Puerto Rico's southern region fights for cleaner air, water

SALINAS, Puerto Rico (AP) — Shuttered windows are a permanent fixture in Salinas, an industrial town on Puerto Rico’s southeast coast that is considered one of the U.S. territory’s most contaminated regions.

For years, toxic ash and noxious chemicals from coal-fired and thermoelectric power plants have enveloped this community, and residents have complained about health problems ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s.

Then last year, a bombshell: Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency traveled to Salinas to announce that the town also has one of the highest concentrations of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas, in a U.S. jurisdiction.

“We’re fighting a lot of battles,” said José Santiago, a 74-year-old retiree.

Emboldened by the attention that the federal government has put on Salinas, Santiago and others are demanding a huge clean-up and penalties for those contaminating the region.

“I will keep fighting until I die,” said Elsa Modesto, a 77-year-old retiree who has not missed a single EPA meeting since last year’s announcement. “I want to know what’s in the environment.”

Puerto Rico ranks 22nd out of 56 U.S. states and territories based on total managed waste released per square mile, at 4.2 million pounds. Six of the top 10 municipalities in that category are in Puerto Rico’s southern region, with Salinas ranked sixth, according to data obtained from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory.

Salinas also has one of the highest incidence rates of cancer in Puerto Rico, with 140 cases reported in 2019, the newest figures available from the island's Central Registry of Cancer. Salinas has a higher rate than the neighboring town of Guayama, where cases of cancer and other diseases have increased since the coal-fired power plant began operating there in 2002,...