In the aftermath of the ravages of Hurricane Maria in September 2017, the Fundación Comunitaria de Puerto Rico (FCPR) created the Water For Us. Its primary focus is to provide access to safe drinking water by strengthening community aqueducts. To achieve this, it strengthens four essential areas of community aqueducts: infrastructure, community organization, administration and compliance with regulatory agencies. One of the projects of this program - currently under development - is energy redundancy for community aqueducts. Learn more about this social justice, equity and community prosperity project.
Energy Redundancy Project for Community Aqueducts
The Energy Redundancy for Community Aqueducts project is being carried out under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Program (HMP), which is implemented through the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency (COR3).
The project will provide the communities:
- High efficiency water pumping equipment with the capacity to operate with solar energy, electricity from the Electric Energy Authority (AEE) grid or by means of an emergency generator.
- Photovoltaic equipment for solar energy generation.
- Emergency generator with integrated fuel storage tank.
This equipment will allow uninterrupted operation during emergencies, blackouts or power outages.
Project benefits
- Provides power backup systems to community aqueducts to achieve continuity of water service during emergencies.
- Reduces health risks and vulnerabilities associated with lack of potable water.
- It increases community resilience, disaster preparedness, improves access to safe drinking water and empowers communities through capacity building.
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Project phases: planning and design (phase 1) and permitting and construction (phase 2)
We are located in the Phase I. As part of this phase, we have collected information on communities and community aqueduct systems. In addition, we are carrying out the feasibility analysis to determine the optimal equipment, preliminary design and location of project components in each community.
“The experience with the project has been totally positive, you see effectiveness, that is, there have been many communications, many calls and visits to the project; and steps have been taken to move us to the next stage, and the next stage would be the construction stage.”.
“We decided to participate in the project because the board of directors is interested in moving the aqueduct to a stage of sustainability and efficiency to better serve our subscribers. And we found this project to be a very effective tool to achieve that sustainability.”.
Feliciano Santiago, administrator of the San Diego Residents Association in Coamo.
Below, images of the San Diego Residents Association aqueduct.
This first phase will also include community participation and training processes, as well as collaboration agreements between the FCPR and the communities.
For more information, please contact us at acueductoscomunitarios@fcpr.org or call 787-349-7652.
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Documents
Related information (press release) Communities formalize Puerto Rico Community Aqueduct Association to strengthen systems that provide drinking water to hundreds of thousands of families
Press release | Energy redundancy project for the island's community aqueducts gets underway
Loose-leaf :... Energy redundancy project for community aqueducts