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Capitolio de Puerto Rico, the legislative assembly  History. The word most times reminiscent of yellowing pages of books, oft-forgotten expanses of time. In the alleys of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the hands of the clock stand still in a time and era when pace of life was a gingerly trod cobblestone street, and aromas of pungent spices mixed with the subtle breeze of the Atlantic Ocean. San Juan, one of the oldest cities in the continental United States, is tucked away from the bustling Condado district; high-rises, stores, and shops, clubs and shiny, swanky cars transition to an elevation, where the old city appears, the tar of the road giving way to the cobblestone streets. This old city is a mix of 400 years of urban development, which has a confluence of varied eras of Spanish influence - Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture - which encapsulates arches, drones and ornamentation on the facades of the structures. Known as La Ciudad Amurallada (Walled City), San Juan has one ...

Archivo CPI photo:  Humacao's landfill   By Omar Alfonso On a summer day in 2015, the elevator doors at the headquarters of the Puerto Rico Electric and Power Authority (PREPA) in Santurce opened. Off the elevator walked out Manuel Mata, President of AES Puerto Rico, a company that since 2002 has sold 454 Megawatts of electricity to the public corporation derived from its coal fuel plant in Guayama. The annual invoice for the deal exceeds $300 million. Without attracting attention and protected from public scrutiny, Mata walked up to the executive offices and signed a legal document. It dealt with an amendment in the contract made between the multinational company and PREPA: a clause that prohibited the company from disposing its waste derived from the burning of the coal on any part of the island. A few days later, on July 17, 2015, the agreement was completed. Once signed by Carlos Castro Montalvo, the former Interim Director of PREPA, the rules of the game ch...

View of AES from barrio Jobos in Guayama, Puerto Rico By Omar Alfonso | Center for Investigative Journalism They went looking for Víctor Rodríguez Aguirre to his home in the Santa Ana sector of barrio Jobos Guayama. He was a critical player. The young father was resident in one of the most densely populated zones near the AES carbon plant and knew what it was like to live in poverty. He became a local sports leader who strived to help his community move forward. He focused particularly on young students with no job prospects on the horizon. His desire for progress and his influence in the neighborhood were key to convince others to believe in the promise that AES would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the construction of a power generating plant that would bring wages and prosperity to the region. "They took us to Hartford, Connecticut, to see the AES facilities," Rodríguez Aguirre recalled sitting in a chair in the balcony of his home....

By Omar Alfonso Eight years have passed but Amparo Andújar Maldonado does not forget. She lost her first child while she was approaching the fifth month of her pregnancy. Nor does she erases from her mind giving birth to a disfigured fetus, with cranial malformation, something incomprehensible for a healthy 27 year old woman, counting with quality prenatal care. But Amparo was not alone. From 2005 to 2008, the rate of miscarriages and premature births rose suddenly in the Encantado neighborhood of Arroyo Barril, a working-class rural and coastal town, north of the Dominican Republic. An area rich in natural treasures such as the Bay of Samaná, global sanctuary for humpback whales. Amaparo’s friend, Rosa María Andújar, also fell into statistics. She gave birth to a child with exposed intestines and six fingers and toes. The newborn died not far from birth, in June 2008. Months later, another neighbor, Maribel Mercedes, gave birth to Siamese twins that also die...