Coamo mayor opposes connecting housing development to water system that supplies parts of city

Coamo Mayor Juan Carlos García Padilla, at left

By THE STAR STAFF

Coamo Mayor Juan Carlos García Padilla urged Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) Executive President Luis Gonzalez Delgado on Tuesday to reject the proposal to connect the Jacaranda housing development in Santa Isabel to the Toa Vaca water system, which supplies parts of the Los Llanos and Santa Catalina communities in Coamo.

The mayor said that after multiple meetings and discussions with PRASA, the Municipality of Coamo remains firmly opposed to connecting the residential project to the Toa Vaca water system, as it could cause service shortages for the communities that currently depend on it.

“We are requesting that the Jacaranda development be connected to the Santa Isabel well system and not to the system that currently supplies Coamo communities,” García Padilla stated. “Our responsibility is to protect our residents’ access to drinking water and prevent an infrastructure that is already facing limitations from receiving an additional burden that would affect service.”

The mayor noted that he has been warning PRASA, the Puerto Rico Planning Board, and the Office of Permit Management since last year about the consequences of approving residential developments outside urban centers without the necessary capacity in the drinking water and electricity systems to support such growth.

“Months ago, we pointed out that hundreds of new homes were being proposed to connect to systems that are already showing signs of inadequacy,” the mayor stated in written remarks. “We warned about it then, and we reiterate it today. The water supply doesn’t increase simply by adding new customers. The reality is that the communities at the end of the systems are the first to suffer when the available capacity is no longer sufficient.”

García Padilla added that the communities of Santa Catalina and the higher areas of Los Llanos could be particularly affected due to their location within the distribution network, a situation that could worsen with the addition of new residential developments outside the originally planned service area.

“We don’t want our residents to experience what we’re seeing in various communities across the metropolitan area, where thousands of families face frequent outages, low water pressure, and difficulties accessing potable water,” he said. “It’s more responsible to prevent the problem now than to regret it later.”

The mayor added that the island needs a more aggressive public policy to rehabilitate and develop existing properties in urban centers, leveraging existing infrastructure, rather than continuing to expand development into areas where essential systems are already operating under strain.

García Padilla urged PRASA to evaluate alternatives that would allow the residential project to be served by the Santa Isabel well system.