interviews
Becoming Prosumers Of Energy
by Ruth Santiago
February 16, 2019
This interview with Ruth Santiago, a lawyer who works with community and environmental groups in southeastern Puerto Rico, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
How do you think of energy democracy?
Energy democracy stems from the effects of energy coloniality and how certain jurisdictions have been used for extractive and exploitative practices and have become sacrifice zones for operations that create great wealth for other people over time.
How did you get involved in this work?
I got involved because of proximity. We have this saying in one of the groups I work with that says, "The environment unites us and identifies us." Not just the subtropical dry forest, and mangrove forest, and salt flats, and offshore cays, but also things that impact that environment – they also unite us and define us.
I was raised to a certain extent in Salinas. I spent my formative, adolescent years here. I was born in the South Bronx, my parents were part of the return migration to Southeastern Puerto Rico. They were from a municipality that's a little bit further east of Salinas, but very similar in many ways in terms of being part of the sugarcane monoculture, a high concentration of Afro descendent people, and real situations of struggle and survival. They decided to return to Puerto Rico when I was 12. I was raised along this Southeastern coast on and off from that time. One of my memories of growing up here as an adolescent was the Aguirre Power Complex being built in the early 70s. It was something that came to us. We did not come to the nuisances. Nuisance was built where we are.
The government of Puerto Rico tried Operation Bootstrap. Rapid industrialization and a very intense industrialization program that affected Guayama with industry coming in. First, light manufacturing and then the petrochemical industry. Then, pharmaceuticals, which are still very present. These energy plants were meant to serve more than the communities. These big, central station, fossil fuel plants were meant to provide energy to those heavy industrial uses that consumed and required a lot of energy.
What we saw in two places in Southern Puerto Rico, one here in Salinas and the other over in Guayanilla in Southwestern Puerto Rico, was how the power plants were set up very close to the petrochemical industries. We had the Phillips Puerto Rico Core Petro Refinery. Aguirre Power Complex was basically in service to that and other heavy industrial users. People were told they would get jobs. They said, "Oh, we're going to generate upwards of 2,000 jobs." People were a little skeptical and concerned about how that would impact the possibility of safe fishing at least. They were told it would not be impacted. Ultimately, what happened was Phillips did not generate anything close to 2,000 jobs and folded after a few decades, but did leave a terrible legacy of contamination to air, water, and land. People lost a lot of their ability to do the subsistence fishing even.
Aguirre Power Complex came in stages. They had two power plants in one. In 1972, they set up what was known as the Thermoelectric Plant. Again, people were told they’d get jobs from this. Again, the plant does not hire many local residents. It’s estimated there was 20-25% local hires, and the rest came from all over, anywhere but Salinas and Guayama. The same thing with the Combined Cycle units, because as I said, it's two plants in one.
At the dawn of the 20th century Puerto Rico got its first coal-burning power plant and the only coal-burning power plant that was established by AES. They're a Delaware corporation with their headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, but they do business all over the world. In November 2002, they started a brand-new, so called clean-coal power plant. It's been disastrous. Again, people were told, this is going to be beneficial in terms of stimulating the local economy and bringing down the electric rates. None of that happened. What has happened is that people are getting more and more exposed to pollutants and heavy metals and public health is being impacted.
Your work seems two-fold. One is dedicated to producing energy that is actually clean and that will not leave a legacy of toxicity. The other is in trying to invert the power structure of how that energy is produced and sold. Correct?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Can you talk about your work in both areas and how they come together?
We have done a lot of resistance work, and a lot of work to promote community alternatives on energy and sustainability issues. There's a long history of activism here. I became more active in energy issues around 2003. We started participating in the monitoring of the Aguirre Power Complex and how it impacts public health, air quality, and water. Both the sea water and the potable water. The only source of potable water here is the South Coast Aquifer. That was monitoring.
We started participating in different administrative proceedings with a group called Comite Dialogo Ambiental, the Environmental Dialogue Committee. Then we participated in proceedings against PREPA, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, but also the AES Corporation.
I've done both administrative proceedings and litigation in courts related to different impacts from those plants, and most recently a company called Excelerate Energy out of Texas was proposing to build what they call an offshore gas port and a marine natural gas pipeline, that we just defeated. It would have been running right through the middle of Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and impacted corals and seagrass beds and offshore cays and all kinds of things, and the ability of people to do subsistence fishing and ecotourism and otherwise just use and be in the environment.
We've done a huge amount of work with respect to the coal combustion residuals or coal ash waste related to the AES Power Plant. The coal ash waste is a concentration of heavy metals, toxic heavy metals that were being spread all over, and is now being accumulated at the AES Power Plant site in Guayama, Puerto Rico.
That summarizes the energy resistance work that we've done. In terms of going beyond resistance and seeking to build the solutions and the alternatives, we've done a lot of environmental education, both with Comite Dialogo Ambiental Inc. and another group, an umbrella organization called, Eco Development Initiative.
Prior to the hurricane in conjunction with IDEBAJO and a community board called Junta Comunitaria del Poblado Coqui, in Salinas, we helped start what is known as the Coqui Solar project. It's a community solar initiative. It was started with lots of workshops and consultation and collaboration with professors, like Efrain O’Neill from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, which is the technical campus here.
It was, for years, before the hurricane, quite a struggle to get people to understand, to want to move towards solar energy, especially rooftop solar communities. It was going very slow. We were certainly doing the education work and the policy work, but not getting very far on the ground in terms of actual implementation of the first steps, the pilot project for the solar community. But right after the hurricane when it became clear to, I think, everyone in Puerto Rico and probably anyone familiar with Puerto Rico that the current electric grid does not work for the people of Puerto Rico. People have been much more receptive to the Coqui Solar project and initiatives of solar communities and other alternatives to central station, fossil fuel generation.
Can you tell me how a solar community works?
That's something that's being developed right now. The way people in Coqui Solar envision it is people who have the appropriate rooftops, usually cement, which is not the case for everyone, are able to come together to think about and work on generating energy using PV systems on their rooftops. It's certainly much more than just everyone in the community having PV equipment. This is beyond just a technological solution. It's about the social agreements necessary to make that energy and that technology serve community needs in the most efficient way.
Are you seeing a lot of progress in new ways of approaching energy? From the community, but also from a municipal government level?
That's really hard to answer. Certainly with the mind set and attitudes. There's much more receptiveness to the things that we've been talking about for years about solar communities. That has definitely changed and there's a lot more interest and it's a very dynamic situation with respect to energy. After the hurricane, honestly, people realized we're basically on our own here and the government, local, federal, municipal, comes to help us. We have to figure out these solutions.
We're seeing a lot more on the formal scale. A group called ACONER, the Association of Renewable Energy Consultants and Contractors, say they're doing five to six times the number of installations they were prior to the hurricane.
Things have definitely changed. We don't know exactly how much.
There is what can be called, lip service. A lot of lip service about renewable energy which is dangerous, especially with the government of Puerto Rico. They're saying they're adopting the 100% renewable energy goal for 2050, and I think 50% by 2040, but their actions are promoting lots of natural and fracked gas. It's a tricky situation in that sense because you hear everyone saying we adopt renewable energy, but not only are they putting the money elsewhere, they're also talking about a kind of renewable energy that's not community-based,.
What we're seeing is that the government is being pushed by every energy company you can imagine. It seems everyone has an interest in doing some kind of project here, including at utility scale. That it is not the same as the kind of alternatives we're talking about in terms of solar communities.
Why is this an urgent issue for you right now?
We saw here in Puerto Rico, that it's a matter of life or death. People need to take this into their own hands, energy by and for the people. Become more than just passive consumers but actual producers of energy and control their means of production.
We knew before the hurricanes, and we experienced it afterwards. This huge and deadly hurricane was compounded by this terrible electric infrastructure system. It's not serving the people of Puerto Rico in a real way. Maybe that was the best we could do at some point, but that's no longer the situation here and we an opportunity to do things differently. To do better. Much better.
interviews
An Interview with Jee Mee Kim, Principal at HR&A Advisors
by Jee Mee Kim
May 17, 2018
This interview with Jee Mee Kim, principal at HR&A Advisors, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
What is the role of an advisory firm in relation to government agencies, city planning, and architects? How do you fall in to that mix?
Our work is really focused on helping cities. Either at the level of a private developer or a land owner trying to figure out what they should build on their site or helping the mayor of the city determine how to create an economic revitalization strategy that will bring jobs and reinvigorate downtowns and position them for the next economy. So, it really varies.
We also have a lot of open space and transit projects. For open space projects in particular, we help clients think through creating a design that is respectful of the urban context and supports their vision and goals? We help clients think of ways to pay for upfront costs of construction and ongoing maintenance, often through real estate as a vehicle for funding.
We also help clients think through the political and community buy-in needed for a project of scale and impact . It boils down to bringing all of those different pieces and perspectives together to create and help shepherd a project along that both satisfies the public goals as well as private interest.
Which projects do you see as a passion?
I've been exposed to a lot of places that are not big cities. I've been a planner for almost 20 years and spent most of my time in New York. Recently I started to get projects in the Midwest. I've been spending a lot of time in Indiana which is having a bit of an economic boom. For example, Indianapolis is really thriving: Salesforce just located its second headquarters there.
There are so many small cities across the US that are thriving and doing really innovation, interesting things. And some of these cities are former Rust Belt cities that are reinventing themselves. As New Yorkers, big city dwellers, we tend to think we’re the center of the universe
These places that are in the middle of cornfields that have traditionally been very auto-centric. Maybe have a small Main Street, but these places are largely single detached homes with the yard and garage.
If they want to entice young people, professionals, and if they want to grow their population, they need to create places that are like the neighborhoods of New York.
As a consultant, I have the privilege of being able to travel across the country and see so many different types of projects. I love being able to share what I see and learn with my clients all over the country and even now in Saudi Arabia.
We keep hearing that young, expanding families are choosing to move out of New York to other cities, rather than to the suburbs.
I'm totally seeing that. I think places like Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, are realizing they have competitive edge because the quality of life is still pretty good. But the housing costs and the cost of living are so much lower.
They're trying to figure out, how do we create these amenitized communities that can really attract people who once lived in New York or Chicago or LA, and entice them to come to their cities? They're really making investments in their downtowns, parks, and waterfronts. That's really cool.
How do you see this playing out as a planner? What are your biggest concerns and hopes?
I think there's a running debate. I was just at a planning conference, and I was on a couple of panels talking about the future with autonomous vehicles.
The other scenario is that because you have broader and cheaper accessibility to AV technology, people will want to live even further out. We'll see greater sprawl. We'll see more cars and more driving.
Obviously, it's unknown right now. What I think is really positive is the move towards creating these downtowns. It's really heartening because a lot of these places, especially the Main Streets that we're looking at, those Main Street retailers have suffered over the past 30 years. The discussion you hear a lot is there's still a future for brick and mortar retail because people want to go to a store where they can have an experience. I think of Warby Parker, that revolutionized how you purchase glasses. I was in a Warby Parker and I said, "there's never a crowd like this at a LensCrafters."
I think that's what cities are embracing now, that they have assets they can take advantage of. I think on the optimistic side, with more people living in cities instead of living in these big sprawling suburbs, where you're driving everywhere, land value is tied to walkability. There are clear statistics that having access to transit, parks, and bikeable, pedestrian friendly streets, actually increases property values. It's this virtual cycle of what makes a great place.
That's heartening.
But the suburban revolution, is it really over? No, the suburbs are actually trying to figure out what to do now. How do we become relevant again?
What are your thoughts on loneliness? When you're driving your car alone there's loneliness, highways, loneliness, shopping online, loneliness. We're craving human interaction, and I wonder if this psychology factors into your work.
How people are experiencing technology is changing, social norms are changing, and so many people work from home. They work these off hours, and somebody could have made the case, well, we won't need offices anymore. But WeWork spaces and coworking spaces are so popular. People are willing to pay money to be surrounded by other people, even if they have nothing to do with the business that they're in. Maybe it is the loneliness. Being at home and working all day in your pajamas isn't all that interesting.
Secondly, people still thrive on the social interaction and the bumping into each other and sharing ideas and this notion of the agglomeration. There's a reason why institutions and hospitals are clustered together. Because of that bumping into each other.
As planners we always think about those spaces. There's a reason why public plazas are so popular. There's a reason why people are craving sidewalks, and bike lanes, and nice parks.
It's intrinsic to the human condition. Cars and the highway revolution took some of that away. There's still a place for it, I'm not going talk about it as someone who wants that one-acre lot with a yard. We should still provide options. I think if we can create better cities, it's going go a long way for everyone.
You're creating more vehicle miles, more travel - there's just more of an impact. Whereas you add a 10-story, 20-story tower in Manhattan, most of those people are going take transit or walk or bike.
In a past job, I worked on the Barclays Center Arena. People were freaking out. I worked on the transportation side and said, "well, you're putting an arena up. It's like Madison Square Garden on top of one of the best served transit hubs in the city." It's probably unprecedented to have an arena so well-served by transit. Would you rather have it here, over in some less dense location, where you're going have to create all this economic activity? We can guarantee a lot of people who come are not going to come by car.
Where does community come into that?
Well, that's the thing about planners, and this is where we can get more on the fuzzy side because so much of the work we do has to do with community engagement. In some cases, it's not just about notifying people that some project is happening. I would say 80% of the projects I do, there is some form of robust community engagement where you're getting people's feedback. I think the multidisciplinary folks I work with, generally are very attuned to recognizing the history of the community and recognizing the different tensions and dynamics of a place. What you're getting at is how do you deal when a neighborhood changes? When a neighborhood increases in value? Are you displacing people? What happens to the folks who can no longer afford to live there?
We've been spending more time in recent years, really thinking about how you do inclusive development and inclusive planning. How do you create more opportunities for affordable housing? How do you mitigate the impacts of just creating a place and only thinking about space? You have to think about the people. That is part and parcel of all of the projects we work on. How do you make sure that the economic and social benefits of a new investment, of a new project, of a new building, don't just serve one group? Especially in many communities, you have these historical neighborhoods that have always been underserved. How do you make sure those benefits occur to those folks?
What's one piece of technology you're really excited about that you think it going have a big impact on city planning?
I've learned a lot about autonomous vehicles recently. I think transportation has informed the way our cities look, has informed the way our communities look. I think we take so much transportation related stuff for granted.
The way we move is so important. New York is such an exciting place because it's easy to get from point A to B, barring New York City traffic issues. With new transportation coming online, it's going to change the way our places look. It's going to change behaviors. It's going to change economy. There's a lot of talk about what happens when trucks become autonomous? What happens to all those truck drivers? It has this ripple effect, and I don't think we really figured that out.
How did you come to this profession? What's your background?
Some people are fascinated with their cities as children, that's what they do. I always liked to draw. I went to school, and I got a BFA in Painting. I painted landscapes. I loved that. And then I got an American Studies degree at the same time, and I did a lot of research on immigration and cities. And then, when I was an undergrad, I got tired of naval gazing. That's what I called it. I got tired of being an artist. I became really active doing community organizing work, mostly in New York's Chinatown, doing tenant organizing, vendor organizing, youth development.
As I was working on a volunteer basis and having other jobs, I thought I should go to planning school because that's going make me be a better organizer. I felt like there were certain things we wanted from the city, but I didn't understand how you get to the actual implementation. When I went to planning school, I was set in my ways. I'm going to be in the nonprofit grassroots sector forever, and I graduated and I needed a job. And there was a small company called Sam Schwartz Engineering, and I thought I would stay there for a year because I needed work.
They had a marketing position. I didn't know anything about the business of consulting. I didn't know what marking did. I didn't know what engineers did. I just took the job. And then about 14 years later, I decided to leave.
I did all sorts of work from doing land use approvals in the city, environmental review, transportation planning projects, to building up a great network of people around me. And then I came to HR&A. A firm I worked with a lot in the past. I was always fascinated by economic development and real estate, and more recently on issues of resilience and dealing with the impact of climate change. So, I ended up here. It's just an interesting career, because you really do get to do so many different things, meet so many different people, and go to so many different communities.
As a consultant, I would say consulting is not for everyone. It can be a little crazy, and also, it's really a business, right? There are some down cycles that you have to muddle through, but then there's also intense moments where you get 10 jobs at once. I find it exciting because I don't think I could work on the same project for four years. A lot of learning, and I really like that.