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Puerto Ricans still desperate for water weeks after Hurricane Maria.
Half of the island’s residents have no access to clean drinking water.
Puerto Ricans Still Desperate for Water Weeks after Hurricane Maria
October 9, 2017/in Drinking Water, United States, Water News, Water Quality /by Kayla Ritter
Half of the island’s residents have no access to clean drinking water.
Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Photo by Sgt. Jose Ahiram Diaz-Ramos/PRNG-PAO)
The Rundown
Two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, islanders are still in dire need of water and other amenities such as food, fuel, and medicine. The arrival of aid to the island has been sluggish, and its delivery is being obstructed by widespread damages to infrastructure alongside downed electricity and cell service. Although the island has seen some areas of improvement—over 70 percent of supermarkets and gas stations are now operational—conditions remain grave following the worst hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 90 years.
“Well, at least the water arrived — that’s a first. That’s for today. I guess tomorrow we have to come back. The people here were waiting, and it was not coming. We were so desperate.” –Aida Nieves, a resident of Cánovanas, Puerto Rico, in reference to the arrival of aid after two weeks of waiting. Nieves received two meals and a 24-pack of bottled water to sustain her household of eight people indefinitely. Other residents of the island, especially those living in isolated inland areas, are still waiting for basic amenities.
By The Numbers
34 The latest Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rico, according to a Tuesday update by Governor Ricardo Roselló. Nineteen deaths were due to drowning, mudslides or falling objects; the rest of the deaths were caused indirectly by heart attack, suicide, or power outages that cut off oxygen or other life-saving assistance at hospitals. The Governor warned that the death toll may continue to rise.
53 percent Proportion of Puerto Ricans who do not have access to clean drinking water as of Tuesday. Many residents have resorted to fetching water from streams and rivers to meet their daily needs. In San Juan, a bottle of water reportedly costs $6.
91 percent Proportion of Puerto Rican homes and businesses that remain without power as of Wednesday. Governor Roselló expects that 75 percent will still be without electricity a month from now.
88 percent Proportion of islanders who do not have cell service as of Wednesday. A Department of Defense press release on hurricane relief efforts reported that “communications remain a challenge.” AT&T; mobile cell towers are being delivered to Puerto Rico in an effort to regain connectivity.
51 Number of Puerto Rico’s hospitals that are relying on generator power, compared to 14 hospitals with functioning electricity. A floating U.S. Navy hospital ship has arrived in San Juan to aid storm victims.
Science, Studies, And Reports
The U.S. Department of Defense is publishing daily reports on disaster relief efforts on the island. The DoD’s Wednesday update emphasized the military’s efforts to clear roads and rebuild bridges in order to distribute aid to all Puerto Rico residents. More than 10,000 DoD personnel are on the ground and eighty military aircraft are flying supplies around the island.
On The Radar
Over half of Puerto Ricans are without drinking water, and the potential for waterborne diseases is on the rise. Unfortunately, this is not the first issue Puerto Rico has had with its water supply. Even before Hurricane Maria, the island had the highest rate of drinking water violations of any state or territory. In 2015, over 60 percent of islanders got their water from sources that violated federal health standards. Crumbling infrastructure, pollution, and underinvestment are largely to blame. Now that Hurricane Maria has dealt another blow to Puerto Rico’s fragile water supply, the Puerto Rican government must commit to rebuilding water infrastructure in a sustainable way, or else water issues will continue to plague the island for decades to come.
Resources And Further Reading
After Hurricane Maria, 95 percent of Puerto Rico still without power (ABC News)
Aid Is Getting to Puerto Rico. Distributing It Remains a Challenge. (The New York Times)
Higher Puerto Rico Death Toll Reflects Survey Across Island (The New York Times)
Hurricane Maria worsens Puerto Rico’s water woes (The Hill)
Trump praises response to Puerto Rico, says crisis straining budget (Reuters)
With little food, water or power, Puerto Rico residents say ‘no one has come’ to help (ABC News)
With long lines for food, water and fuel, Puerto Ricans help each other (USA Today)
DoD Hurricane Relief (Defense.gov)
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Desperation grows in Puerto Rico’s poor communities without water or power.
The health crisis is intensifying two weeks after Hurricane Maria, and government aid is slow. 'We could see significant epidemics,' a health expert warned.
BY PHIL MCKENNA
FOLLOW @MCKENNAPR
Public health conditions are rapidly deteriorating across Puerto Rico as government agencies struggle to restore basic services such as power and clean drinking water and deliver emergency supplies two weeks after Hurricane Maria ravaged the U.S. territory. The situation is dire across much of the island but even more so for its most vulnerable, low-income minority communities.
Only about half the territory's residents had access to potable drinking water, and electricity had been restored to just 5 percent of Puerto Rico as of Tuesday, when President Donald Trump visited the capital, San Juan, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
"The sense of desperation is only growing with every passing day," said Chris Skopec, executive vice president for global health and emergency response with Project HOPE, a Millwood, Virginia-based nonprofit now working in Puerto Rico. "In these kinds of conditions, the ability for an epidemic to spread is really ripe."
In Caño Martín Peña, a densely populated community of mostly wooden homes originally built by impoverished squatters in a flood zone in the heart of San Juan, existing public health issues were exacerbated by the storm.
The community is plagued by untreated sewage that flows into the adjacent Martín Peña Channel. Before Hurricanes Irma and Maria, even moderate rainstorms would cause the debris-clogged channel to overflow, sending raw sewage into basements and causing skin rashes and asthma. Outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases dengue and Zika are common in the community of 23,000, where 25 percent of adults are unemployed and the median household income is $13,500, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.
"People are drinking whatever comes from the faucet, and it's turbid," said Lyvia Rodríguez del Valle, executive director of the Caño Martín Peña Land Trust Project Corporation, a public-private partnership working with the community. "People lost their roofs. They cannot close their doors, so we are having issues with mosquito bites and other insects, we are having plagues like rats and everything else."
Volunteers from outside aid organizations have helped clear trees and other debris from the streets, but the government response is just starting, Rodríguez del Valle said. Government officials provided an initial delivery of 60 blue tarps on Sunday to the community where 800 families lost their roofs. City garbage trucks began removing debris piles the same day.
"We have barely seen the government here," Rodríguez del Valle said.
More than 12,300 federal staff representing 36 departments and agencies are now on the ground in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands engaged in response and recovery operations, according to FEMA.
'We Could See Significant Epidemics'
Rodríguez del Valle said the mosquito bites that have been reported in Caño Martín Peña in recent days suggest diseases like dengue, Zika or chikungunya, which take several days or longer to surface after the initial bites, are on their way.
Health experts say mosquito- and water-borne diseases present a serious concern for all of Puerto Rico.
"Unless there is massive intervention to implement some type of health infrastructure, we could see significant epidemics in the coming weeks," said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
"I'm concerned about typhoid, paratyphoid and shigella [bacterial diseases that can spread through non-potable water] on the diarrheal side and the vector-borne diseases, especially dengue, because we have dengue in Puerto Rico every year anyway," Hotez said.
Twenty miles east of San Juan in Loiza, a coastal community where 65 percent of residents are black and and nearly half of residents live below the poverty level, there are already reports of diarrheal diseases.
"We are seeing increasing rates of gastrointestinal disease as there are increasing reports of people drinking river water, and otherwise unable to access clean water," Skopec, of Project HOPE, said. "It's a very bad situation and the outlook is that it's going to continue to get worse before it gets better."
Skopec, whose organization is operating a mobile clinic and conducting home visits in the town, said the exact cause of the disease is not known.
On Radio, Hospitals Beg for Fuel for Generators
South of San Juan in Salinas, a low-income community largely of African descent on the Caribbean Coast, community leaders say they have received little outside assistance.
"The hospitals are on the radio asking for diesel and fuel to run their generators," said Ruth Santiago, an environmental lawyer for Comité Diálogo Ambiental, Inc. (Environmental Dialogue) in Salinas. "Elder centers, they are asking families to pick up their relatives."
In an address in Puerto Rico on Tuesday, President Trump praised his administration's response to the storm and compared Hurricane Maria, where the early reported death toll from the hurricane was 16 people, to what he called a "real catastrophe like Katrina" where thousands died.
The governor of Puerto Rico raised the official death count to 34 after Trump left, but that, too, is likely low. Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism reported that morgues are at capacity, the official system for registering deaths is barely functioning, and the number could rise into the hundreds due to the territory's damaged health care infrastructure.
Leaving Home Behind: 'You Try to Be Strong'
Santiago has driven back and forth to San Juan four times in the past two weeks since Maria made landfall, but she said she is only starting to see military and other supply vehicles on the roads in recent days.
"I don't know why were are not getting the kinds of things that are basic necessities 13 days out from Hurricane Maria," Santiago said. "I know many people who are getting airline tickets and they are just leaving."
Airlines are now offering reduced airfares for those seeking to leave the island, though commercial flights remain limited after Maria severely damaged radar equipment at the main airport, in San Juan.
Cruise ship company Royal Caribbean International offered free passage to thousands of evacuees from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands aboard a ship that arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday.
For those who evacuate the region and those who remain, many will have to cope with mental health issues related to the storm.
Marcella Chiapperino lost her home and business in Frederiksted, St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to Hurricane Maria after both had been battered by Hurricane Irma two weeks before. Chiapperino said she had her first real night of sleep after boarding the Royal Caribbean ship last Thursday but was still haunted by nightmares. "I was woken up by a dream of this wave coming and wind and pulling me outside the window," she said. "It just sucked me out."
"You try to be strong," she said, "but I think a lot of people will have some kind of post traumatic experience from this."
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As Trump set to visit Puerto Rico, 95 percent lack power.
President Donald Trump is set to make his first visit to Puerto Rico, and is likely to face more criticism of his handling of the disaster.
* Trump due in Puerto Rico on Tuesday
* Only about 5 pct of customers have power restored
* Governor: 'There is no cash on hand' (Adds resident saying conditions slowly improving, paragraphs 6-9)
By Robin Respaut and Gabriel Stargardter
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico, Oct 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is set to make his first visit to Puerto Rico on Tuesday, two weeks after Hurricane Maria devastated the U.S. territory, and is likely to face more criticism of his handling of the disaster as the vast majority of inhabitants lack power and phone service and are scrambling for food, clean water and fuel.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz led the attack on the administration's response on Friday, criticizing an official's description of relief efforts as a "good news story" and urging Trump to act more decisively. Trump fired back at Cruz on Twitter, accusing her of "poor leadership."
It is not clear if the two will meet during Trump's visit.
"She (Cruz) has been invited to participate in the events tomorrow, and we hope those conversations will happen and that we can all work together to move forward," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters on Monday.
Trump will spend "significant time" on the island. He is due in Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet with people affected by Sunday's mass shooting.
For 72-year-old Angel Negroni of Juana Matos, the situation has begun to improve as flood waters receded from his neighborhood, located 20 minutes from San Juan.
Locals could occasionally get spotty cellular service, an improvement from the communication vacuum of days earlier. And he can trade his neighborhood's restored municipal water for ice made by a friend's generator-powered freezer.
"It's better now," said Negroni, while standing on his covered porch on Monday, cooking fish on a propane-powered camping stove. "We're OK."
At least 5.4 percent of customers in Puerto Rico had their power restored by mid-morning on Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Department, with San Juan's airport and marine terminal and several hospitals back on the power grid. It said the head of Puerto Rico's power utility expects 15 percent of electricity customers to have power restored within the next two weeks.
Mobile phone service is still elusive. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission said on Monday 88.3 percent of cellphone sites - which transmit signals to create a cellular network - were out of service, virtually unchanged from 88.8 percent on Sunday.
FEMA Administrator Brock Long on a trip to the island on Monday said things were improving with traffic moving and businesses reopening.
"I didn't see anybody in a life-threatening situation at all," he told reporters. "We have a long way to go in recovery," adding that rebuilding Puerto Rico is "going to be a Herculean effort."
GAS FLOWING
Nearly two weeks after the fiercest hurricane to hit the island in 90 years, everyday life was still severely curtailed by the destruction. The ramping up of fuel supplies should allow more Puerto Ricans to operate generators and travel more freely.
"We've been increasing the number of gas stations that are open," Governor Ricardo Rossello said at a news briefing, with more than 720 of the island's 1,100 gas stations now up and running.
Puerto Rico relies on fuel supplies shipped from the mainland United States and distribution has been disrupted by the bad state of roads.
Within the next couple of days, Rossello expects 500,000 barrels of diesel and close to 1 million barrels of gasoline to arrive on the island. All of Puerto Rico's primary ports have reopened but many still have restrictions, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
At least four tankers carrying fuel are waiting to unload with two more on the way, according to Thomson Reuters shipping data.
"The flow is coming, gasoline is getting here," Rossello said. "We have been able to reduce the time that it takes to get gasoline and diesel at different stations."
Federal and local authorities were working together to keep 50 hospitals operational and Rossello said the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort would arrive in Puerto Rico between Tuesday and Wednesday.
RUNNING OUT OF CASH
As it tries to get back on its feet, Puerto Rico is in danger of running out of cash in a matter of weeks because the economy has come to a halt in the hurricane's aftermath, Rossello told the local El Nuevo Dia newspaper in an interview published on Monday.
After filing for the largest U.S. local government bankruptcy on record in May, Puerto Rico owes about $72 billion to creditors and another $45 billion or so in pension benefits to retired workers.
What little cash it has is now being diverted to emergency response while it works to secure aid from the federal government. The grinding halt to the economy will delay a fiscal recovery plan and negotiations with creditors.
"There is no cash on hand. We have made a huge effort to get $2 billion in cash," Rossello said in the interview. "But let me tell you what $2 billion means when you have zero collection: it's basically a month government's payroll, a little bit more."
Trump's administration is preparing to ask Congress for $13 billion in aid for Puerto Rico and other areas hit by natural disasters, congressional sources said. The island's recovery will likely cost more than $30 billion.
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Florida needs to step up for Maria evacuees, activists urge.
Gov. Rick Scott reiterated Sunday that his administration is mobilizing resources to provide relief on the island and help evacuees coming to Florida.
ORLANDO -- Florida leaders need to step up immediately to prepare for perhaps hundreds of thousands of evacuees from Puerto Rico, Orlando area legislators and progressive activists declared Sunday at a news conference.
“We need to have a special session right now to deal with this crisis,” said Democratic state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith. “We need to have as a state all hands on deck to be able to deal with what is happening on the island of Puerto Rico. We cannot wait until Jan. 1.”
His colleague, Democratic state Rep. Amy Mercado, choked up as she noted that, like countless others in Florida, she family members on Puerto Rico unaccounted for 10 days after Hurricane Maria Struck, and millions of people on the island lack power and running water.
“To prepare for this influx of hundreds of thousands of Americans to Florida we believe it is vital that the state responds proactively to ease the impact on state and local governments and reduce the challenges that evacuees themselves will face,” said Mercadoo, who has urged the governor to establish relief centers to help evacuees from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Gov. Rick Scott has not responded to the request for a special session, but he reiterated Sunday that his administration is mobilizing resources to provide relief on the island and help evacuees coming to Florida.
“As Puerto Rico continues to respond to and recover from Hurricane Maria, Florida stands ready to deploy all available resources and personnel to our neighbors to help in these efforts,” he said in a statement.
“Last week, during my visit to Puerto Rico with Governor Ricardo Rosselló, I saw the complete and total devastation brought to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria. The crisis in Puerto Rico is unlike anything we have seen before and Florida is going to do everything in our power to help everyone impacted by this storm get back on their feet. I will continue to make sure that our state leaders are in contact with officials in Puerto Rico. The State of Florida stands with Puerto Rico and will keep working to make sure they have everything they need.,” Scott said.
The governor said National Guard, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Division of Emergency Management, and other state agencies are working with federal and Puerto Rican officials. Many state colleges and universities, including University of Central Florida, University of Florida, and Florida State, are waiving out-of-state tuition fees for students displaced by Maria, and disaster relief centers in Florida are in the works.
Sunday’s news conference at Iglesia Episcopal Jesus de Nazaret church was organized by Vamos4PR, an offically non-partisan group funded by Democratic-leaning unions and other organizations.
“We’re coming here today to address a huminitarian crisis. This isn’t politics. This about human life. We’re here for people,” said Father Jose Rodriguez, the church rector who said he is a Republican.
But policy is politics, and many of the myriad policies advocated by speakers Sunday to help evacuees -- restoring affordable housing funding in the state budget, expanding Medicaid, aggressively responding to climate change, allowing Puerto Rico to write off $72 billion in public debt -- are largely priorities for Democrats, not Republicans.
“Puerto Rico’s economic refugees have already been paying dearly for housing, and as we continue to see the growing impacts of climate change, a new group of climate refugees are likely to come to the mainland with even fewer resources and will face an even more difficult time locating affordable housing,” said Yulissa Arce, regional director of Organize Florida, which advocates for low- and moderate-income Floridians.
The devastation caused by Maria could have significant political repercussions in Florida, where statewide elections tend to be neck and neck. Puerto Ricans are one of the fastest growing populations in Florida and tend to lean Democrat, though both parties are courting them. Perceptions about the state’s response to Maria could be a vote driver in competitive races in 2018, including Gov. Scott’s expected campaign for U.S. Senate.
No one singled Gov. Scott out for specific criticism Sunday, but several suggested the Republican agenda in Tallahassee on issues like affordable housing and access to health insurance will come under greater scrutiny as people in need stream into Florida from Puerto Rico.
State Sen. Victor Torres, D-Orlando, said his constituents have been taken aback that President Trump attacked the Mayor of San Juan rather than simply promising her more help was on the way.
“It shows people the consequences of not voting. Elections have consequences,” he said of Trump. “And don’t forget, next year is an election for governor, senate, and other offices. People are watching and won’t forget. We won’t let them.”
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Failing Puerto Rico dam that endangers thousands not inspected since 2013.
Guajataca Dam was completed in 1927 and is considered a high hazard. Much of Puerto Rico’s dam infrastructure hasn’t been inspected in years.
Puerto Rico’s faltering Guajataca Dam was completed when Calvin Coolidge was president. It is one of 38 dams in Puerto Rico, and according to an Army Corps of Engineers inventory, every single one of them has been rated as having a “high hazard potential.”
Yet Guajataca hasn’t been inspected since 2013, according to the National Inventory of Dams, significantly longer than is ordinarily required of dams with high hazard potential.
Now the 120-foot wall of the earthen Guajataca Dam — finished by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) in 1927 — has fissures that triggered evacuation orders for thousands of people who were scrambling to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Water has been pouring out of one section of the large reservoir into small neighborhoods down in the valley.
A high hazard rating reflects the damage that could happen from a dam’s failure, and it is not a commentary on the condition of a dam. Nonetheless, one safety expert said he was surprised by the long gap between inspections at the dam.
“Since this is clearly a high hazard dam (one for which loss of life is likely if the dam were to fail), it would be typical for an inspection of some type to be done once every one or two years,” John W. France, vice president for the dams and hydropower technical practice of the engineering firm AECOM, said in an email.
Those inspections are carried out by the Puerto Rican government; 80 percent of dams in the United States are inspected by state governments.
Although France said he was not familiar with Guajataca, he said the four-year gap in inspections violates common practice in most of the United States. He said that “most state dam safety programs in the United States require a physical (visual) inspection of a high hazard dam on an annual basis.”
Yet five of PREPA’s 16 dams have not been inspected since 2013, and one has not been inspected since 2012, according to the National Inventory of Dams.
The Association of State Dam Safety Officials said in a recent report that the percentage of state inspections declined steadily from 1999 to 2015, when just 80 percent of the high hazard dams were inspected. In 2015, two of Puerto Rico’s dams were rated “poor” and four “fair,” according to the report. One was not rated at all and the rest were “satisfactory.”
The 90-year-old Guajataca Dam created a lake 2½ miles long and as much as a mile wide in the scenic northwest part of Puerto Rico. It has long been considered a recreational attraction, where people go camping, hiking and fishing alongside rain forests. Still owned by PREPA, the dam has supplied hydroelectric power, irrigation and water needs.
But little investment has gone into infrastructure in Puerto Rico, which is in bankruptcy to restructure its more than $72 billion in debt. The biggest single chunk of that debt belongs to PREPA, the bankrupt state-owned utility.
That could pose problems for the commonwealth’s dam infrastructure. Most of Puerto Rico’s dams — 26 of the 38 — date to before 1960. Six were built a century ago.
“The infrastructure in Puerto Rico is decades old,” said Miguel Soto-Class, president of the Center for a New Economy, a San Juan think tank. “That goes for water infrastructure, as well.”
Soto-Class said that some of the island’s reservoirs need dredging and therefore don’t have enough water during droughts. That would also reduce the volume of water that could be held back in a heavy rain.
The long-deferred investments make it more difficult to revamp infrastructure a bit at a time, Soto-Class said. When the water and sewer authority recently updated pipes, older pipes blew up because they couldn’t handle the additional pressure.
Another major dam owner is the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority. Its Carraizo, Carite and Rio Blanco dams for hydroelectric power and water supply haven’t been inspected since 2013, according to the National Inventory of Dams.
The Guajataca Dam is just one example of the fragile infrastructure that has collapsed — along with Puerto Rico’s entire electrical transmission grid — raising the question of whether the island can and should be rebuilt to a higher standard than it has had.
But that can’t be done by the dam owners. PREPA has about $9 billion in debt and the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority has about $4.6 billion in debt, far more than they can service without any major new project.
“We’ve been cutting corners for a long time in a lot of places,” Soto-Class said.
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US, Mexico expand pact on managing overused Colorado River.
The United States and Mexico have agreed to renew and expand a far-reaching conservation agreement that governs how they manage the overused Colorado River, which supplies water to millions of people and to farms in both nations, U.S. water district officials said.
DENVER — The United States and Mexico have agreed to renew and expand a far-reaching conservation agreement that governs how they manage the overused Colorado River, which supplies water to millions of people and to farms in both nations, U.S. water district officials said.
The agreement to be signed Wednesday calls for the U.S. to invest $31.5 million in conservation improvements in Mexico's water infrastructure to reduce losses to leaks and other problems, according to officials of U.S. water districts who have seen summaries of the agreement.
The water that the improvements save would be shared by users in both nations and by environmental restoration projects
The deal also calls on Mexico to develop specific plans for reducing consumption if the river runs too low to supply everyone's needs, said Bill Hasencamp of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies water to about 19 million people in and around Los Angeles.
Major river consumers in the U.S. would be required to agree on their own shortage plan before Mexico produces one, he said.
The deal will extend a previous agreement that both countries would share the burden of water supply cutbacks if the river runs low, Hasencamp said.
The International Boundary and Water Commission, which has members from both countries and oversees U.S.-Mexico treaties on borders and rivers, declined to release a copy of the agreement before Wednesday's signing ceremony in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Officials with the Mexican foreign ministry said in an email Tuesday they had no immediate comment, but U.S. officials who have been briefed on the details said the deal will help both sides.
"It's good news for both nations, for water users in the U.S. and Mexico," said Chuck Collum of the Central Arizona Project, another Colorado River user that will help fund the infrastructure improvements in Mexico.
The agreement provides more certainty in how the two countries will deal with the risk of a shortage and recognizes the danger the river faces, he said.
"It's an acknowledgement that the U.S. and Mexico both share risk due to a hotter and drier future," Collum said.
The Colorado River is in the midst of a prolonged regional drought, and some climate scientists have said global warming is already reducing the amount of water it carries.
A study published in February by researchers from the University of Arizona and Colorado State University said climate change could cut the river's flow by one-third by the end of the century.
The river begins in the mountains of Colorado and winds 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometres) to Mexico, although heavy use means it usually dries up before it reaches its delta on the Gulf of California where Mexico's Sonora and Baja California states meet.
Along the way, it supplies water to about 40 million people and 6,300 square miles (16,300 square kilometres) of farmland in the United States alone. Equivalent figures for Mexico weren't immediately available.
The deal being signed Wednesday, known as Minute 323, is an amendment to a 1944 U.S.-Mexico treaty that lays out how the two nations share the river. The treaty promises Mexico 1.5 million acre-feet (1.9 billion cubic meters) of water annually.
The U.S. uses the rest. The average annual flow in the river is about 16.4 million acre-feet (20 billion cubic meters), according the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the river in the United States.
One acre-foot (1,200 cubic meters) is enough to supply a typical U.S. family for a year.
The new agreement, which will be in force for nine years, does not include a repeat of the historic 2014 "pulse" that sent about 105,000 acre-feet (130 million cubic meters) of water surging into river's delta in Mexico, the U.S. water officials said.
That was an environmental experiment that brought water and life to the dried-out delta for the first time in years.
But the agreement does include up to 210,000 acre-feet (260 million cubic meters) for environmental restoration projects, according to a briefing from Southern California's Imperial Irrigation District, one of the funders of the Mexican infrastructure projects.
Details of those projects were not immediately available.
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Trump praises disaster relief in Puerto Rico, discounting complaints.
U.S. President Donald Trump praised his administration on Tuesday for “doing a really good job” with disaster relief for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, discounting complaints that aid has been slow to reach the U.S. island territory.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump praised his administration on Tuesday for “doing a really good job” with disaster relief for Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, discounting complaints that aid has been slow to reach the U.S. island territory.
Trump agreed to boost federal disaster assistance, ordering increased funding be made available to assist with debris removal and emergency protective measures. He also said he would pay a visit on Oct. 3 to Puerto Rico, as well as to the U.S. Virgin Islands, a neighboring Caribbean territory struggling to recover from two major hurricanes in a single month.
Democratic leaders in Congress and some residents in Puerto Rico have accused the Republican administration of being more sluggish in its response than it would to a disaster on the U.S. mainland, even though Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million inhabitants are U.S. citizens.
The criticism was heightened by a series of Twitter messages by Trump on Monday about hurricane damage on Puerto Rico in which he also referred to the island’s $72 billion debt crisis and bankruptcy.
“Much of the Island has been destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with,” he tweeted.
Maria roared ashore Puerto Rico last Wednesday as the most powerful hurricane to strike the island in nearly a century, knocking out the territory’s entire electrical grid, unleashing severe flooding and causing widespread heavy damage to homes and infrastructure.
The storm has claimed more than 30 lives across the Caribbean, including at least 15 in Puerto Rico.
It was the third major hurricane to hit the United States in less than a month, following Harvey in Texas and Irma, which ranked as the most powerful Atlantic storm on record before thrashing several Caribbean islands and Florida. Maria was downgraded to a tropical storm on Tuesday, far off the coast of North Carolina.
“We’ve gotten A-pluses on Texas and in Florida, and we will also on Puerto Rico,” Trump told reporters in Washington. “The difference is this is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean. It’s a big ocean, it’s a very big ocean. And we’re doing a really good job.”
Trump visited Texas and Florida after Harvey and Irma. The last Republican president, George W. Bush, faced widespread criticism for his administration’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, which killed some 1,800 people in and around New Orleans in 2005.
Bush faced particular ire for saying, at a time when the Federal Emergency Management Agency was widely seen as having fallen short in its response, that the then-FEMA head, Michael Brown, was doing a “heckuva job.”
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the island needed 1,000 to 1,500 additional security personnel and at least another 200 generators, as well as fuel for them. He urged Trump to propose an aid package to Congress in the next day or two.
“With all due respect, President Trump, relief efforts are not ‘doing well,'” Schumer said.
‘NOT PENNY-PINCHING’
White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney countered that U.S. disaster-relief spending sufficient to last through mid-October has been appropriated.
“We are picking up most of the cost right now in Puerto Rico,” he told reporters in Cleveland. “We are not penny-pinching in any fashion. We are taking care of folks.”
The administration has about $5 billion remaining in a disaster relief fund, and Congress has already approved another $7 billion in funding that will become available on Oct. 1, according to a House Appropriations Committee aide.
Six days after the storm hit, much of the island remains inaccessible, communication is difficult and fuel is in short supply.
U.S. Air Force Colonel Michael Valley, helping with the relief effort, said supplies have been flowing into the island at the rate of one airplane load per hour since Friday, but distribution remained a problem.
“The extent of the damage in the center of the island is not known yet because there are still a lot of roads that are impassable,” he said in San Juan, the capital.
About 44 percent of Puerto Rico’s population currently lacks access to clean drinking water, and the majority of the island’s 69 hospitals are without electricity or fuel needed for generators, the U.S. Defense Department said.
FEMA said that 7 million meals and 4 million liters of water were en route to the island by barge. The agency had previously shipped more than 4 million meals and 6 million liters of water to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, it said.
FEMA also has opened distribution centers in 12 cities in Puerto Rico and at 12 locations in the Virgin Islands to provide food, water and other commodities, the agency said.
Still, many residents were struggling to get basic essentials.
“We’ve not seen any help. Nobody’s been out asking what we need or that kind of thing,” said Maria Gonzalez, 74, in the Santurce district of San Juan.
Help appeared to be reaching parts of the city, she said, pointing to Condado, a tourist area powered by generators while other San Juan streets fall into darkness at dusk.
“There’s plenty of electricity over there, but there’s nothing in the poor areas,” Gonzalez said.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz strongly criticized Trump for focusing on the island’s financial woes in his tweets.
“You don’t put debt above people, you put people above debt,” she told CNN.
Officials were still taking stock of what was expected to be a months-long effort to rebuild the island’s power system, and many residents seemed resigned to a long wait for basic services to return. But few doubted the U.S. government had the ability to bring the island back to its feet quickly.
“If they wanted to fix things fast, they could do it,” said Carlos Arias, 41, as he waited in a line of people snaking around a block in San Juan to fill up a canister with gasoline. “It’s a question of will.”
(The story corrects reference to most powerful Atlantic storm on record as a description of Irma, instead of Maria, in paragraph 8)
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