Toxic Drinking Water in Puerto Rico

PRRS

4 cover

water, pollution, petrochemical political economy

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/9/toxic_coal_ash_being_dumped_in <https://www.democracynow.org/2018/3/9/toxic_coal_ash_being_dumped_in>

"Well, what we’re seeing in Puerto Rico at the moment is really the culmination of a long-standing drinking water crisis that has in part been contributed to by these coal ash sites and by these plentiful Superfund sites. Even before Maria, Puerto Ricans had the worst drinking water quality of any state or territory in the nation: 99.5 percent of Puerto Ricans were served by drinking water in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Around 70 percent of Puerto Ricans were served by water sources that violated health base standards, so that had unlawfully high levels of contaminants or weren’t being treated in accordance with federal standards. Those contaminants included coliform bacteria and disinfection byproducts, but also the kind of volatile organic compounds that you would expect to see from leaching from these kind of Superfund sites and coal ash deposits."