Culebra: $2.3 million in rent while the emergency plant sleeps

On April 26, 2018, Istra Pacheco reported for CPI that in Culebra an emergency generation project — three turbines with 6 MW capacity, enough for the island municipality and, with surplus, for Vieques — had been stalled four years with less than 10% of the work pending, steps from city hall, while the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) kept paying for a rented generator that breaks down and is not built for intensive use.

Since 2011, PREPA has leased from Rimco an alternate generator at $27,000 a month — what a public-system teacher earns on average annually, CPI notes —. The original deal contemplated $270,000 over 10 months. Because the works remain unfinished, in a little more than seven years the corporation had already disbursed $2.3 million. Consulted engineers understand that, given how advanced the project is, the turbines could be connected with a PREPA transformer and cut that expense.

The freeze is anchored in litigation since 2014 among Masterlink (builder), Mapfre and PREPA. After Title III, PREPA asked the TPI to stay the case; Judge Aida Oquendo granted it. The dispute moved into the federal process while debts accumulate. In a written note, PREPA said that on January 11, 2018 a procurement to finish by summer 2018 was discussed.

After María, ~1,800 Culebra residents had ~12 hours of power when they connected the generator; without diesel, not even that. The only sewage pump station depends on electricity. Rental disbursement and litigation are not, by themselves, adjudicated theft.