Late December, 2018

The recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria is continuing. There is progress, but there continue to be issues. Below I’ll give snippets of various topics. My information is from the San Juan Star, the English language newspaper here, unless otherwise noted.

Federal Government Shut Down

The Federal government is shut down as I write this. I’m not sure of all the effects this will have here. At a minimum, the forts in Old San Juan (El Moro and San Cristobal), operated by the National Park Service, will have shut down, as would El Yunque, the tropical rain forest on the northeastern end of the island.

The government here is watching carefully. An extended shut down might slow the flow of relief funds from Washington to Puerto Rico. For example, government officials fear delays in funds for the Nutritional Assistance Program, $40 billion for reconstruction, and $3 billion for the health program here. And there are probably other funds in the pipeline that could be delayed if the shut down continues.

Border Security

Puerto Rico attracts at least a few illegals. The US Coast Guard has primary responsibility for stopping them. Just last week, the Coast Guard stopped 41 nationals from the Dominican Republic found crossing the Mona Passage. A Coast Guard spokesman said they were traveling in unseaworthy makeshift vessels. They were all repatriated to the Dominican Republic.

In a separate incident, the Silver Wind of the Silver Sea Cruise Line came across a small boat taking on water. The cruise ship rescued 13 Dominican migrants from it. They were treated with a ride to the Barbados, the Silver Wind’s next port off call. There they were turned over to local authorities.

I hope President Trump doesn’t hear of this. He might want to build a wall around Puerto Rico. I think even an attractive steel slat wall would be a bad idea here. What do you think?

Death Toll

Generating an accurate death toll from Hurricane Maria proved more challenging than one would have thought. The governor, last February, acknowledged the difficulty when he commissioned a study by the School of Public Health at George Washington University. In August, the researchers returned with an estimate of nearly 3,000 deaths attributable to the storm and its aftermath. This was far more than the original, official estimates.

Governor Rossello created a 9/20 Committee to assist the government in revising death certification procedures. The goal is to improve information management regarding fatalities caused by natural disasters.

Coffee

The coffee industry here suffered greatly from Hurricane Maria. The crop was pretty much wiped out. But there is hope. Two varieties of coffee plants are grown here – Limani and Fronton – and plants have been germinated from seeds and are now in the ground.

In addition, the Starbucks Foundation donated seeds of a third variety, the Marsellesa, and the seeds have survived the required quarantine period. Soon the seeds will be distributed to nurseries and then, after they grow into small, sturdy tress, will be distributed to coffee plantations. It will be about three years before these plants begin producing beans.

I feel better now about getting my morning coffee at the Starbucks in Condado.

We went to an historic coffee plantation and processing plant a few years ago. Our good friends Marilu and Mundo took us. It was in the mountains north of Ponce. I had my camera but for some reason I don’t have many images of it. So the image below will have to do.

Street Lights

PREPA, the Puerto Rican Power Authority, is responsible for for about 220,000 street lights around the island. Other entities, cities, town, Department of Transportation, are responsible for others. Of the PREPA lights, 106,000 are still out. In a recent government hearing, PREPA acknowledged it did not have enough crews to do the necessary repairs in a timely fashion. PREPA stated it would start hiring contractors to help, and expects their efforts to start by February, 2019.

The reporter noted: “It was not immediately clear why it took so long to reach this realization.”

Indeed.

I did note local contractors working on the street lights in Old San Juan. They’ve all been restored and the old city looks very welcoming.

I don’t know who is responsible for the lights on the bus lane in back of our building. They still await repair.

PREPA

PREPA is for sale. The government issued a RFQ – Request for Qualifications – from interested parties early last month. The government here wants a company interested in managing and operating all facets of the energy distribution and transmission system. This will be accomplished via a public-private partnership. According to a statement by Governor Rossello, the winning company will be expected to transform and modernize Puerto Rico’s energy system. In fact, the government has a stated goal that, by 2050, all energy generated here will be from renewable sources. So the winning company will have to work with that expectation.

By the way, Puerto Rico currently generates about 5,500 MWs of energy, the vast majority from fossil fuels – natural gas, diesel, and fuel oil. Solar arrays account for about 140 MW, and hydro-power another 156 MW.

There are, as you might expect, many opinions about the power system here. In one initiative, the Rocky Mountain Institute, in conjunction with Save the Children, plans to install micro-grids to power 12 schools. The first, at an elementary school in Orocovis, includes a rooftop solar array (of about 15 kWh capacity) and a large lithium-ion battery. The whole system, including the expenses for rewiring the school, cost about $120,000. It is expected that excess energy will be sold to PREPA thus generating a revenue stream for the school.

On a larger scale, another group is advocating for the use of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs), a technology being developed in the states. SMRs have a generation capacity of between 50 and 300 MW. In one proposal, the SMRs would be placed underground and thus less prone to hurricane damage. The fundamental idea, as I understand it, is that SMRs would be spread around the island creating a series of interconnected generation and transmission grids.

That would seem to be an improvement over the current situation. The largest generation plants are on the island’s south coast. That means the main transmission lines have to traverse the mountains to get to the more populated northern coast. The transmission lines proved to be vulnerable and suffered great damage during the hurricanes.

As might be expected, the mere mention of nuclear energy created a backlash. Representative Denis Marquez Lebron, of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP), introduced a bill in the house to prohibit the ‘generation of nuclear energy.’ Those are apparently his words. I’m not exactly sure what he was trying to say. Marquez, in his speech, referred to the Ukraine (obviously Chernobyl) and Japan (Fukushima) as reasons to ban nuclear energy here.

In early December, the government revealed it had received RFQs from five interested companies, not yet identified. The government did note that they were regulated international energy companies, whatever that means.

Pork

Puerto Ricans love their pork. Many families travel to lechoneras outside of the cities, but especially in towns in the mountains. A lechonera is a pork barbecue – whole animals are cooked for hours over an open fire. When they are ready, you can choose whatever part of the pig you want. Pork liver? Give me a minute. Spare ribs? Not a problem. Kidneys? Coming right up.

There are numerous side dishes available: tostones (fried plaintain chips), amarilla (sweet yellow plaintain, arroz (rice), among others. And it is almost always swilled down with Medalla, the local beer.

But there’s trouble in trotter town. There’s a shortage of pigs.

This would seem to be an easy problem to fix. Put a male pig with a female pig (or two or three – I admit to ignorance when it comes to swine husbandry) and problem solved. So it must be more complicated than that.

My guess is the swine infrastructure was damaged, and therefore the growers missed some generations of little piglets. But, according to the paper, this situation is temporary. And that should make the pork-lovers of Puerto Rico happy.

Hotels

Many of the large hotels in Puerto were damaged, some extensively. Here is a list of some of the major hotels and their current status.

• Ritz Carlton Dorado Beach – reopened.
• El San Juan Hotel, Isla Verde – reopened June 1.
• Vendanza Hotel, Isla Verde – reopened August 1.
• Dorado Beach Hotel, Dorado – reopened October 1.
• St. Regis at Bahia Beach, Rio Grande – reopened October 29.
• Caribe Hilton, San Juan – closed until the summer, accepting reservations as of December 21.
• W Retreat and Spa, Vieques – reopens December 31.
• Condado Plaza Hilton, Condado – undergoing renocations, no opening date announced.

I walk past the Caribe Hilton a couple of times a week. During the week, a crew of workers is toiling away. Weekends, not so much.

Cock Fighting

This is not directly related to Hurricane Maria and the recovery efforts arising from it. But it is of interest (at least to me) and illustrates the difficulties of a one size fits all approach to regulations.

President Trump signed the so-called Farm Bill last week. One provision bans cock fighting in the US and its territories. Cock fighters here are livid, and promise they will take their sport underground.

Cock fighting is actually a pretty big business here. There are 70 cock fighting arenas around the island. One estimate suggests the industry generates $18 million annually, and is responsible for 117,000 direct and indirect jobs.

I wonder how one takes cock fighting underground. Do you create make-shift arenas in the mountains? Will they be close to the lechoneras? That would make for a nice day – watch (and bet) on cock fights, and then eat barbecue.

I’ve never been to a cock fight. Maybe I’ve missed my chance. I was in a bar one night and watched some cock fights on television. They were less bloody that I would have thought. When one bird established an advantage, the handler of the losing bird removed his animal from the ring. So it was not a fight to the death.

That I was in a bar, drinking beer and watching televised cock fights, probably shows just how much I have fallen. But its been a fun ride.