3rd municipal summit scheduled for March
By The Star Staff
Loíza Mayor Julia Nazario Fuentes presented an update earlier this week on the coastal erosion mitigation work being done in the northeastern coastal municipality.
“Coastal erosion is mainly caused by climate change, a significant variation in climate when comparing long periods of time, which may be decades or more,” the mayor said Monday. “For example, the average temperature of the 1950s compared to the average temperature of the 1990s. This increase is linked to the process of industrialization, which started more than a century ago and, in particular, to the burning of ever-increasing amounts of oil, coal and the felling of forests.
“In Loíza we have been suffering from this for several years now with greater intensity. We notice it in the way in which the sea is ‘eating away’ at the coast, as fishermen and residents alike point out.”
Nazario Fuentes, who holds a doctorate degree in professional counseling, said the public policy of her administration is to firmly recognize the preeminence of science.
“As mayor, I promoted the holding of the first Municipal Summit on Coastal Erosion in March 2023, with the active participation of Resident Commissioner and Governor-elect Jenniffer González, who brought with her the Norwegian ambassador to the United States, Anniken Ramberg Krutnes, an expert in maritime and Arctic law,” she said.
“Then we held the second edition of the Coastal Erosion Summit in April 2024, because we are the fourth most affected municipality,” Nazario Fuentes said. “There, experts, researchers and academics discussed projects underway, as well as the risks and challenges posed by the erosion of our coasts.”
The Third Coastal Erosion Summit is already scheduled for Wednesday, March 19, 2025.
The mayor added that together with state and federal entities they raised the need to accelerate concrete actions to mitigate the damage to coastal communities.
“Going from theory to practice was the mission, because time is passing,” she said. “Specifically, given the advance of coastal erosion on the beach in front of the Los Lucas community, in full coordination with the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, we had to resort to covering the most affected area with stones, in an attempt to stop, at least in a temporary way, the encroachment of the sea that causes the loss of life and property.”
“We know that this is not the first option, but it is an option; it was the fastest [remedy], and we could afford it, to save the road that gives access to the community and peace of mind to families who lived in fear of the force of the sea every time there were strong waves,” Nazario Fuentes said.
“The stone cladding work done in the Los Lucas sector is the third [project] that our municipality has carried out to address the problem of coastal erosion,” she added.
The first project was undertaken about a year ago in Parceles Suárez, where the United States Army Corps of Engineers had already lined 1,050 linear feet with stones and it was necessary to continue that work to save the sanitary water system that was on the verge of collapsing, as well as 14 homes that were in danger.
The second stone cladding project was executed this year on a section of the PR-965 highway, facing the sea, the mayor noted.
“There the road was collapsing, since the sinkhole was so deep that if we didn’t do something, the road would be lost in the next storm surge, leaving area residents without access to their homes,” Nazario Fuentes said. “The Department of Transportation and Public Works came, assessed the situation and provided the money for the project.”
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