Cidra residents demand bathymetry in 90 days before the lake's first rationing since 1946

On August 11, 2026, Prensa Sin Censura reports that Comité Despertar Cidreño launched the Salvemos el Lago de Cidra campaign and a bilingual site with the reservoir's technical and legal file. Facing the possibility of a formal drinking-water rationing for the first time since 1946, the committee demands four measures and opens a signature registry. President Eliezer Colón Rivera said you cannot manage what has not been measured. The last official bottom measurement, by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2007, documented a 13.9 percent loss of original volume to sedimentation. Since then, María, Fiona, and logging in the watershed, with no new bathymetry.

The Committee estimates current loss could sit between 18 and 22 percent, and clarifies that is an extrapolation, not a measurement. The four measures: official bathymetry in 90 days, with a technical memorandum and daily disclosure of levels and withdrawals; dredging with FEMA and CDBG-DR funds, following the Carraízo precedent; an immediate moratorium on logging in the watershed until an environmental-impact study, and a review of permits on the banks; a permanent watershed-management plan in 180 days. Colón Rivera: dredging without protecting the watershed is pouring water into a broken basket.

Cidra lacks alternate sources. Groundwater contamination at the EPA Superfund site forced the AAA to close four wells between 1996 and 2000. The committee defines itself as nonpartisan, backs Mayor Delvis J. Pagán Clavijo's transparency demand, and asks that the demand translate into public data. Signatures and the file are at salvemos-el-lago-de-cidra.pplx.app and on Change.org.

On August 2, Telemundo Puerto Rico covered Cidra at operational adjustments at 400.20 meters. This note of the 11th does not rewrite that daily report: it covers the civic campaign and the 19-year gap without measuring the bottom. On August 4, NotiCel announced rationing for seven metro and eastern municipalities, not for Cidra. What remains is what Prensa Sin Censura published: 1946, 2007, 13.9 percent, 90 days.

Anyone looking for the file PDF has the URL at the foot. This is not original reporting.

Source: Prensa Sin Censura. https://prensasincensura.com/2026/08/11/a-salvar-el-lago-de-cidra/