NewsIsMyBusiness reported “Puerto Rico agriculture sector loses $23.5M in wake of Tropical Storm Ernesto.”
Farmers with insurance for vegetables and pineapples should file claims through the Agricultural Insurance Corp. (CSA). They can also seek assistance from the USDA’s Federal Farm Service Agency (FSA) and the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP).
“Although agriculture is once again being shaken by a storm, all available resources are being identified to assist them as soon as possible. The agricultural sector is a backbone of our economy, and we’re working for its rapid recovery,” González stated.
Knowing about the bureaucratic red tape on the island (there are outstanding claims that haven’t been fulfilled since Hurricanes Maria and Fiona), people are going to need help. Social scientist Luis Alexis Rodríguez-Cruz posted this recent update on the agriculture situation for Yale Climate Connections:
Puerto Rican farmers will replant despite Ernesto’s impacts:
“Having to see years of work on the ground is something that stirs all your senses. Moreover, a lot of money is invested. I lose my appetite. It’s like mourning,” said Marisita López Cortés, a farmer from the mountainous town of Villalba, in the south of the main island of the Puerto Rican archipelago. Those words echo the sentiments of people in the region who saw their crops on the ground, people in whose eyes the green hurt. And a large part of that green was plantain and banana crops.
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An option available for farmers is the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program administered by the Farm Service Agency of the Federal Department of Agriculture, in addition to other state and federal options. López Cortés said she has already contacted service providers to work on the applications for these programs. But many people do not have the technical or administrative resources to participate in these programs.
After Hurricane Maria, bureaucracy and the slow restoration of local infrastructure prevented a timely recovery on farms. But various grassroots groups and organizations, including government agencies themselves, have established initiatives that help people apply for these programs.
One of the grassroots groups providing community support for dealing with red tape is the Red de Apoyo Mutuo, or the Mutual Support Network of Puerto Rico. Here’s a link to their English language website.
Journalists José M. Encarnación, Eliván Martínez, and Vanessa Colón Almenas filed this story about the Ernesto aftermath for the Center for Investigative Journalism, as part of an ongoing series:
In the Dark: Puerto Rico’s Struggle to Restore Power After Storm Ernesto
The CPI contacted all 78 municipalities’ mayors to understand how they experienced the outages in their neighborhoods, given the lack of clarity from the maps provided by LUMA on its website and the vague responses from the government, which has remained hands-off in demanding accountability from the private operator.
Neither LUMA nor the Puerto Rican government has provided precise information on the energization of municipalities and the percentage of clients with service per town, as the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) used to do.
Even LUMA’s Director of Press and Digital Media, Hugo Sorrentini, told the CPI that the company lacks the ability to know the status of electrical service in each municipality. This is even though mayors and municipal staff need this information as they are the first line of response and support for citizens during emergencies.
“Right now, I don’t have the data on which municipalities might be without electrical service,” said Sorrentini.
When asked about the dozens of mayors who claimed that their municipalities were 100% without electricity, Sorrentini said it was possible that this had happened, but he insisted that LUMA could not identify which municipalities were completely blacked out. Although he acknowledged that LUMA does have this data that comes from the feeders, he assured that they do not organize it by municipality. Prepa used to update this information when there were blackouts due to emergency situations.
Puerto Rican activists here on the mainland point directly to the untenable imposition of LUMA Energy on the island.
Private electricity companies operate with zero accountability for non-compliance with minimum performance conditions
LUMA, the private consortium in charge of electricity distribution, is not capable of reliably maintaining vital electric service on the island. The most recent proof of this prior to tropical storm Ernesto occurred in June of this year, when more than 340,000 subscribers were left without electricity in the midst of a terrible heat wave. This prompted the energy regulatory body, the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau (NEPR), to demand explanations from LUMA for the 19% increase in power outages between 2023 and 2024.
And why so many outages? Laughably, LUMA says it took on the task of removing overgrown vegetation, since this is “the main cause of service interruptions in Puerto Rico,” a misleading statement according to the Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI). According to LUMA, if the foliage is not to blame, then the fauna is: mice, iguanas, cats, and monkeys are all suspected of causing the blackouts on the island. Everything except its own incompetence and negligence.
To make matters worse, the cost of electricity on the island is going up, as Coral Murphy Marcos reported for the Associated Press, back in July.
Puerto Rico approves electricity rate increase weeks after massive blackout
Puerto Ricans were hit Monday with a 4.6% increase in electricity rates through September, in a blow to 3.2 million people who struggle with chronic power outages as the U.S. territory’s grid keeps deteriorating.
For clients who consume 800 kilowatt hours, the new rate will be 23.77 cents per kwh, compared with the previous 22.72 cents, according to Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau. That’s 41% more than the average U.S. electricity rate, which is 16.88 cents per kwh, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The increase will affect 1.5 million households connected to the grid, which continues to crumble amid a lack of maintenance following Hurricane Maria in 2017. In June, a massive blackout left over 340,000 customers in San Juan and nearby cities without power during a heat wave.
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The hike comes after Luma Energy, the private company that took over from Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority in 2021, said it would suspend $65 million worth of maintenance and improvement projects on the island.
To add some perspective, look at this in the context of Puerto Rican’s poverty levels:
In 2021, the last year for which data are available, the percentage of the population of Puerto Rico living below the federal poverty level was 43%.2 Puerto Rico’s levels of poverty were three times as high as the 12.6% of the U.S. population overall that lived below the poverty level, and it was more than twice as high as those of states with the highest rates of poverty: Louisiana (18.8%), New Mexico (18.3%) and Mississippi (19.4%)
Clearly, the dysfunctional situation on the island has to go and most experts agree that the island’s system has to change, as environmental journalist Marlowe Starling wrote for Sierra Magazine in 2023: “What Would It Take to Bring Renewable, Reliable Power to Puerto Rico?”
In 2017, after accumulating $74 billion in debt, Puerto Rico filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Of that debt, nearly $10 billion was held by PREPA, which could not pay back its creditors and bondholders. The government’s plan to ensure PREPA did not incur further debt was to privatize the island’s energy system. In 2021, under the administration of Governor Pedro R. Pierluisi, Puerto Rico entered a 15-year, $1.5 billion contract with Luma Energy—a privately owned utility—to improve and operate the PREPA-owned grid. Boosters of this arrangement promised that it would save ratepayers money and improve the grid’s infrastructure, but those promises turned out to be an illusion.
Luma, a Canadian and American venture, promptly fired the majority of PREPA’s workforce—and with it, the institutional knowledge of how to run the antiquated grid. That same year, the island experienced seven times more blackouts than the total number in all 50 states. Then, in 2023, the government issued a new contract to another private company—Genera PR, a subsidiary of New Fortress Energy, a New York–based fossil fuel company—to take over energy-generation responsibilities from PREPA.
Critics of the privatization say power is nearly as unreliable now as it was during the aftermath of past hurricanes. One reason, according to Jordan Luebkemann, a senior associate attorney for Earthjustice, is that private companies aren’t beholden to voters; they’re beholden to profit. “A private utility isn’t really accountable to anybody except for whatever independent regulator is independently regulating it,” he said. The Puerto Rico Energy Bureau, he added, has regulated these entities weakly, if at all.
Puerto Rico extended a key rooftop solar policy. Then came the lawsuit.
The U.S. territory adopted a law protecting its highly successful net-metering program through 2031. Now, a federal control board is challenging that decision.
Earlier this year, Puerto Rico passed a law that extends the island’s highly successful rooftop solar program through 2031. Lawmakers and solar advocates say the measure is needed to maintain the clean energy boom that’s helping households and communities across the U.S. territory to keep the lights on during its frequent grid failures. But a powerful government entity wants to overturn that law, known as Act 10.
Last week, the Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) sued Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi in a federal district court, arguing that officials are improperly interfering with the island’s independent energy regulator. The board had previously urged the governor and lawmakers to repeal Act 10 during the most recent legislative session, which they didn’t do.
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