"Job well done! Fish Window Cleaning is professional from start to finish. “My house shook!” said Lillian Melero, a 60-year-old retiree who recalled that the explosion broke a neighbor’s windows.Click here to learn more about Semper Fi & America's Fund. Steri-Tech reported two explosions - one in October and the other earlier this month - that frightened residents and raised concerns about whether any toxic chemicals were released. The EPA says short-term exposure to the gas does not appear to pose risks, but long-term or lifetime exposure can cause lymphoma, breast cancer and other illnesses. It is a colorless, flammable gas that has a slightly sweet odor and is used to clean about 20 billion sterile medical devices a year. Salinas also is home to Steri-Tech, the company that uses ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment. Since then, legislators have approved a law that requires the company to provide access for testing. Scientists doing that study were forced to collect samples from individual homes because the government’s water and sewer company at the time blocked access to aquifers that residents in the southeast rely on, environmental activist Víctor Alvarado said. The level of contamination has prompted the EPA for the first time to test air and groundwater in Puerto Rico’s southeast region, with Administrator Michael Regan saying that low-income communities and communities of color have suffered unjustly for decades. “Medical doctors who work in the southeast area of Puerto Rico have noticed that since the AES Corporation began operating in Guayama, there has been a significant increase in diseases of the respiratory tract, urinary tract, as well as a significant increase in diagnoses of various types of cancer,” he testified at one hearing. Gerson Jiménez, director of the Menonite Hospital who has testified in public hearings and called for the closure of the plant. Salinas has a higher rate than the neighboring town of Guayama, where cases of cancer and other diseases have increased since the coal-fired power plant began operating there in 2002, said Dr. Salinas also has one of the highest incidence rates of cancer in Puerto Rico, with 140 cases reported in 2019, the newest figures available from the island’s Central Registry of Cancer. Six of the top 10 municipalities in that category are in Puerto Rico’s southern region, with Salinas ranked sixth, according to data obtained from the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory. states and territories based on total managed waste released per square mile, at 4.2 million pounds. “I want to know what’s in the environment.” “I will keep fighting until I die,” said Elsa Modesto, a 77-year-old retiree who has not missed a single EPA meeting since last year’s announcement. “We’re fighting a lot of battles,” said José Santiago, a 74-year-old retiree.Įmboldened by the attention that the federal government has put on Salinas, Santiago and others are demanding a huge clean-up and penalties for those contaminating the region. Environmental Protection Agency traveled to Salinas to announce that the town also has one of the highest concentrations of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing gas, in a U.S. Then last year, a bombshell: Officials with the U.S. territory’s most contaminated regions.įor years, toxic ash and noxious chemicals from coal-fired and thermoelectric power plants have enveloped this community, and residents have complained about health problems ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s. SALINAS, Puerto Rico (AP) - Shuttered windows are a permanent fixture in Salinas, an industrial town on Puerto Rico’s southeast coast that is considered one of the U.S.
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