EPA head Michael Regan tours Puerto Rico sites facing water and coal pollution
EPA Administrator Michael Regan is in the Puerto Rico to see sites in the U.S. territory impacted by pollution in waterways and coal-producing plants.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Norma Quiñones spent four years without running water after Hurricane Maria destroyed the well that she and dozens of neighbors depend on in their community deep in the mountains of western Puerto Rico.
Last Christmas, crews installed a new well, but the water is not treated, so Quiñones is forced to drive 45 minutes into town to buy nearly 100 bottles of water every week for her family.
“It’s been years of suffering,” she said.
A school nurse, the mother of two hopes their situation and others like it across the U.S. territory will change with the official visit this week of Michael Regan, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
He is expected to tour several poor communities on the island as part of a U.S. initiative dubbed “Journey to Justice” to learn how pollution has affected them.
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