By Will Atwater

When Hurricane Helene ripped through western North Carolina, it downed power lines, leaving tens of thousands of residents without electricity for days, even weeks. 

Duke Energy reported “severe” infrastructure damage, including submerged substations, thousands of downed utility poles and fallen transmission towers. The company also noted that mudslides, flooding and blocked roads hampered efforts to quickly restore power.

At Duke Energy’s Marshall Substation in the town of Hot Springs, heavy rains and flooding forced the shutdown of the facility. But Hot Springs was more fortunate than most. In 2023, Duke Energy had installed a microgrid of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries to restore power quickly in case of emergency.

A microgrid is a self-contained electricity system that can operate independently of, or in coordination with, the main power grid. A common example is rooftop solar panels that supply electricity to homes, enabling residents to either disconnect from the main grid entirely or rely on it only as needed.

Hot Springs’ system, which can provide 100 percent of the town’s peak load and up to six hours of backup power, went live on Oct. 2, only five days after the storm. The microgrid operated continuously for the next 143.5 hours, providing power to the town’s center until power was restored to the area on Oct. 8.

The project, initially intended to be a proof of concept, worked to help the town get back online far ahead of its neighbors. 

“It wasn’t as luxurious as a typical grid-powered home,” said Sara Nichols, energy and economic program manager for the Land of Sky Regional Council, a multi-county, local government organization. “It kept that town going when most people had nothing. It’s a huge success story.”

Hurricane Maria provides example

Rural and community health centers are a vital safety net for millions of Americans.

“As the largest primary care network in the nation, community health centers serve one in three people living in poverty — many in communities most impacted by environmental and climate hazards,” said Kyu Rhee, president and chief operating officer of the National Association of Community Health Centers, in a 2024 news release.

“Community health centers [are] not for profit organizations that receive a limited amount of federal support to provide care to anyone —  [including] primary medical, dental, behavioral health, discounted Pharmacy [services]  — and there in all 50 states and territories,” said Ben Money, from the association. 

Money used to run the N.C. Community Health Center Association and knows the needs of this state well, including its extensive history of hurricanes disrupting power to crucial services. He pointed to Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico’s power grid in 2017, as a turning point that accelerated efforts to equip health centers with solar-powered microgrids to improve disaster recovery.

Arturo Massol-Deyá, executive director of Casa Pueblo de Adjuntas, a nonprofit community organization based in Puerto Rico, described the conditions on the ground after Maria.

“The disaster in Puerto Rico was not the hurricane,” Massol-Deyá said. “It was the aftermath of the government’s [inability] to restore basic services and all the mismanagement of the situation.”

In the aftermath, Casa Pueblo used support from donors to help “democratize the energy grid” by installing solar and microgrid systems across communities — powering homes, schools, businesses and essential institutions.

“We have addressed health issues by building energy security,” he said, “because there’s a lot of people with chronic diseases — like high blood pressure, diabetes and respiratory issues — that require therapy and medication.”

Money echoed that point and emphasized the importance of keeping health clinics operational during and after emergencies.

“When community health centers are down, they can’t see patients,” Money said. “Those patients that need care end up going to the emergency room, where it costs an exorbitant amount of money to get something that could be delivered at a fraction of that cost at a community health center.”

“Each day a health center is closed due to a power outage puts the organization at a financial risk,” Money said, potentially leading to reduced services, staff layoffs or even permanent closure. By contrast, a solar microgrid system can lower operating costs, allowing centers to reinvest savings back into patient care and services. 

In 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy announced nearly $60 million in funding to support solar microgrid installations at rural community health centers. The investment is part of its Energy in Rural or Remote Areas program that’s managed by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations.

The initiative targets rural health centers across the southeastern U.S., a region that experienced 474 weather-related power outages in 2022 — more than any other part of the country, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.

The NACHC was also awarded a contract by the Department of Energy in 2024 to equip rural health clinics in North Carolina and other Southeastern states with solar microgrids. While the project is still in the planning stage, it is moving forward — despite federal funding cuts and increased scrutiny of Biden-era climate investments, Money said recently.

Advocating for microgrids

Long before Hurricane Helene battered western North Carolina, Sara Nichols had been working on ways to strengthen local power infrastructure in remote mountain locations — but she had struggled to gain traction with funders who denied multiple applications for support.

“We were working with designers and learning what projects needed — all the logistics,” said Nichols,whose organization serves four counties and 16 municipalities in western North Carolina.

Nichols said funders were hesitant to invest because the region lacked a history of major weather disasters.

“When I got a denial days after [Hurricane Helene] I was like, ‘Are you sure about that?’”

Despite being hundreds of miles from the coast and more than 2,000 feet above sea level, few expected the western North Carolina region to be so vulnerable. But Helene made one thing clear: No place is safe from severe weather. 

As a result of Helene — and with the Hot Springs example in mind — Nichols and others have renewed their advocacy around communities — especially rural ones — to include microgrid technology in their resiliency planning. 

“I feel like we may have better chances now being able to tie things to our hurricane relief work,” Nichols said.

‘Emerging technology’

While the microgrid in Hot Springs delivered power in the wake of Helene, Duke Energy spokesperson Logan Stewart cautioned that microgrids are still an emerging — and costly — technology. “They’re not the best solution in every situation,” she said.

Duke Energy is investing in another strategy: self-healing technology, which automatically reroutes electricity from functioning service lines when an outage occurs.

“It’s kind of like a GPS in your car,” Stewart said. “If there’s an outage on your line, it’s going to just automatically reroute you to another line. 

“We have [self-healing technology] integrated across about 60 percent of our grid in the Carolinas,” Sewart noted. “We’re going to continue to expand, but we have miles and miles of line, so it just takes [time] to do that.”

Stewart noted that self-healing technology is better suited for urban areas, where terrain is less of a challenge. 

“Microgrids can be a solution,” she said, “but it depends on the community terrain, cost and several other factors. It’s something we’re going to continue to explore — because the performance during Helene was fantastic.”

The post In the wake of disasters, rural health could end up running on sunshine  appeared first on North Carolina Health News.

Maraida Caraballo Martínez es educadora en Puerto Rico desde hace 28 años y directora de la Escuela de la Comunidad Jaime C. Rodríguez desde hace siete. Nunca sabe cuánto dinero recibirá del gobierno cada año porque no se basa en el número de niños matriculados. Un año recibió 36.000 dólares; otro año, 12.000 dólares.

Pero por primera vez como educador, Caraballo notó una gran diferencia durante la administración Biden. Gracias a una inyección de fondos federales en el sistema educativo de la isla, Caraballo recibió una subvención de 250.000 dólares, una cantidad de dinero sin precedentes. La utilizó para comprar libros y ordenadores para la biblioteca, pizarras e impresoras para las aulas, reforzar el programa de robótica y construir una pista polideportiva para sus alumnos. “Esto significó una gran diferencia para la escuela”, dijo Caraballo.

Yabucoa, un pequeño pueblo del sureste de Puerto Rico, fue una de las regiones más afectadas por el huracán María en 2017. Y esta comunidad escolar, como cientos de otras en la isla, ha experimentado trastornos casi constantes desde entonces. Una serie de desastres naturales, como huracanes, terremotos, inundaciones y deslizamientos de tierra, seguidos de la pandemia de coronavirus en 2020, han golpeado la isla e interrumpido el aprendizaje. También ha habido una rotación constante de secretarios de educación locales: siete en los últimos ocho años. El sistema educativo puertorriqueño -el séptimo distrito escolar más grande de Estados Unidos- se ha vuelto más vulnerable debido a la abrumadora deuda de la isla, la emigración masiva y una red eléctrica paralizada.

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Bajo la presidencia de Joe Biden, se produjeron tímidos avances, respaldados por miles de millones de dólares y una atención personal sostenida por parte de altos funcionarios federales de educación, dijeron muchos expertos y educadores de la isla. Ahora les preocupa que todo se desmantele con el cambio en la Casa Blanca. El presidente Donald Trump no ha ocultado su desdén por el territorio estadounidense, habiendo dicho supuestamente que estaba “sucio y que la gente era pobre.” Durante su primer mandato, retuvo miles de millones de dólares en ayuda federal tras el huracán María y ha sugerido vender la isla o cambiarla por Groenlandia.

Una reciente orden ejecutiva para hacer del inglés el idioma oficial ha preocupado a los habitantes de la isla, donde solo 1 de cada 5 personas habla inglés con fluidez, y el español es el idioma de instrucción en las escuelas. Trump está tratando de eliminar el Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. y ya ha hecho recortes radicales a la agencia, lo que tendrá implicaciones en toda la isla. Incluso si los fondos federales -que el año pasado representaron más de dos tercios del financiamiento del Departamento de Educación de Puerto Rico, o DEPR- se transfirieran directamente al gobierno local, probablemente traerían peores resultados para los niños más vulnerables, dicen los educadores y expertos en políticas públicas. Históricamente, el DEPR ha estado plagado de interferencias políticas, burocracia generalizada y falta de transparencia.

Y el departamento de educación local no está tan avanzado tecnológicamente como otros departamentos de educación estatales, ni es tan capaz de difundir las mejores prácticas. Por ejemplo, Puerto Rico no dispone de una “fórmula por alumno”, un cálculo utilizado habitualmente en el continente para determinar la cantidad de dinero que recibe cada estudiante para su educación. Roberto Mujica es el director ejecutivo de la Junta de Supervisión y Gestión Financiera de Puerto Rico, convocada por primera vez bajo la presidencia de Barack Obama en 2016 para hacer frente al marasmo financiero de la isla. Mujica dijo que la actual asignación de fondos educativos de Puerto Rico es opaca. “Cómo se distribuyen los fondos se percibe como un proceso político”, dijo. “No hay transparencia ni claridad”.

En 2021, Miguel Cardona, Secretario de Educación de Biden, prometió “un nuevo día” para Puerto Rico. “Durante demasiado tiempo, los estudiantes y educadores de Puerto Rico fueron abandonados”, dijo. Durante su mandato, Cardona aignó casi 6.000 millones de dólares federales para el sistema educativo de la isla, lo que se tradujo en un aumento salarial histórico para los profesores, financiamiento para programas de tutoría extraescolar, la contratación de cientos de profesionales de salud mental escolar y la creación de un programa piloto para descentralizar el DEPR.

Cardona designó a un asesor principal, Chris Soto, para que fuera su persona de contacto con el sistema educativo de la isla, subrayando el compromiso del gobierno federal con la isla. Durante casi cuatro años en el cargo, Soto realizó más de 50 viajes a la isla. Carlos Rodríguez Silvestre, director ejecutivo de la Fundación Flamboyán, una organización sin fines de lucro de Puerto Rico que ha dirigido los esfuerzos de alfabetización infantil en la isla, dijo que el nivel de respeto e interés sostenido hicieron sentir que se trataba de una asociación, no un mandato de arriba hacia abajo. “Nunca había visto ese tipo de atención a la educación en Puerto Rico”, afirmó. “Soto prácticamente vivía en la isla”.

Soto también trabajó estrechamente con Víctor Manuel Bonilla Sánchez, presidente del sindicato de maestros, la Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico, o AMPR, lo que dio lugar a un acuerdo por el que los educadores recibieron 1.000 dólares más al mes en su salario base, un aumento de casi el 30% para el maestro promedio. “Fue el mayor aumento salarial en la historia de los maestros de Puerto Rico”, dijo Bonilla, aunque incluso con el aumento, los maestros de aquí siguen ganando mucho menos dinero que sus colegas en el continente.

Una de las mayores quejas que Soto dijo haber escuchado fue lo rígido y burocrático que era el Departamento de Educación de Puerto Rico, a pesar de una ley de reforma educativa de 2018 que permite un mayor control local. La agencia de educación -la unidad de gobierno más grande de la isla, con la mayor cantidad de empleados y el mayor presupuesto- estaba configurada de manera que la oficina central tenía que aprobar todo. Así que Soto creó y supervisó un programa piloto en Ponce, una región en la costa sur de la isla, enfocado en la descentralización.

Por primera vez, la comunidad local eligió un consejo asesor de educación, y los candidatos a superintendente tuvieron que postularse en lugar de ser nombrados, dijo Soto. El superintendente recibió autoridad para aprobar directamente las solicitudes presupuestarias en lugar de enviarlas a través de funcionarios de San Juan, así como flexibilidad para gastar el dinero en su región en función de las necesidades de cada escuela.

En el pasado, eso no se tenía en cuenta: Por ejemplo, Yadira Sánchez, psicóloga que lleva más de 20 años trabajando en la educación puertorriqueña, recuerda cuando una escuela recibió docenas de aires acondicionados nuevos aunque no los necesitaba. “Ya tenían aires acondicionados que funcionaban”, dice, “así que ese dinero se perdió”.

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El proyecto piloto también se centró en aumentar la eficiencia. Por ejemplo, ahora se evalúa a los niños discapacitados en sus colegios, en lugar de tener que acudir a un centro especial. Y Soto dice que también intentó eliminar el uso de influencias y aumentar la transparencia en torno al gasto en el PRDE. “Puedes mejorar las facturas, pero si tus amigos políticos son los que se quedancon los trabajos, entonces no tienes un buen sistema escolar”, dijo.

Bajo el mandato de Biden, Puerto Rico también recibió una subvención competitiva o grant  del Departamento de Educación de EE.UU. por valor de 10,5 millones de dólares para escuelas comunitarias, otro hito. Y el departamento federal empezó a incluir datos sobre el territorio en algunas estadísticas educativas recopiladas. “Puerto Rico ni siquiera figuraba en estos indicadores, así que empezamos a preguntarnos cómo mejorar los sistemas de datos. Desentrañar el problema de los datos significó que Puerto Rico puede ser debidamente reconocido”, dijo Soto.

Pero ya hay planes para deshacer el esfuerzo de Cardona en Ponce. La recién elegida gobernadora de la isla, Jenniffer González Colón, es republicana y partidaria de Trump. El popular secretario de Educación, Eliezer Ramos Parés, regresó a principios de este año al frente del departamento tras dirigirlo desde abril de 2021 hasta julio de 2023, cuando la gobernadora le pidió inesperadamente que dimitiera, algo nada inusual en el gobierno de la isla, donde los nombramientos políticos pueden terminar de repente y con poco debate público. Ramos dijo a The Hechinger Report que el programa no continuará en su forma actual, calificándolo de “ineficiente”.

“El programa piloto no es realmente eficaz”, dijo, señalando que la política puede influir en las decisiones de gasto no sólo a nivel central, sino también a nivel regional. “Queremos tener algunos controles”. También dijo que ampliar la iniciativa a toda la isla costaría decenas de millones de dólares. En su lugar, Ramos dijo que estaba estudiando enfoques más limitados de la descentralización, en torno a algunas funciones de recursos humanos y adquisiciones. Dijo que también estaba explorando una fórmula de financiación por alumno para Puerto Rico y estudiando las lecciones de otros grandes distritos escolares como la ciudad de Nueva York y Hawai.

Aunque la educación ha sido la mayor partida presupuestaria de la isla durante años, sigue siendo mucho menos de lo que cualquiera de los 50 estados gasta en cada estudiante. Puerto Rico gasta 9.500 dólares por estudiante, frente a una media de 18.600 dólares en los estados.

El Departamento de Educación de EE.UU., que complementa la financiación local y estatal para los estudiantes en situación de pobreza y con discapacidades, tiene un papel desproporcionado en las escuelas de Puerto Rico. En la isla, el 55% de los niños viven por debajo del umbral de la pobreza, frente al 17% en los 50 estados; en el caso de los estudiantes de educación especial, las cifras son del 35% y el 15%, respectivamente. En total, durante el año fiscal 2024, más del 68 por ciento del presupuesto de educación en la isla procede de fondos federales, frente al 11 por ciento en los estados de EE UU. El departamento también administra las becas Pell para estudiantes de bajos ingresos -alrededor del 72 por ciento de los estudiantes puertorriqueños las solicitan- y apoya los esfuerzos de desarrollo profesional y las iniciativas para los niños puertorriqueños que van y vienen entre el continente y el territorio.

Linda McMahon, la nueva secretaria de Educación de Trump, ha dicho supuestamente que el Gobierno seguirá cumpliendo sus “obligaciones legales” con los estudiantes aunque el departamento cierre o transfiera algunas operaciones y despida personal. El Departamento de Educación de Estados Unidos no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios para esta historia.

Algunos dicen que el hecho de que la administración Biden haya vertido miles de millones de dólares en un sistema educativo en problemas con escasa rendición de cuentas ha creado expectativas poco realistas y no hay un plan para lo que ocurre después de que se gasta el dinero. Mujica, director ejecutivo de la junta de supervisión, dijo que la infusión de fondos pospuso la toma de decisiones difíciles por parte del gobierno puertorriqueño. “Cuando se tiene tanto dinero, se tapan muchos problemas. No tienes que enfrentarte a algunos de los retos que son fundamentales para el sistema”. Y afirmó que apenas se habla de lo que ocurrirá cuando se acabe ese dinero. “¿Cómo se va a llenar ese vacío? O desaparecen esos programas o tendremos que encontrar la financiación para ellos”, dijo Mujica.

Dijo que esfuerzos como el de Ponce para acercar la toma de decisiones a donde están las necesidades de los estudiantes es “de vital importancia”. Aún así, dijo que no está seguro de que el dinero haya mejorado los resultados de los estudiantes. “Esta era una gran oportunidad para hacer cambios fundamentales e inversiones que produzcan resultados a largo plazo. No estoy seguro de que hayamos visto las métricas que lo respalden”.

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Puerto Rico es una de las regiones más empobrecidas desde el punto de vista educativo, con unos resultados académicos muy inferiores a los del continente. En la parte de matemáticas de la Evaluación Nacional de Progreso Educativo, o NAEP, una prueba que realizan los estudiantes de todo EE.UU., sólo el 2% de los alumnos de cuarto curso de Puerto Rico calificaron como competentes, la puntuación más alta jamás registrada en la isla, y el 0% de los alumnos de octavo curso lo fueron. Los estudiantes puertorriqueños no hacen la prueba NAEP de lectura porque aprenden en español, no en inglés, aunque los resultados compartidos por Ramos en una conferencia de prensa en 2022 mostraron que sólo el 1% de los estudiantes de tercer grado leían a nivel de grado.

Hay algunos esfuerzos alentadores. La Fundación Flamboyán ha liderado una coalición de 70 socios en toda la isla para mejorar la alfabetización de los niños de preescolar a tercer grado, entre otras cosas mediante el desarrollo profesional. La formación del profesorado a través del departamento de educación del territorio ha sido a menudo irregular u opcional.

La organización trabaja ahora en estrecha colaboración con la Universidad de Puerto Rico y, como parte de ese esfuerzo, supervisa el gasto de 3 millones de dólares en formación para la alfabetización. Aproximadamente 1.500 profesores de Puerto Rico (un tercio de los maestros de Kinder a 5º grado) han recibido esta rigurosa formación. Los educadores recibieron 500 dólares como incentivo por participar, además de libros para sus aulas y tres horas de formación continua. “Fueron muchas horas de calidad. No ha sido el método de ‘rociar (con un poco de agua) y rezar’”, dijo Silvestre. Ese esfuerzo continuará, según Ramos, que lo calificó de “muy eficaz”.

Una nueva prueba de lectura para alumnos de primero a tercer grado que la organización sin fines de lucro ayudó a diseñar mostró que entre los años escolares 2023 y 2024, la mayoría de los niños estaban por debajo del nivel del grado, pero hubo avances en los resultados en todos los grados. “Pero aún nos queda un largo camino por recorrer para que estos datos lleguen a los profesores a tiempo y de forma que puedan actuar en consecuencia”, dijo Silvestre.

Kristin Ehrgood, Directora General de la Fundación Flamboyán, afirma que es demasiado pronto para ver resultados espectaculares. “Es realmente difícil ver una tonelada de resultados positivos en un período tan corto de tiempo con la desconfianza significativa que se ha construido durante años”, dijo. Dijo que no estaban seguros de cómo la administración Trump podría trabajar o financiar el sistema educativo de Puerto Rico, pero que la administración Biden había construido una gran cantidad de buena voluntad. “Hay muchas oportunidades que podrían aprovecharse, si una nueva administración decide hacerlo”.

Otra señal esperanzadora es que la junta de supervisión, que fue muy protestada cuando se formó, ha reducido la deuda de la isla de 73.000 a 31.000 millones de dólares. Y el año pasado los miembros de la junta aumentaron el gasto en educación en un 3%. Mujica dijo que la junta se centra en asegurarse de que cualquier inversión se traduzca en mejores resultados para los estudiantes: “Nuestra opinión es que los recursos tienen que ir a las aulas”.

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Betty A. Rosa, comisionada de educación y presidente de la Universidad del Estado de Nueva York y miembro de la Junta de Supervisión, afirmó que la inestabilidad educativa en Puerto Rico se debe a los cambios en el liderazgo. Cada nuevo líder se dedica a “reconstruir, reestructurar, reimaginar, elija la palabra que elija”, dijo. “No hay coherencia”. A diferencia de su cargo en el estado de Nueva York, el Secretario de Educación de Puerto Rico y otros cargos son nombramientos políticos. “Si tienes un gobierno permanente, aunque cambie el liderazgo, el trabajo continúa”.

Ramos, que vivió esta inestabilidad cuando el anterior gobernador pidió inesperadamente su dimisión en 2023, dijo que se reunió con McMahon, la nueva secretaria de Educación de EE.UU., en Washington, D.C., y que mantuvieron una “agradable conversación”. “Ella sabe de Puerto Rico, se preocupa por Puerto Rico y demostró total apoyo en la misión de Puerto Rico”, dijo. Dijo que McMahon quería que el DEPR ofreciera más clases bilingües, para exponer a más estudiantes al inglés. Queda por ver si habrá cambios en la otorgación de fondos o cualquier otra cosa. “Tenemos que ver lo que ocurre en las próximas semanas y meses y cómo esa visión y esa política podrían afectar a Puerto Rico”, dijo Ramos.

Ramos fue muy apreciado por los educadores durante su primera etapa como Secretario de Educación. También tendrá que tomar muchas decisiones, como ampliar las escuelas charter y cerrar las escuelas públicas tradicionales, ya que la matriculación en las escuelas públicas de la isla sigue disminuyendo vertiginosamente. En el pasado, ambas cuestiones provocaron protestas feroces y generalizadas.

Soto es realista y cree que la nueva administración tendrá “puntos de vista diferentes, tanto ideológica como políticamente”, pero confía en que el pueblo de Puerto Rico no quiera volver a la antigua forma de hacer las cosas. “Alguien dijo: ‘Ustedes sacaron al genio de la botella y va a ser difícil volver a ponerlo’ en lo que se refiere a un sistema escolar centrado en el estudiante”, dijo Soto.

Cardona, cuyos abuelos son oriundos de la isla, dijo que Puerto Rico había experimentado un “estancamiento académico” durante años. “No podemos aceptar que los estudiantes rindan menos de lo que sabemos que son capaces”, dijo a The Hechinger Report, justo antes de despedirse como máximo responsable de educación del país. “Empezamos el cambio; tiene que continuar.

La pequeña escuela de la directora Carabello, con 150 alumnos y 14 profesores, ha estado a punto de cerrarse ya tres veces, aunque en todas ellas se ha salvado en parte gracias al apoyo de la comunidad. Carabello confía en que Ramos, con quien ya ha trabajado anteriormente, cambie las cosas. “Conoce el sistema educativo”, afirma. “Es una persona brillante, abierta a escuchar”.  

Pero las largas jornadas de los últimos años le han pasado factura. Suele estar en la escuela de 6:30 a.m. a 6:30 p.m. “Entras cuando anochece y te vas cuando anochece”, dice. Ha habido muchas plataformas nuevas que aprender y nuevos proyectos que poner en marcha. Quiere jubilarse, pero no puede permitírselo. Tras décadas en las que el gobierno local no financió suficientemente el sistema de pensiones, se recortaron los subsidios que compensaban el alto precio de los bienes y servicios en la isla y se congelaron los planes de pensiones.

Ahora, en lugar de jubilarse con el 75% de su salario, Carabello recibirá sólo el 50%, 2.195 dólares al mes. Tiene derecho a prestaciones de la Seguridad Social, pero no son suficientes para compensar la pensión perdida. “¿Quién puede vivir con 2.000 dólares en un mes? Nadie. Es demasiado duro. Y mi casa aún necesita 12 años más para pagarse”.

A Carabello, siempre tan fuerte y optimista con sus alumnos, se le saltaron las lágrimas. Pero es raro que se permita tiempo para pensar en sí misma. “Tengo una gran comunidad. Tengo grandes profesores y me siento feliz con lo que hago”, afirma.

Está muy, muy cansada. 

Comunícate con editora Caroline Preston al 212-870-8965 o preston@hechingerreport.org.

Este artículo sobre el Departamento de Educación y Puerto Rico fue producido por The Hechinger Report, una organización de noticias independiente sin fines de lucro centrada en la desigualdad y la innovación en la educación. Suscríbete a nuestro boletín de noticias.

The post En Puerto Rico, la campaña de Trump para desmantelar el Departamento de Educación pega más fuerte appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

The nearly 14 million people of color who live in rural America face unique challenges that run the gamut — from industry land grabs to struggles with broadband and a lack of representation in business and in government that makes it near impossible for many to cultivate generational wealth. This six-part series from the Rural News Network, with support from the Walton Family Foundation, elevates the issues these communities are facing and what some are doing to change their fates.

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SALINAS, Puerto Rico — After Sol Piñeiro retired from bilingual special education in New Jersey public schools, she bought a dream house in Salinas on Puerto Rico’s south coast, near the town where she was born.

She and her husband built a traditional Puerto Rican casita beside the main home and filled the sprawling yard with orchids, cacti and colorful artifacts, including a bright red vintage pickup truck.

Only after setting up her slice of paradise here did she learn the road running alongside it contained toxic waste from a nearby power plant.

Salinas is one of 14 municipalities around the island that between 2004 and 2011 used coal ash as a cheap material to construct roads and fill land. The material is a byproduct of burning coal and is known to contain a long list of toxic and radioactive chemicals. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not specifically regulate coal ash until 2015, and those regulations don’t cover the coal ash used in roads like that in Salinas.

Any community with a coal-burning power plant likely has tons of toxic coal ash stored somewhere nearby, in pits, ponds or piles. In 2015, the EPA announced new rules requiring groundwater testing and safer storage and disposal methods, but the rules exempt power companies from responsibility for ash dispersed for use in road building and other projects.

Scant or nonexistent recordkeeping makes comprehensively mapping this scattered coal ash impossible, but environmental and public health advocates suspect the material is likely contaminating groundwater and causing toxic dust across the United States.

Perhaps nowhere is the problem as prominent as on Puerto Rico’s south coast, a rural, economically struggling region far from the capital of San Juan and major tourist destinations. Here, coal ash — or “cenizas” in Spanish — has become a symbol of the environmental injustice that has long plagued the U.S. colony.

The ash originated from a coal-fired power plant owned by global energy company AES in the nearby town of Guayama. After the Dominican Republic began refusing imports of the waste, the company promoted the material to Puerto Rican municipalities and contractors as a construction fill product. In all, more than 1.5 million tons of coal ash were deposited in Salinas and Guayama, according to a 2012 letter by the company’s vice president that was obtained by the Puerto Rico-based Centro de Periodismo Investigativo, or Center for Investigative Journalism.

In July 2022, a decade after community pressure forced the company to stop marketing ash for such use, EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited Guayama and Salinas to meet with residents about coal ash and other environmental issues as part of his “Journey to Justice” tour. The tour also included the agency’s first Environmental Justice Advisory Council meeting in Puerto Rico. Piñeiro and others are glad for the attention, but given the U.S. government’s long history of broken promises and neglect in Puerto Rico, they are impatient for meaningful action.

Energy injustice

Piñeiro learned the backstory of the powdery gray road material when she connected with José Cora Collazo, who lives in a mint-green home perched on a hillside nearby, with sweeping views of the south coast. Piñeiro has since joined Cora in leading the organization Acción Social y Protección Ambiental, raising awareness about coal ash and demanding change from local and U.S. officials.

While the majority of Puerto Rico’s population lives on the north coast, including the San Juan area, the bulk of the island’s power is generated on the south coast, including at the AES coal plant as well as a nearby power plant that burns oil. That means the residents of Guayama, Salinas and other nearby communities could be subject to a myriad of public health risks, experts and activists say, while the mangrove ecosystem of Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and area fisheries could also be threatened.

During frequent heavy rains, Piñeiro and Cora see the gray coal ash streaming down crumbling roads and into the tangled brush and creeks that traverse the hillsides. As Piñeiro’s picturesque homestead is on a slope below the road Calle Luis Llorens Torres, the coal ash runs down onto her property.

Local residents draw drinking water from their own private wells or a network of municipal wells, and they worry that coal ash is polluting the groundwater. In 2021, chemist Osvaldo Rosario spearheaded testing of tap water in area homes and found disturbing signs of contamination with toxic metals known to be in coal ash. In August, Rosario and colleagues retested the same homes and are awaiting results.

Rosario’s testing and ongoing activism by locals spurred the U.S. EPA to do its own groundwater testing this spring. EPA spokesperson Robert Daguillard previously told the Energy News Network the agency anticipated presenting the results in late September; EPA did not respond to a recent query about the status of the results.

“EPA’s focus on CCR [coal combustion residuals] in Puerto Rico follows the commitment made by Administrator Regan during his Journey to Justice visit with communities concerned with the management of CCR in Puerto Rico,” Daguillard said in response to the Energy News Network’s questions.

Broken promises, problematic offers

When AES built the coal plant, it promised the resulting ash would be shipped off the island. An investigation by Centro de Periodismo Investigativo revealed that in its first two years of operation, more than 100 million tons of coal ash from the plant were sent to the Dominican Republic, dumped in and around the town of Arroyo Barril and several ports. Soon residents noticed a spike in birth defects, miscarriages and other ailments, which experts attributed to the coal ash pollution.

The country barred coal ash imports. In U.S. court, AES agreed to pay $6 million to remove the coal ash. Meanwhile, AES began marketing the byproduct in Puerto Rico as a construction fill under the brand name Agremax. The ash was used in the wealthy San Juan-area town of Dorado and the university town of Mayaguez on the west coast, but use was heaviest on the south coast.

“They began dumping the ash in many areas of Puerto Rico as the base for many roads, many trails, unpaved trails of pure ash,” Rosario said. “They would fill in flood-prone areas so there could be construction. There was illegal dumping in many open areas. They literally gave the ash away; they paid for the transportation. A contractor would say, ‘I need 20 tons of coal ash to fill in this area,’ and they would bring the coal ash.”

A 2023 report by the environmental organization Earthjustice noted that the toxic ash still lies unused and uncovered at sites where it poses health risks to people in nearby homes, parks, a school and a hospital. “At numerous sites, the coal ash was left uncovered or covered only with a thin layer of dirt, which quickly eroded,” the report said. “Fugitive dust from these uncovered piles and roads is common.”

Rosario said that the use of coal ash was done “under the permissive oversight of government agencies.”

“You put a couple inches of topsoil over it, then when that topsoil gets eroded away or you dig to plant a tree, you reach this gray material which is the ash,” he said. “The water level is not far below that. This was done behind the backs of the people. They got mortgages for houses built on toxic material.”

Unencapsulated ash

In 2012, Vanderbilt University tested Agremax at the behest of the U.S. EPA. It found that the material — a mix of fly ash and bottom ash — leached high concentrations of arsenic, boron, chloride, chromium, fluoride, lithium and molybdenum.

Coal ash is commonly used as a component in concrete, and it is widely considered safe when it is encapsulated in such material.

But unencapsulated use of coal ash, while legal, is opposed by environmental groups  who fear that the dangerous heavy metals known to leach into groundwater can spread and potentially expose people to carcinogens and neurotoxins through drinking water, soil and air.

Advocates have long argued for stricter regulation of unencapsulated use of coal ash. As the Energy News Network explored in a 2022 investigation, throughout the U.S. developers can use up to 12,400 tons of unencapsulated coal ash without notifying the public.

There are about a billion tons of coal ash stored in impoundments and landfills around the U.S., and testing required under 2015 federal rules shows that almost all of it is contaminating groundwater, as Earthjustice, Environmental Integrity Project and other organizations have shown based on the companies’ own groundwater monitoring data. This summer, the EPA expanded what types of coal ash storage are subject to the rules, including ash at repositories that were closed before 2015.

Environmental groups filed a lawsuit last year demanding that the expanded rules also address ash used as structural fill in places like Salinas and Guayama.

But the agency did not mention such ash in its revision to the rules, with the draft released in May. In June, Cora traveled to Chicago to testify before the EPA. Unless they are changed, the rules leave his neighbors and others across Puerto Rico with few legal avenues to fight for accountability and remediation.

“The coal ash industry has their laboratories; they know what they are doing,” Rosario said. “I go back to the word ‘avarice’ — they know all of this, just like the tobacco industry.”

AES, which is headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, did not respond to questions from the Energy News Network. A regional AES representative instead provided a statement saying: “For more than 20 years, AES Puerto Rico has been bringing safe, affordable, and reliable energy to the island and supplying up to 25% of the island’s energy needs. We remain committed to accelerating the responsible transition to renewable energy for the island and the people of Puerto Rico.”

A history of struggle

Cora was aware of environmental issues from childhood. His father, José Juan Cora Rosa, was a prominent activist who fought against the U.S. Navy’s bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, among other iconic struggles.

The elder Cora explained that in the late 1990s, local resistance halted plans to build a coal plant in Mayaguez, the town on Puerto Rico’s west coast home to a prominent technical university. The coal plant was instead opened in 2002 in Guayama, despite opposition from the elder Cora and other residents. He said the company likely knew they’d face less pushback since Guayama’s population is smaller and economically struggling.

For years now, residents of Guayama and Salinas have complained of health effects — from tumors to skin disease — that they think are caused by the coal plant. A 2016 study by the University of Puerto Rico’s School of Public Health showed a disproportionately high incidence of respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, asthma, hives and spontaneous abortions in Guayama. Other studies have found high cancer rates in the area, according to reporting by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

Salinas resident Victor Alvarado Guzmán has seen such health issues firsthand. His wife is a cancer survivor, and he notes that on two blocks in the Miramar community of Guayama, 18 people have had cancer, some fatal cases.

“That’s not normal,” he said.

Alvarado is trained as a psychologist but has been an environmental activist for a quarter-century, fighting unsuccessfully against the coal plant and successfully to block a proposed landfill and chicken processing plant from the area. He’s co-founder of the grassroots environmental group Diálogo Ambiental, and he’s run for public office.

Sitting in a restaurant in Salinas built on a foundation of coal ash, Alvarado said he wants to see historic ash removed from the community, and he wants the government to pay for soil and water testing plus blood testing for residents to see how heavy metals from coal ash may be affecting them.

Under a gazebo in Guayama on a stifling hot August afternoon, local environmental activists gathered to discuss the risk from coal ash, and the plant’s air emissions.

“Every time we have a meeting, we hear about someone else who is sick,” noted Miriam Gallardo, a teacher who used to work at a school near the plant, seeing coal ash-laden trucks go by.

Aldwin Colón, founder of community group Comunidad Guayama Unidos Por Tu Salud — Guayama Community United for Your Health — said that on his block, people in four out of the nine homes have cancer. He said he blames the coal plant and the public officials who have not done more to protect residents. He noted that Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi was previously a lobbyist representing AES.

He lamented that the company chose to build the plant in a lower-income community with little tourism.

“In poor communities, we don’t have the resources to fight back,” Colón said, in Spanish. “These are criminal companies that use corrupt politics for their own means. This is racism and classism — the same old story, the slaves sacrificed for the patron.”

Colón, Piñeiro and Cora drove around the area with other activists from Guayama to show the Energy News Network multiple sites where coal ash is visible. They pulled over along a major road, Dulces Sueños — Sweet Dreams — built in recent years. One man dug a shovel into the embankment next to the road. After turning over a few inches of soil and foliage, his shovel filled with gray powder.

Continuing through Salinas and Guayama, Piñeiro pointed out the strip malls and fast food stores that were built on top of coal ash, among 36 specific locations documented by the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo.

Cora and Piñeiro noted the coal ash-laden “caminos blancos” — white roads, as they are commonly known — traversing the countryside, known as hot destinations for mountain bikers.

At a small store in Guayama, older men passed the sweltering afternoon sitting on plastic chairs sipping Medalla beers. The owner of the store, Jacob Soto Lopez, recounted how he used to jog on dirt roads in the nearby town of Arroyo — until he learned the dust he was kicking up was toxic coal ash. Now he frets about how it may be contaminating the drinking water.

“We sell bottled water here, but a lot of people can’t afford it,” he said. “They should stop producing the ashes and take away what they’ve thrown on our island.”

A revolt

On the mainland, many Americans are unaware of the threat posed by coal ash, or even its existence, since it is often stored on coal plant sites, in roads and berms, and in quarries, ravines, or old mines. The federal rules regulating coal ash that took effect in 2015 were barely enforced until 2022, when the EPA began issuing decisions related to the rules.

But in communities on Puerto Rico’s south coast, the term “cenizas” — ashes in Spanish — is often recognized as a signifier of injustice and popular struggle.

When AES offloaded Agremax for use in construction and fill starting in 2004, it’s possible local officials and others did not understand the risks. But concerns soon grew and multiple municipalities passed ordinances banning the storage of coal ash.

In 2016, residents of Peñuelas — 40 miles west of the plant — revolted over AES’ plan to truck ash to a landfill in their community, despite a municipal ordinance banning coal ash. Hundreds of people occupied the street, blocking trucks from entering the landfill, and dozens of arrests were made over several days in November 2016. AES stopped sending ash to Peñuelas.

Manuel “Nolo” Díaz, a leader of that movement, noted that locals were ready to snap into action since they had previously worked together to oppose a plan to build a gas pipeline through the area.

“We took over the street to enforce the law,” Díaz said, in Spanish. “It’s so beautiful when people come together to defend their rights. But the fight is not over until they remove the ashes from the 14 towns, and decontaminate the water they’ve contaminated.”

In 2017, the island’s government passed a law banning the storage of coal ash on the island. Since then, AES has shipped coal ash from the island to U.S. ports including Jacksonville, Florida, for storage in landfills in Georgia and elsewhere, the Energy News Network has reported.

While coal ash is no longer permanently stored in Puerto Rico, a mound of coal ash multiple stories high is visible at AES’ site, where it is allowed to be stored temporarily before transport. And coal ash still makes up the street above Piñeiro’s home and many others, creating milky gray rivulets running down the hills and likely percolating into drinking water sources.

A conundrum

The law against storing coal ash on the island could complicate efforts to remove it from roads and fill sites, since it would need to be transported and stored somewhere.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated about $8 million for Salinas to repair roads in the wake of 2017’s Hurricane Maria. Cora, Piñeiro and others have demanded that the money be used to remove coal ash from roads and rebuild them.

Last year, Salinas Mayor Karilyn Bonilla Colón requested an exception to the law banning the disposal of coal ash on the island, so that coal ash could be extracted from the roads in Salinas and deposited in landfills in Ponce, Humacao or Peñuelas. She told local media that exporting the ash off the island would be too expensive.

Organizations in Peñuelas and beyond opposed the move, calling it disrespectful to their communities. In January, the natural resources department denied the mayor’s request.

Piñeiro and Cora are frustrated Bonilla has not found another way to remove and dispose of the ash. On Sept. 5, activists painted on the street in Salinas with large letters calling the mayor “asesina ambiental” — an environmental assassin.

A spokesperson for Bonilla said she is no longer doing interviews about coal ash, and referred the Energy News Network to local news coverage of the controversy.

Cora and other activists are now appealing to Manuel A. Laboy Rivera, the executive director of the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency which oversees FEMA fund distribution in Puerto Rico, since he recently warned that 80 municipalities, government agencies and organizations in Puerto Rico will have to return the emergency funds if they can’t prove they’ve been used.

Cora and Piñeiro note that many of their neighbors are elderly, and don’t feel urgency around coal ash after having survived two hurricanes and a major earthquake in the past six years, not to mention the island’s ongoing economic crisis.

“But what about future generations?” Piñeiro asked.

“If the aquifer is contaminated and we don’t have potable water in Salinas, how can people live here?” added Cora, in Spanish. “What can we do?”

Cora, Piñeiro and their allies want the coal plant to close and be replaced by clean energy, and indeed Puerto Rico has passed a law calling for a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050. But they don’t want the clean energy transition to replicate the injustices of the fossil fuel economy, and they feel plans for massive solar farms on the south coast — developed in part by AES — could do just that.

While solar farms are emissions-free, they continue the problem of reliance on a fragile centralized grid and put the island’s energy burden on the south coast.

Opponents say the proposed massive arrays of solar panels cause flooding and erosion — by compacting land and causing run-off — while also displacing agricultural land. Attorney Ruth Santiago, who has lived most of her life in Salinas, is representing environmental groups that recently filed a lawsuit against the Puerto Rico government over 18 planned solar farms, including by AES.

On Aug. 7, Alvarado led activists from island-wide environmental groups in delivering a letter to Puerto Rico’s natural resources department in San Juan, making demands around coal ash, solar farms and other issues.

“Under the theme of an energy transition that is just and clean, how are they going to deal with the deposit of toxic ashes across the country?” said Vanessa Uriarte, executive director of the group Amigxs del Mar, in Spanish, outside the department’s office. “The department needs to tell us what their plan of action is to deal with this problem. And now the same company that has contaminated our community with coal ash is taking our agricultural lands for solar panels.”

Energy justice leaders instead want decentralized small solar and microgrids that are resilient during disasters and cause minimal environmental impacts so that future generations are not left with more injustices like coal ash.

“It’s this strange situation where it’s not a problem about the lack of funding,” Santiago said, referring to federal funds allocated to Puerto Rico. “There’s more than enough funding, but it’s being used to rebuild this business-as-usual kind of electric system. This disaster recovery funding should be an opportunity to transform the electric system in a way that would really serve the public interest.”

In Puerto Rico, residents wait for accountability, cleanup of toxic coal ash ‘caminos blancos’ is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.