The Board opens the emergency reserve of about $1,300 million for the drought

On August 5, 2026, El Nuevo Día reports that the Fiscal Oversight Board is making the government emergency reserve available for drought expenses and rationing plans. The headline speaks of about $1,300 million. The dek specifies the use: cisterns and potabilization, not patching the budget. That boundary is part of the news.

The balance, according to the newspaper, is close to $1,300 million, about 10 percent of General Fund collections. Executive Order 2026-035 covers the entire archipelago. Use remains limited to what the order describes. This magazine does not turn the 10 percent into an annual General Fund collection, nor invent how many cisterns are bought, nor add this reserve to the $127 million in EPA revolving funds that Primera Hora dates August 1 and El Nuevo Día treats as approved on August 14.

They are two pockets. The $127 million are EPA loans, with a Clean Water and Drinking Water breakdown, subject to PROMESA 207. The $1,300 million is the emergency reserve the Board opens on August 5 for what the order describes. Mixing them into a single water total would invent a figure neither of the two notes published.

The next day, August 6, El Nuevo Día covers Héctor Del Río Jiménez's resignation over the rationing of about 180,000 customers and, in another piece, the Monitor declaring extreme drought in the south. On August 13, the newspaper says that extreme drought already covers almost a fifth of the island. On August 25, from New York, Jenniffer González Colón tells El Nuevo Día the drought still does not meet a federal major disaster and speaks of $9,000 million in federal funds to rebuild water. That reconstruction figure is not the $1,300 million reserve. The layers are left.

On August 21, El Nuevo Día publishes that Pablo José Hernández Rivera and nine members of Congress ask federal Agriculture for an agricultural emergency in 29 municipalities. That letter goes to Brooke Rollins, not to the Board's reserve. On August 5 what opens is the local emergency pocket, with the order's limit. The figures are those El Nuevo Día published.

Source: El Nuevo Día. https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/notas/disponible-la-reserva-de-emergencia-gubernamental-para-atender-gastos-por-la-sequia-y-planes-de-racionamiento/