The San Juan Bay Estuary Program’s
update from August 4th to August 17th, 2013 is as
follows:
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| Stormwater educational campaign-Calle Loíza-August 2013 |
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| One of the signs created as part of our stormwater workshops |
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| Participatory community mapping at the Calle Loíza Festival-August 2013 |
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| Participatory community mapping-Calle Loíza Festival 2013 |
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| Children creating educational stormwater signs for the Calle Loíza event |
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| A paint spill reached the SJBEP's oyster experiment in the Condado Lagoon through the stormwater system. |
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| Direct paint discharge to the Condado Lagoon trough the stormwater system. |
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| Our Outreach Coordinator, Gladys Rivera, received an award in Boston. MA, for her poster about the Estuary Guardians School Water Monitoring Project. |
The Governor of Puerto Rico names
Roberto Prats Palerm and Pedro Gelabert to the Management Conference of the
SJBE: We are glad to announce that
Governor Alejandro García Padilla has named lawyer and former PR Senator
Roberto Prats Palerm as the President of the Management Conference. During his tenure as Senator, Prats Palerm
promoted legislation to help low-income people and improve environmental
statues and transportation policies.
Geologist
Pedro Gelabert is a founding member of the SJBEP, and since the 1950’s has been
one of the main architects of Puerto Rico’s environmental public policy. Gelabert worked as the President of the
Environmental Quality Board, Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources,
and Director of EPA’s Caribbean Environmental Protection Division. The Governor named Gelabert as the
representative of the not-for-profit sector.
Newspaper editorial devoted to the Olive
Hotel paint spill activates PR’s media and government agencies to protect the SJBEP’s
oyster experiment at the Condado Lagoon: On August 6, 2013, the Olive Hotel, located on the fringes of the
Condado Lagoon, accidentally spilled an unknown quantity of white paint.
Through
stormwater runoff, the paint reached the area where the SJBEP is conducting an
experiment to measure how oysters can function as filters of pollutants. The community members of the area immediately
contacted our office, and the personnel of the Program mobilized to the
location.
We
want to thank the media, chiefs of government agencies, and the owners of the
hotel for their immediate reaction to help save our oyster experiment. Last Sunday, August 12, 2013, one of the main
newspapers of the Island, El Nuevo Día, devoted its Sunday editorial
column to the accident, as did writer Mayra Montero.
The
main lesson learned from this accident is the immediate connection between
pollutants and the stormwater system.
Follow the links for some of the media coverage:
El Nuevo Día editorial
and Mayra Montero’s columns:
Other
coverage:
NOAA Marine Debris Program approves
grant to the SJBEP to clean and prevent further littering in the Condado Lagoon,
in coordination with the San Juan Municipality: Even thought the Condado Lagoon looks clean and its
water clear in some areas, the bottom of the waterbody is polluted with tons of
bottles, cans, and a myriad of packaging and other waste, including car debris.
The
SJBEP hired Waste Management Specialist Cristina Ramírez to work on the
implementation of the work plan to clean the Lagoon. The San Juan Municipality is currently
identifying a working space in the Lagoon area in order to implement this
environmental program. We will keep you
informed about the new developments of this great initiative.
The Estuary Guardians Program wins EPA
national award in Boston, MA: Our
Outreach Coordinator, Gladys Rivera, won the People’s Choice Award at the 2013
EPA Community Involvement Training Conference which took place in Boston, MA,
from July 30 to August 1, 2013. The
project that received the recognition is entitled “Estuary Guardian: Monitoring
as a Social Tool to Reestablish Community’s Bond with Urban Water.” Gladys presented the project through a poster
that was accepted as part of the conference.
President of the Senate and the community
participate in stormwater education and creative mapping session of the SJBE as
part of the Calle Loíza Festival: This
August 4, 2013, our Education Manager, Javier Cardona, and the Special
Assistant to the Executive Director, Geographer Roberto Morales, coordinated a successful
special environmental education initiative that was part of the 2013 Calle
Loíza Festival.
Over
50 children and their parents participated in the creation of stormwater
educational signs made with recyclable materials to identify the stormwater
system of the Loíza Street and its connection with the nearby beaches and coastline. Morales developed a social research project on
the links between emotions and geography.
The preliminary results of the investigation demonstrate that raw sewage
discharges, abandoned buildings, and pollution constitute some of the main
concerns of the community within the North East Santurce neighborhoods. One special guest that attended the workshop
was the President of the Senate, Hon. Eduardo Bhatia.
SJBEP and the G-8 celebrate National
Night Out at the Martín Peña Channel: The
National Night Out is a community awareness event to recover public spaces, especially
those identified with crime and social tensions. On August 6, 2013, the SJBEP and the G-8
screened a special function of the Estuary’s Cinema, and presented the
documentary “Agua Mala” as well as other environmental short films.
