MERRY CHRISTMAS, PUERTO RICO AND MIAMI
December 9th 2007 16:38
Both places at first glance from your approaching airliner seem to be idyllic tropical paradises. But both are in a state of critical environmental collapse. The Loiza River in Puerto Rico winds down from a hilly country side and on through a big coconut palm plantation. When I was a very young man you could ride your bicycle from Isla Verde to the mouth of the river and board the hand-pulled ferry which could take a couple of cars, bikes and foot passengers to the other side of the river and right on to the town of Loiza. The old ferry is long gone. I don’t have the precise date when it was discountinued. It was obsolete the moment they built their superbridge. Besides, the river is nothing like what I remembered on my visits from 1960 to 1968 when I was discharged from military service, some time after the Tet offensive. I left the service in 1968 when America became obsessed with the Vietnam question. It was sort of like now with the Iraq question, but Americans were not nice about it and did not in fact see members of the military as any kind of heroes. Anyway, if you get near the river and look up stream you will see every imaginable piece of trash that you can find at the dump, including animal carcasses. Puerto Rico is ranked as the best place to live in Latin America, being under the U.S. Flag and all. Puerto Ricans are fast learners because now Puerto Rico is 2nd only to America itself in per capita production of garbage at 1,420 pounds per person a year. Just like South Florida, Puerto Rico works very hard at keeping out of the news the fact that minimally treated human effluent is pumped into the ocean. Just like Florida, a few weeks ago, Puerto Rico was forced to temporarily close six beaches because of coliform bacteria. Puerto Rico’s rapid development has also starred in polluting half of its surface water and 99% of its reservoirs.
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