“El Chuchin” podría ir a la cárcel
El caso está relacionado con la facturación y cobro de dietas legislativas en días que no estaba laborando
El exsenador muestra la cicatriz de la cirugía de corazón abierto a la que fue sometido recientemente. EL VOCERO / Willín Rodríguez
Foto EL VOCERO/ Willín Rodríguez
El exsenador novoprogresista Antonio (El Chuchin) Soto Díaz se expone a cumplir cárcel, de resultar convicto de los cargos de apropiación ilegal agravada y falsedad ideológica, luego de que la jueza Ladi Buono determinó causa para su arresto, ayer, en el Centro Judicial de San Juan.
El exlegislador por Guayama tuvo que pagar $1,300 de fianza, a razón de $50 por cada uno de los 26 cargos.
El caso está relacionado con la reclamación y cobro de dietas legislativas en días que no estaba laborando por encontrarse de viaje fuera de la jurisdicción de Puerto Rico, según las acusaciones.
El Fiscal Especial Independiente (FEI), Emilio E. Arill, fue quien presentó dichos cargos contra el exlegislador. La vista preliminar fue pautada para el 26 de junio.
Preocupado por su salud
Mientras esperaba para completar el trámite de su fianza, Soto aseguró que es inocente y expresó que más allá de las acusaciones, le preocupa su salud, ya que fue sometido a una cirugía de corazón abierto recientemente. El legislador, quien vestía una guayabera blanca, mostró la cicatriz que tiene en el pecho.
Mientras esperaba para completar el trámite de su fianza, Soto aseguró que es inocente y expresó que más allá de las acusaciones, le preocupa su salud, ya que fue sometido a una cirugía de corazón abierto recientemente. El legislador, quien vestía una guayabera blanca, mostró la cicatriz que tiene en el pecho.
Por su parte, su abogada Griselle Hernández también dio fe de su inocencia, pero no descartó negociar con el Departamento de Justicia. Criticó la radicación de cargos y el momento en que se hizo, ya que el referido al Panel del Fiscal Especial Independiente (FEI) estuvo en la oficina del exsecretario de Justicia, Guillermo Somoza, más de dos años, hasta el 12 de diciembre, días antes de culminar su mandato.
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Acquisition expands protected land in Reserva Natural Corredor Ecologico del Noreste
June 13, 2013
NOAA's Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program helped acquire more than 87 acres of critical coastal habitat in Puerto Rico, that will serve to protect a wetlands, mangroves and beaches that are are also nesting grounds for endangered sea turtles.
Download here (Credit: USFWS)
A NOAA grant of $1 million has helped the territory of Puerto Rico complete the acquisition of Dos Mares, an 87-acre parcel that includes wetlands, forested wetlands, and a coastal mangrove forest.
Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) provided $2 million in matching funds for the acquisition. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contributed $500,000 to the purchase. and the Trust for Public Land also contributed other costs related to the purchase.
The grant comes from a fiscal year 2010 grant competition held by NOAA’s Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program (CELCP).
The acquisition of the Dos Mares parcel completes the overall San Miguel Phase III CELCP project, which included the previous purchase of a 117-acre parcel. Both properties are located within Puerto Rico’s Reserva Natural Corredor Ecológico del Noreste (Northeast Ecological Corridor Reserve), an ecologically diverse mosaic of coastal habitats including coral reefs, inter-tidal areas, wetlands, forests, mangroves, and beaches. The reserve is home to more than 800 species of flora and fauna and its pristine beaches are a popular nesting area for endangered leatherback and hawksbill turtles. Currently about 65 percent of the reserve’s 3,000 acres are in public ownership.
Map of NOAA's Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program project area along the coast of Puerto Rico.
Download here (Credit: Google Earth)
“The Northeast Ecological Corridor is an area of high priority and importance for us. The acquisition of these lands guarantees the long-term protection of this ecologically magnificent area,” said Irma Pagán, sub-secretary of Puerto Rico DNER. “This reserve is unique because the driving force for protecting it and maintaining its natural integrity has been the community and their grass roots commitment and efforts. Partnerships with agencies like NOAA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been vital in moving forward with these efforts.”
“This NOAA conservation grant program is one of America’s best investments because it leverages funds from federal, state and private partners to acquire and protect acres of critical coastal habitat that help coastal communities and ecosystems become more resilient to climate change and human impacts,” said Margaret Davidson, acting director of NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management. “We are pleased to have contributed to the protection of this critical habitat in Puerto Rico.”
The long-term protection of the Dos Mares and San Miguel properties also complements the efforts ofNOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program to manage and protect coral reefs within the reserve. The program is currently supporting the development of a watershed plan for Rio Fajardo and an integrated marine management plan with other partners, including DNER.
NOAA’s CELCP, established by Congress in 2002 to advance the objectives of the Coastal Zone Management Act, has protected nearly 100,000 acres of critical coastal and estuarine lands in partnership with federal, state, territorial and local government agencies and private organizations.
NOAA’s CELCP, established by Congress in 2002 to advance the objectives of the Coastal Zone Management Act, has protected nearly 100,000 acres of critical coastal and estuarine lands in partnership with federal, state, territorial and local government agencies and private organizations.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter and our other social media channels.
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(Credit: Shutterstock)
Puerto Ricans will soon be turning their trash into renewable energy. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency
announced
its final approval of an air permit for a 77 megawatt EfW plant, owned by Energy Answers International, a first for the U.S. island territory.
The $650 million facility, which will be built in three years in the town of Arecibo, will create thousands of direct and indirect induced jobs, and turn more than 2,100 tons of garbage a day into renewable electricity for more than 76,000 homes on the island. Creating domestic renewable energy is a major necessity since Puerto Rico’s electricity is overwhelmingly derived from imported petroleum, natural gas, and coal.
Six public hearing sessions were held since May 2012, and over 3,000 public comments had beenreviewed by the EPA. And while the comment period is open for this issued permit, Energy Answers has gone through a long and rigorous review process and there should be no objections that delay the project from moving forward.
Here are five reasons why energy from waste is a great opportunity for Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States:
Energy from waste reduces greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change
According to the EPA, for every ton of garbage processed at an EfW facility, approximately one ton of emitted carbon-dioxide equivalent in the atmosphere is prevented. This is because the trash burned at an EfW facility doesn’t generate methane, as it would at a landfill; the metals that would have been sent to the landfill are recycled instead of thrown out; and the electricity generated offsets the greenhouse gases that would otherwise have been generated from coal and natural gas plants.
Furthermore, EPA scientists concluded that sending waste to EfW facilities is the better than sending to garbage landfills with optimum conditions for capturing methane and turning it into electricity because these landfills will generate two to six times more greenhouse gases than EfW plants.
Energy from waste increases recycling rates
Communities can have both EfW and recycling strategies that are compatible. In fact, communities using EfW technology have an aggregate recycling rate above the national average. A 2009 studyexamined EfW facilities in the U.S. and found that communities using EfW have a 33 percent recycling rate. Puerto Rico currently has an 11 percent recycling rate. It is important to note then that the EfW facility in Arecibo will be the island’s largest recycling plant.
Energy from waste produces renewable energy
Puerto Rico is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels for electricity. According to the EIA, 68 percent of the island’s electricity comes from petroleum, 16 percent from natural gas, and 15 percent from coal, and the remaining one percent of electricity comes from hydropower. While onshore and offshore wind, solar, and tidal energy must be developed on the island, EfW should also be a vital source of electricity to free Puerto Ricans from imported dirty energy.
Unlike other types of renewable energy sources, EfW is considered a base load power that operates 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. This means that EfW can pair nicely with wind and solar energy and provide electricity to the grid when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.
Energy from waste can save local governments money
Energy from waste can save local governments money
Hauling trash to landfills is expensive for many cities and territories. New York City, for example, paid more than $300 million last year just to transport trash to out-of-state landfills. In these cases, EfW facilities could be immediately beneficial by saving governments money while generating jobs and local revenue from an EfW facility. On a long-term economic basis, EfW facilities cost less than disposing of waste in landfills due to returns from the electricity sold and even the sale of recovered metals.
Jeremy K. O’Brien, director of applied research for the solid-waste-management advocacy organization Solid Waste Association of North America, writes that, “Over the life of the [EfW] facility, which is now confidently projected to be in the range of 40 to 50 years, a community can expect to pay significantly less for MSW disposal at a [EfW] facility than at a regional MSW landfill.”
Energy from waste is an important solution to solving landfilling issues
Energy from waste is an important solution to solving landfilling issues
Of Puerto Rico’s 32 landfills, government officials have said that only about five meet local and federal standards. This means that by 2014 the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board could close the majority of the island’s landfills causing Puerto Rico to run out of space to dispose of its trash by 2018.
Additionally, methane emissions in landfills are a problem since methane is more efficient at trapping radiation than carbon dioxide emissions. Consequently, landfills are the third-largest contributor of anthropogenic methane emissions in the U.S., accounting for 16 percent of total methane emissions as a result of human activities in 2011 and preceded only by the natural gas and agricultural sectors, respectively.
Energy from waste is a key solution for fossil fuel-dependent regions like Puerto Rico to reduce their reliance on dirty energy, cut emissions from landfills and save money — all while taking out the trash.
Matt Kasper is the Special Assistant for Energy policy at the Center for American Progress.
Matt Kasper is the Special Assistant for Energy policy at the Center for American Progress.
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – The U.S. government approved a key permit Tuesday that helps pave the way for construction of a waste-to-energy plant in Puerto Rico that local environmentalists have long opposed.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded New York-based Energy Answers International an air permit to operate a 77-megawatt facility in the northern coastal town of Arecibo. It would be the U.S. territory's largest recycling plant if approved.
Other permits are still pending for a facility that would generate enough power to serve more than 76,000 homes in five municipalities a day.
"We are very, very pleased," project director Mark Green said in a phone interview. "It is probably the most demanding of all the permits that the project needs to secure."
If approved, the $650 million facility would be built in three years, generate some 3,800 jobs and have a capacity to process more than 2,100 tons (1,900 metric tons) of garbage a day.
It's the first time a waste-to-energy facility in Puerto Rico has received such a permit, said Jose Font, the EPA director for the Caribbean. He said the agency reviewed 3,000 public comments before issuing its decision.
Members of an Arecibo-based coalition that oppose the project plan to appeal the EPA's decision, saying they are worried about contamination. The coalition has held weekly protests in front of the mayor's office for more than two years in a push to block the project.
"We feel this project is a serious threat to the health of people in Arecibo and the island," said Angel Gonzalez, a coalition member and president of the public and environmental health committee of Puerto Rico's Association of Surgeons.
The coalition recently celebrated a decision by Puerto Rico's Justice Department to annul the government's contract with Energy Answers International for legal reasons. Green, however, said that company lawyers are fighting the decision and expect to succeed.
Environmental consultant Alexis Molinares said the facility would use waste produced at home, receiving everything collected by municipal and private garbage trucks that is not recyclable. The energy created would then be sold to the state-owned power company, he said.
The EPA's announcement comes as Puerto Rico prepares to close several landfills as it runs out of space for garbage, with the island producing an estimated 10,000 tons (9,000 metric tons) of garbage a day. Puerto Rico has some 30 landfills, but government officials have said that only about five meet local and federal standards.
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MANAGUA, Nicaragua — A $40 billion plan to plow a massive rival to the Panama Canal across the middle of Nicaragua is headed for approval by the country's leftist-controlled National Assembly. It caps a lightning-fast approval process that has provoked deep skepticism among shipping experts and intense concern among environmentalists.
The assembly dominated by President Daniel Ortega's Sandinista Front is expected to vote Thursday to grant a 50-year concession for the canal to a Hong Kong-based company whose only previous experience appears to be in telecommunications.
Ortega's backers say the Chinese project will transform one of the region's poorest countries by turning a centuries-old dream of a Nicaraguan trans-ocean canal into reality, bringing tens of thousands of jobs to the country.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Federal authorities say they have recovered hundreds of pages from the wartime diary of Alfred Rosenberg, a Nazi party official and key adviser to Adolf Hitler.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department planned to join representatives of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Thursday to discuss the recovery of some 400 handwritten pages from the diary.
Rosenberg was convicted of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials after World War II and was executed in 1946.
Officials said the diary was among several documents kept by Robert M.W. Kempner, a government lawyer during the Nuremberg trials. Kempner died in 1993, and museum officials later took possession of some of his document collection. But the Rosenberg diary remained missing until recently.
Acting upon information they received last November about the diary, authorities recently seized the missing pages after locating them in upstate New York.
“The roughly 400 pages of loose-leaf paper cover the years 1936 through 1944, when Rosenberg was responsible for looting valuables in lands occupied by the Nazis and planning Nazi rule of conquered Soviet territories,” museum officials said in a Web posting Thursday. “Its discovery will undoubtedly give scholars new insight into the politics of Nazi leaders and fulfills a museum commitment to uncover evidence from perpetrators of the Holocaust.”
Authorities said the information that led to the recovery of the diary came from an art security specialist who was working for the Holocaust museum.
Officials said the diary was transferred to the Department of Homeland Security office in Wilmington. The museum’s director of applied research scholars, Jurgen Matthaus, confirmed it was the Rosenberg diary.
Rosenberg, a Nazi ideologue and propagandist, was the author of “The Myth of the Twentieth Century,” a 1930 book espousing the superiority of Aryan culture.
He later led the Nazi Party’s foreign affairs department and rose through the party hierarchy to become Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories in 1941.
“As Reich Minister, Rosenberg played a significant role in the mass murder of the Jewish people in the Occupied Eastern Territories, as well as the deportation of civilians to forced labor camps to support the German war effort,” authorities said Thursday.
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