- Ruth, thanks.
• 50:35Yes, we do need to consider not just human health
• 50:37but also like the coastal environmental ecosystems.
• 50:42So another question from the audience is,
• 50:46the first one is from Maggie asking.
• 50:50I was going to ask how much interconnectivity
• 50:53there is in support of Puerto Rico's advocacy
• 50:58as part of global advocacy.
• 51:00I'm not sure it's a question or just a comment.
• 51:07- Okay.
• 51:09Well, in terms of this, for example,
• 51:12the work that we've done on coal,
• 51:15anti-coal combustion and especially coal ash waste work,
• 51:20it is almost on a global scale.
• 51:24We have been working with groups throughout the US.
• 51:28We were actually part of a listserv throughout the US.
• 51:34I think there are people from other countries as well,
• 51:37and we've done, had some connections, as I said,
• 51:40with the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Virgin islands,
• 51:45here in the Caribbean basin area,
• 51:48and some experiences in other countries as well,
• 51:54on especially the coal ash waste issue.
• 51:58It's a huge problem.
• 51:59It's like the asbestos of our time
• 52:05in terms of the implications that it has
• 52:08for dispersing into air, water, land
• 52:14and affecting public health.
• 52:17In terms of renewable energy,
• 52:18also, we're linked with groups throughout the States
• 52:26and a little bit now with groups in the Dominican Republic.
• 52:31Yeah.
• 52:32- Yeah. So, yeah.
• 52:33Since we're talking about like the kind of connection
• 52:36with the mainland, there's one question from the students.
• 52:40Is particular interested about,
• 52:42after the major storms, Hurricane Maria,
• 52:44lots of interests from the mainland paid to Puerto Rico
• 52:48and especially after the Green New Deal.
• 52:51So do you feel that there are more positives
• 52:55that come out of this increased attention
• 52:58from the mainland, the politicians and the public
• 53:01or the other way?
• 53:05- Okay.
• 53:06Certainly.
• 53:07Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria
• 53:11became a better known place.
• 53:14I've often been to places where...
• 53:19And that's why I put the map on my slide there
• 53:20because I've been to places where people don't really know
• 53:24what or where Puerto Rico is.
• 53:26People in the States often, especially before the hurricane,
• 53:31did not know that Puerto Rico was part of the United States.
• 53:34That happened to me quite a lot.
• 53:37Yes.
• 53:38So this attention, this renewed attention,
• 53:41I think is largely positive.
• 53:44I think people have good faith in the States
• 53:47and the Puerto Rican diaspora were life savers
• 53:50after the hurricane because the government did not respond.
• 53:54And people, we were in touch with so many people
• 53:58and groups throughout the States
• 54:00that were trying to help the situation
• 54:02and in the solar energy field,
• 54:05not just in terms of providing, first being,
• 54:09the first provision of food and clean water and et cetera
• 54:14but also bringing in more and more of the solar technology.
• 54:20So, I think it's definitely positive.
• 54:22Now, I should say, there's this one negative part about it.
• 54:25And it was the natural gas industry.
• 54:29The LNG industry also came in right after the hurricane.
• 54:33And you saw that Siemens Industry map
• 54:36talking about building all of this LNG infrastructure
• 54:40on the island.
• 54:41And there has been, there is sort of a battle going on
• 54:45for the electric system here,
• 54:47to rebuild it either as it was with so-called hardening
• 54:51and undergrounding versus what we are proposing
• 54:55in Queremos Sol, which is a civil society,
• 54:59prosumer oriented, energy democracy focus.
• 55:05- Ruth, thanks, yeah.
• 55:06I think regarding the gas energy alternative
• 55:11on the fracking way is another heated topic,
• 55:14which hopefully will help some other speakers
• 55:18cover this in the future.
• 55:20But I do have another question from the audience,
• 55:22from Kyle Wyche.
• 55:23So, Kyle, do you want to ask yourself.
• 55:29- Sure, I'm happy to ask.
• 55:32I was kinda curious.
• 55:33We talked a lot about solar energy
• 55:35and that being a perfect renewable energy,
• 55:38but I'm also curious,
• 55:39what happens to the local food waste in Puerto Rico?
• 55:41And if that is being reused,
• 55:43if it's going to compost, anything like that.
• 55:45I'm particularly interested in turning food waste
• 55:48into renewable energy, and then also
• 55:50a nutrient dense liquid plant fertilizers
• 55:52that can be used again for crops or hydroponics
• 55:55instead of creating new land for agriculture
• 55:57and things like that.
• 55:59- Okay, thanks for the question, Kyle.
• 56:02Yeah, we have a huge problem here with our landfills.
• 56:06The first environmental case I ever worked on
• 56:10back in the '90s was what would have been
• 56:13the largest landfill here.
• 56:15It was again over the South Coast Aquifer.
• 56:18So we were totally against creating a big hole
• 56:21in the earth to potentially contaminate the water supply.
• 56:27And we worked for many years at Comite Dialogo Ambiental
• 56:32and many, many other groups.
• 56:35I have worked for the reduction, reuse or recycling programs
• 56:43and composting, of course.
• 56:45It has not been successful at all.
• 56:48I have to say in all honesty that we have a law
• 56:51with very ambitious goals that have not been achieved.
• 56:57It's a fiasco.
• 56:59There've been numerous waste energy projects proposed here
• 57:05that basically involve some kind of some incineration
• 57:10or paralysis of those materials,
• 57:13that have been not acceptable to civil society groups.
• 57:18In fact, one of the co-founding groups
• 57:21of Queremos Sol, it's called, Coalicion Anti-Incineracion,
• 57:25anti-incineration coalition.
• 57:27They have been very active in fighting that sort of thing.
• 57:33I don't know enough about the technologies
• 57:38for waste management or...
• 57:43Yeah.
• 57:50Bio energy programs.
• 57:51I confess, I don't know enough about those.
• 57:54In fact, I wanna say something interesting though.
• 57:58On Thursday, I think it is,
• 58:00Yale is having a conference
• 58:04or we're having this little symposium or discussion
• 58:09between groups from Puerto Rico and Cuba.
• 58:14And in the materials that the Cuban contingent sent,
• 58:18they apparently do a lot of that composting and biofuels
• 58:24but I don't know.
• 58:26I'm gonna learn, so sorry about that.
• 58:31- Thanks, Ruth.
• 58:32I think we are almost on time
• 58:34and I do have one final question from the audience
• 58:37is regarding other system of renewable energy,
• 58:42you're talking about these projects.
• 58:44Are they facing oppositions
• 58:45from the coal plants in Puerto Rico?
• 58:48What about the political atmosphere there?
• 58:52Obviously, students are also kind of wondering this.
• 58:55- Oh yeah.
• 58:56Okay.
• 58:57So, the coal plant issue is, right now,
• 59:01it's the the most known, well-known environmental issue
• 59:08and problem in Puerto Rico.
• 59:10And there've been massive mobilizations
• 59:13and all kinds of laws and regulations
• 59:15and just everything possible that fortunately
• 59:18all of Puerto Rico has basically joined in this fight.
• 59:23And so there's a law that require,
• 59:25and in the IRP, in fact,
• 59:27the Integrated Resource Plan that I mentioned
• 59:29that we were a part of,
• 59:30it states that the coal burning power plant
• 59:34has to shut down by 2027,
• 59:36because that's when the power purchase
• 59:38and operation agreement ends.
• 59:40And actually the groups want to shut it down before then.
• 59:44So there has been quite a lot of opposition to the coal.
• 59:52And what we're saying is that instead,
• 59:55we can use massive rooftop solar installation
• 59:59to substitute that plant and other plants as well.
• 01:00:04And we are seeing, for example,
• 01:00:07there is also an ongoing privatization process
• 01:00:11of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
• 01:00:13And the company is a conglomerate
• 01:00:16between Quanta Services and ATCO which,
• 01:00:19one is a US and one is a Canadian company
• 01:00:23that put together something called Luma Energy
• 01:00:26in order to operate the transmission
• 01:00:28and distribution system here.
• 01:00:30And they are very much against onsite solar,
• 01:00:33because their business is to keep
• 01:00:35those long distance transmission
• 01:00:37and distribution lines going
• 01:00:39and take all those federal funds to do...
• 01:00:42I call it trickle down energy.
• 01:00:45When you do long distance transmission distribution,
• 01:00:49you're doing indirectly what you can do more efficiently
• 01:00:53with onsite generation, rooftop solar.
• 01:00:57And, but so yes, we're seeing resistance
• 01:01:00from the big gas and oil and Siemens Industry
• 01:01:05that sells big combined cycle generators
• 01:01:10and Luma Energy and just the usual fossil fuel
• 01:01:15and centralized generation companies.
• 01:01:19- Yeah, thank you for sharing this perspective.
• 01:01:22So with that, I think we can end today's seminar.
• 01:01:25So once again, thank you, Ruth
• 01:01:27for giving this excellent presentation.
• 01:01:30Very much appreciate.
• 01:01:31And thank you all for coming on this thing at the end.
• 01:01:35- My pleasure.