At The Environment's Expense

            All political and social issues aside, if the Via Verde is approved it will greatly change the island’s ecosystems, especially those water related. 

            Neftali Garcia Martinez is an expert on environmental and social issues in Puerto Rico whose environmental consulting firm was originally retained by the government to evaluate and suggest modifications to the Via Verde project and its environmental impact statement. 

            He eventually defected from the project because he felt there were too many contradictions and significant differences for him to work under good conscience.  Since then, he has become an independent consultant on Via Verde, often in opposition to it. 

Neftali Garcia Martinez

            Crossing creeks and rivers over and underground increases the risk of water pollution due to sediments, he said, pointing out the pipeline would cross at least three major rivers in more than one place.

            The Rio Grande de Arecibo is the source of approximately 100 million gallons of water a day to an impound in the valley that goes to the “super aqueduct.”  This in turn supplies water to a majority of the metropolitan area in San Juan.

            “They would be endangering the water quality of the river, the intake and the operation of the purification plant and increasing the cost treatment of this water — especially during periods of intense rainfall,” he added.

            Garcia-Martinez is most concerned about the section that will run along Route 10 between Utuado and Arecibo because it is prone to landslides and known to have many sinkholes.

            According to him, 14 sinkholes were filled during construction of the highway in 1996.  Sinkholes act as natural water disposal systems from the surface to underground areas and the modification or elimination of these could lead to new sinkholes and underground erosion of the filled ones.

            “If you reopen a sinkhole or have an explosion that creates a new one you could be polluting the water because of the large amounts of chemicals resulting from the deposition and large amounts of soil and sub soil would be moving into the underground systems,” he said.  “These things have not been evaluated.”

            “By drilling you could be affecting water quality because some of that material could move into the sinkholes.  And there is no way — no way — of determining the location of a sinkhole unless you do very sophisticated geophysical studies that have not been done by PREPA or by the government.”

            “There will be surprises if they build this gasoduct in this area of the karstic region, I don’t have any doubt about that.”

            Arturo Massol Deya, president of the Board of Directors and spokesperson for the Scientific and Technical Commission at Casa Pueblo, also feels very strongly about the impact that the gas pipe will have on the underground water systems.  He shares his thoughts below.