Water Issues in Puerto Rico: How Communities Create Solutions

The destructive path of Hurricane María in 2017 left many communities in Puerto Rico without reliable access to clean running water. The hurricane exposed a systemic lack of investment in water system infrastructure, particularly in rural communities that cannot be connected to the main water supply. Although donations from nonprofits and some government intervention helped rebuild some of these systems, many underserved communities still go without reliable access to clean water.

This has been perpetuated by a historic lack of action from the governments of both the U.S. and Puerto Rico, as well as federal grant cancellations for environmental justice projects. As a result, unpaid community members often volunteer to maintain water systems, doing the work out of passion and care for their neighbors despite having limited financial resources.

But people are working to find and create solutions. Community members and organizations in Puerto Rico are working with the research program AguaClara Reach to bring a pilot water treatment system to Puerto Rico. The system’s design would provide sustainable technology that communities can continue to use, making the treatment technology, and therefore clean water, reliably accessible. This system, the first of its kind in Puerto Rico, could potentially be a solution for water issues in communities across the archipelago.

Sarah Mattalian reports on the installation of the pilot system and the technology that posed a solution for systemic water issues. This project highlights the grassroots action that made the installation—and solutions—possible when all other authorities failed to step in.