Latest / Rich Valdés: This is America! / Interview: Dennis Gonzalez (Puerto Rico Water Crisis Explained)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: This is America. He's got the best head of hair
- 0:07Speaker 1: and podcasting. This is America with Rich Valdez.
- 0:11Speaker 2: All right, America, welcome back. It's Rich Valdez keeping your
- 0:13Speaker 2: company tonight. And I want to get into this topic
- 0:16Speaker 2: that we've been talking about. What's going on with the
- 0:18Speaker 2: access to water in Puerto Rico. Apparently it's a crisis.
- 0:22Speaker 2: I've got this article that I'm looking at in the
- 0:24Speaker 2: San Juan Star, San Juan Daily Star, and some of
- 0:28Speaker 2: what's going on is the city's deploying additional water tanker trucks,
- 0:32Speaker 2: operating fixed water distribution sites and stolen portable restrooms in
- 0:37Speaker 2: Old San Juan and coordinating all of this with public
- 0:39Speaker 2: agencies and municipalities. And I said, you know what, I
- 0:42Speaker 2: got to get in touch with somebody who regularly deals
- 0:45Speaker 2: with the mayors of various municipalities, understands public health like
- 0:49Speaker 2: very few others do. And that's Dennis Gonzalez. Dennis Gonzalez
- 0:53Speaker 2: is a good friend of the program, but he's also
- 0:56Speaker 2: an expert when it comes to public health and all
- 0:58Speaker 2: things Puerto Rico, having served in the Puerto Rico Federal
- 1:02Speaker 2: Affairs Department, working in the New Jersey State government, as
- 1:07Speaker 2: well as spending more than two decades in the United
- 1:11Speaker 2: States federal government at the Department of Health at the
- 1:13Speaker 2: behest of President Trump at the time, staying on board
- 1:17Speaker 2: through multiple administrations, including President Trump most recently both Trump terms,
- 1:22Speaker 2: and his work beneath the Secretary Kennedy Dennis Gonzalez, welcome back.
- 1:26Speaker 1: Thank you, Rich. It's nice to be back. By the way,
- 1:30Speaker 1: I started under President Bush.
- 1:31Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I didn't say that. I thought that's
- 1:33Speaker 3: what I said. You said, President Trump, President Bush back
- 1:36Speaker 3: in two thousand and four, right.
- 1:38Speaker 1: Yeah, two thousand and four. Of course I was much
- 1:41Speaker 1: much younger than than my age would Yeah. Yes, but no,
- 1:51Speaker 1: it's great to be to be on with you and
- 1:54Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about this crisis. In fact,
- 1:57Speaker 1: it's such a big crisis that the governor had to
- 1:59Speaker 1: actively the national Guard.
- 2:01Speaker 3: Wow. Well, talk to me about the origin of the crisis.
- 2:03Speaker 2: Where is this coming from, Why is it happening, Why
- 2:06Speaker 2: all of a sudden is there a water problem? From
- 2:10Speaker 2: what I understand, there were some inspections of certain pipes
- 2:14Speaker 2: that were overlooked for a certain amount of time.
- 2:16Speaker 3: Bring us up to speed.
- 2:17Speaker 1: The most important thing to acknowledge is that Puerto Rico
- 2:20Speaker 1: does not have a lack of water problem. That would
- 2:24Speaker 1: be ironic for an island right surrounded by water to
- 2:27Speaker 1: surrounded by water to have a lack of water problem.
- 2:32Speaker 1: The problem that Puerto Rico has is that the infrastructure
- 2:38Speaker 1: is so old. We're talking decades, so it's old infrastructure.
- 2:45Speaker 1: Lack of maintenance. Be it because they just didn't have
- 2:51Speaker 1: the money at the time, or they chose to utilize
- 2:56Speaker 1: what money they should have used to repair and to maintain,
- 3:01Speaker 1: they use it for other things. And then you know,
- 3:04Speaker 1: successive governors would just kick the can down the proverbial
- 3:08Speaker 1: kick the can down the road. Unfortunately, there is no
- 3:12Speaker 1: more road to kick the can down. UH. So right now,
- 3:18Speaker 1: all these old pumps and pipes are breaking breaking down. UH.
- 3:26Speaker 1: And the Triple A which is the water authority Triple
- 3:31Speaker 1: AIA is their Spanish acronym Ria auad canta ridados. You know,
- 3:39Speaker 1: they're they're they're doing the best they can, but it's
- 3:43Speaker 1: it's a herculean task to try to keep these pipes
- 3:47Speaker 1: and these pumps working uh and provide water at the
- 3:51Speaker 1: same time. Especially you know, the biggest problem right now
- 3:53Speaker 1: is in the the metropolitan areas the urban areas with
- 3:57Speaker 1: the large populations, you know, and Juan Guaanawu Bayamon. I
- 4:03Speaker 1: mean right there alone, you have close to a million people. Uh,
- 4:06Speaker 1: and that's where the biggest problem is. In the country.
- 4:09Speaker 1: They do have a you know, a water access problem,
- 4:13Speaker 1: but you know they're more uh, they're able because they're
- 4:18Speaker 1: in the country, able to uh to deal with the
- 4:21Speaker 1: with with the issue better than an urban setting. So
- 4:25Speaker 1: you have hospitals in the San Juan area metropolitan area,
- 4:28Speaker 1: you have hotels, uh, you have you know, all the
- 4:33Speaker 1: major universities. Uh and you know, close to a million
- 4:37Speaker 1: people living close to one another without you know, with
- 4:41Speaker 1: uh and I and I wouldn't say that they don't
- 4:44Speaker 1: have water. Uh. They do. It's just it it shuts
- 4:50Speaker 1: down every now and then. You know, they they can
- 4:52Speaker 1: go for a day without water, maybe two days, a
- 4:55Speaker 1: few hours without water. And the mayors are doing the
- 4:59Speaker 1: best they can. They under stand. Juan is actually uh
- 5:03Speaker 1: taking a big lead on this and they're providing you know,
- 5:07Speaker 1: portable water. They're transporting water in and uh, you know,
- 5:12Speaker 1: the priority right of course other hospitals, I know, the
- 5:16Speaker 1: hotels is because they have the resources.
- 5:19Speaker 4: Uh.
- 5:19Speaker 1: You know, a lot of them are are are dealing
- 5:22Speaker 1: with the issue internally. Uh, but you know, it's a
- 5:25Speaker 1: big problem, especially when you have you know, Puerto Rico's
- 5:28Speaker 1: trying to rebuild its tourism after COVID, uh, and it's
- 5:34Speaker 1: done a great job. I mean, they've done a great
- 5:36Speaker 1: job and a lot of you know, thousands and thousands
- 5:39Speaker 1: of tourists are coming in yearly. But it's you know,
- 5:42Speaker 1: it's it's hard for hotels to you know, serve these
- 5:48Speaker 1: tourists if they have no water, by the way, And
- 5:51Speaker 1: that's not to even mention the electrical problem.
- 5:56Speaker 2: That old I understand, and I guess a two part
- 5:58Speaker 2: thing here, right. Number one is this infrastructure issue is
- 6:04Speaker 2: an ongoing one. We've seen it with the electrical grid,
- 6:06Speaker 2: right and the current administration, President Trump's administration has just
- 6:10Speaker 2: given an enormous amount of money to Governor Gonzales Cologne
- 6:13Speaker 2: and she I believe has deployed it effectively in pretty
- 6:17Speaker 2: much solving the problem with the blackouts of jagone.
- 6:20Speaker 3: And I think that's a great step.
- 6:22Speaker 2: It's not a complete revamp of the grid, but they
- 6:26Speaker 2: seem to be doing well. But having known that this
- 6:29Speaker 2: infrastructure was problematic and crumbling and you know, because of
- 6:34Speaker 2: corruption or.
- 6:35Speaker 3: A lack of or neglect or whatever it was.
- 6:39Speaker 2: Why why didn't anybody jump on top of that. She's
- 6:43Speaker 2: been there for six months, so I can't throw the
- 6:45Speaker 2: fault at her, But this has been going on for years,
- 6:49Speaker 2: Like why has everybody ignored their water.
- 6:52Speaker 1: System because they thought that it would never catch up
- 6:55Speaker 1: to them. They thought, you know.
- 6:57Speaker 3: Or let the next guy take care of it.
- 6:59Speaker 1: Yeah, let the next guy or girl take care of it.
- 7:03Speaker 1: I don't want to deal with this problem. And unfortunately
- 7:07Speaker 1: it has fallen on her administration, which you know, and
- 7:12Speaker 1: I'm surprised it didn't fall on a previous administration because
- 7:15Speaker 1: we're talking years of neglect. We're talking years of lack
- 7:19Speaker 1: of maintenance, pipes, pumps, equipment that are fifty sixty, seventy
- 7:27Speaker 1: up to seventy years old from the nineteen fifties. We're
- 7:30Speaker 1: talking about some of these some of these pumps, and so,
- 7:35Speaker 1: you know, it's just an ongoing problem that has become
- 7:40Speaker 1: worse with the you know, with with with this current administration.
- 7:48Speaker 1: Not their fault and not the you know, the the
- 7:50Speaker 1: president of the Triple A an engineer by the last
- 7:54Speaker 1: name Gonzales. I believe His first name is Louise. He
- 7:59Speaker 1: was at a hearing at the House of Representatives, Puerto
- 8:02Speaker 1: Rico House of Representatives last week and today he was
- 8:06Speaker 1: at a Senate hearing uh and I felt bad for
- 8:09Speaker 1: the guy. They were these representatives and senators were giving
- 8:13Speaker 1: him such a hard time. They would acknowledge, we know
- 8:17Speaker 1: it's not your fault. You know, we know that you anyway,
- 8:21Speaker 1: but we're taking that out on you anyway, because somebody's
- 8:24Speaker 1: got to be you know, someone's got to be the
- 8:26Speaker 1: fall guy, and you're it, unfortunately. But you know, they
- 8:31Speaker 1: there are some alternatives. They they they are buying equipment,
- 8:35Speaker 1: they're bringing an equipment they they also have and this
- 8:40Speaker 1: is and and there's an article actually in UH an
- 8:43Speaker 1: nobod about this. There are and it was brought up
- 8:46Speaker 1: in the Senate hearing. There equipment that was bought two
- 8:50Speaker 1: or three years ago that was never installed. So it's
- 8:54Speaker 1: just sitting in storage here exactly. It happens quite off
- 9:00Speaker 1: and unfortunately the person responsible was fired, the person who
- 9:04Speaker 1: did not do his job of you know, installing this
- 9:09Speaker 1: equipment has been fired. So you know, so there are alternatives,
- 9:14Speaker 1: there are, you know there, but it's it's just an
- 9:17Speaker 1: ongoing problem that you know, they're going to need a
- 9:20Speaker 1: vast investment of federal funds in order to fix this problem,
- 9:26Speaker 1: just like with the electrical And I'm glad you mentioned
- 9:29Speaker 1: that because it was the Trump administration that released billions
- 9:35Speaker 1: of dollars that was that were being held up by the.
- 9:39Speaker 2: 's the one that's inarguable, right, because the hurricane happened
- 9:42Speaker 2: while Trump was in office. He notoriously went and threw
- 9:45Speaker 2: bounties and and and caught, you know, a lot of
- 9:47Speaker 2: flak for it. But he was on the ground, unlike
- 9:50Speaker 2: other previous presidents who never made it to Puerto Rico
- 9:52Speaker 2: during a disaster exactly. He was gone for four years
- 9:56Speaker 2: while Biden was in office. How are you gonna tell
- 9:58Speaker 2: me that you have all these problems with the electrical
- 10:01Speaker 2: grid in Puerto Rico that date back to before Biden,
- 10:04Speaker 2: and Biden didn't fix any of them. And here we
- 10:06Speaker 2: are with Trump fixing them like picking up where he
- 10:08Speaker 2: left off four years earlier. I think that's insane.
- 10:12Speaker 1: And you know the problem is that the Biden administration
- 10:15Speaker 1: put so many restrictions on the money in terms of
- 10:20Speaker 1: the Green the New Green Deal, and they wanted Puerto
- 10:23Speaker 1: Rico to do a lot of you know, crazy environmental stuff.
- 10:27Speaker 3: Why is that a problem?
- 10:28Speaker 2: Why is that something that you know, Puerto Ricans and
- 10:31Speaker 2: people in the diaspora should be aware of. Many people
- 10:33Speaker 2: I think think, oh, the Green New Deal is fantastic,
- 10:35Speaker 2: I love AOC all lot crazy.
- 10:38Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know it would have bankrupt Puerto Rico
- 10:42Speaker 1: house because the funding that the federal government was giving
- 10:48Speaker 1: Puerto Rico would not have lasted as long as, you know,
- 10:52Speaker 1: as was needed to implement these programs. So Puerto Rico
- 10:56Speaker 1: would have an influx of dollars. But after about four
- 11:00Speaker 1: years they would have to pick up the calls of
- 11:02Speaker 1: these windmills all over the you know, the the coast,
- 11:07Speaker 1: which would have you.
- 11:09Speaker 3: Know that worked in New Jersey, right, it didn't really
- 11:11Speaker 3: work attly.
- 11:12Speaker 1: And and trump mentions about how you know, how ugly
- 11:15Speaker 1: they are. Can you imagine the coast Puerto Rico has
- 11:18Speaker 1: such beautiful beaches and to look out and and and
- 11:21Speaker 1: and and see those monstrosities, and uh and the the
- 11:26Speaker 1: governor at the time, who was a liberal Democrat, even
- 11:30Speaker 1: he said, no, you know, you can't. You know, I'm
- 11:33Speaker 1: not going to take the money. If you're going to have.
- 11:35Speaker 3: These restrictions, is uh, Governor Pierre Luisi.
- 11:39Speaker 1: Per Luisy, so even he said, no, you know, I'm
- 11:42Speaker 1: not taking it if you're going to have these mandates. Uh.
- 11:45Speaker 1: But as soon as Trump came in, Jennifer, the current
- 11:48Speaker 1: governor made the President aware of, you know, the situation,
- 11:52Speaker 1: and the President immediately ordered the you know e p
- 11:56Speaker 1: A to release the money. Uh. And and it's been released.
- 12:01Speaker 1: And you know, Puerto Rico doesn't have this mandate now
- 12:04Speaker 1: of you know, of implementing a lot of this crazy
- 12:07Speaker 1: environmental the.
- 12:08Speaker 3: Funds are no longer politicized, so to speak, exactly. All right,
- 12:12Speaker 3: Dennis Gonzalez, stay with me.
- 12:13Speaker 2: I want to come right back to this and talk
- 12:14Speaker 2: about some of the political fallout in Puerto Rico as
- 12:17Speaker 2: well as what the potential solutions to this water crisis
- 12:20Speaker 2: might be. Am goes, We're coming right back with Dennis E. Gonzalez,
- 12:24Speaker 2: former executive officer in the United States Department of Health.
- 12:27Speaker 3: Keep it locked right here.
- 12:29Speaker 1: This is America.
- 12:43Speaker 2: The forty fifth President Donald Trump thinks it's an honor
- 12:47Speaker 2: to speak with Rich Valdez.
- 12:49Speaker 1: Very good. The honor is all yours.
- 12:57Speaker 2: Conservative talk with a dash of so for now, here's
- 13:01Speaker 2: Rich Valdez.
- 13:04Speaker 3: All right, Imdia, welcome back. Here we go.
- 13:06Speaker 2: We're doing it again. Dennis Gonzalez still here. He didn't
- 13:08Speaker 2: leave or happy about that? And Dennis Gonzalez, we're talking
- 13:12Speaker 2: about Puerto Rico. We're talking about the water crisis. What's
- 13:15Speaker 2: next on the agenda? Now that we know it's a problem,
- 13:19Speaker 2: We know that the infrastructure was ignored, we know that
- 13:22Speaker 2: there were some political problems. The Trump administration cut the
- 13:25Speaker 2: red tape to get them the money for the electrical grid.
- 13:29Speaker 2: What's the solution to this? Is it more money? And
- 13:31Speaker 2: wouldn't statehood fix this?
- 13:33Speaker 3: In many ways?
- 13:35Speaker 1: No? No, no statehood. And you know how I feel
- 13:39Speaker 1: about statehood. No, statehood would not fix this problem because
- 13:44Speaker 1: it's a problem caused by incompetence, by mismanagement, by a
- 13:48Speaker 1: lack of vision. And you know that doesn't come automatically
- 13:51Speaker 1: with statehood. So even though statehood may have provided some
- 13:56Speaker 1: funds that Puerto Rico currently doesn't have, it probably would
- 14:00Speaker 1: have been worse because previous administrations would have had more money. Exactly.
- 14:07Speaker 1: But you know, this is a combination of there there
- 14:10Speaker 1: has to be better planning and the the new director
- 14:13Speaker 1: of Triple a this is.
- 14:15Speaker 3: The aqueduct authority and what else?
- 14:18Speaker 1: Uh? And sewage in English is sewach, but in Spanish
- 14:22Speaker 1: is anti, which is the sewage park. He's as an engineer,
- 14:29Speaker 1: very smart. He's new on the job less than a year.
- 14:33Speaker 1: So he's got a nice five year, five year and
- 14:37Speaker 1: ten year plan which they're they're they're implementing now with
- 14:42Speaker 1: a new team, a very company and new team of
- 14:45Speaker 1: uh of engineers and and experts in that area. The
- 14:50Speaker 1: governor is has reached out to the federal government, to
- 14:53Speaker 1: the President and other agencies for additional funding. Hopefully that'll
- 14:58Speaker 1: be uh, you know, that'll be made available. Maybe Congress
- 15:01Speaker 1: can provide some uh special funding. Uh. And then there's
- 15:06Speaker 1: a uh uh you know that there has to be
- 15:10Speaker 1: a private public partnership, you know, the the the private
- 15:15Speaker 1: industry in Puerto Rico needs to be more involved in this,
- 15:19Speaker 1: uh and provide you know, additional funding because they're just
- 15:21Speaker 1: as as as effected as residents are.
- 15:25Speaker 2: You say, like bigger companies, I guess like Pfizer or
- 15:27Speaker 2: some of the hotel chains or some of the people
- 15:30Speaker 2: making money.
- 15:32Speaker 1: Exactly who make money off of Puerto Rico, who you
- 15:36Speaker 1: know to you know, to step up and help. But
- 15:41Speaker 1: the the problem is that you know, this this problem
- 15:43Speaker 1: wasn't created overnight, uh, and it's not going to be
- 15:46Speaker 1: fixed overnight. This is going to take uh you know,
- 15:50Speaker 1: it's a process. One of the good things about this
- 15:53Speaker 1: crisis is that, you know, finally, because it happened, everyone
- 15:58Speaker 1: now is acknowledging we have a serious problem that we
- 16:01Speaker 1: can't kick down the road anymore. We have to take
- 16:04Speaker 1: care of it. So, you know, in that sense, it's
- 16:06Speaker 1: in a way, it's good that it happened now what
- 16:10Speaker 1: it did, and you know, let's just see the the
- 16:14Speaker 1: you know, how the next couple of years will will
- 16:18Speaker 1: play out. The immediate problem. They seem to be able
- 16:22Speaker 1: to have that under control. But the the the the
- 16:25Speaker 1: issue here is that unfortunately, most Puerto Ricans are going
- 16:28Speaker 1: to be inconvenience you know there. So that's why the
- 16:32Speaker 1: you know, the the Triple A has a very good
- 16:34Speaker 1: educational program advising residents to store water, you know, key ward,
- 16:41Speaker 1: especially for bathroom purposes because that you don't need you
- 16:45Speaker 1: know that you can use uh what they call dirty water,
- 16:51Speaker 1: and uh, you know, to just make sure you store water,
- 16:56Speaker 1: have a drinking water available and also the municipal and
- 17:01Speaker 1: and this is very important because the mayors are stepping
- 17:04Speaker 1: up big time and they're providing their residents with with
- 17:09Speaker 1: drinking water.
- 17:10Speaker 3: I guess these are from the municipal reserves.
- 17:13Speaker 1: These are from municipal reserves. Yeah, well, some municipalities can't
- 17:17Speaker 1: afford it, so the state has to or the Commonwealth
- 17:21Speaker 1: has to step in, but most of them are. Yes,
- 17:24Speaker 1: it's from municipal and and you know, then there's also
- 17:29Speaker 1: there are some projects in the works that I think
- 17:31Speaker 1: might be able to to help that. In fact, I'm
- 17:37Speaker 1: actually involved with one and hopefully, you know, it'll be
- 17:42Speaker 1: available within a month or two.
- 17:44Speaker 3: How so, what capacity can it help? Are they going
- 17:47Speaker 3: to get them the water? Are they going to repair
- 17:48Speaker 3: the infrastructure?
- 17:49Speaker 1: It'll it'll it'll make it easier to access portable water.
- 17:53Speaker 1: It's not going to solve the infrastructure problem or the
- 17:56Speaker 1: maintenance problem, but at least will help solve the access
- 18:00Speaker 1: to water for residents and institutions, hospitals and schools, hotels,
- 18:08Speaker 1: so you know, at least it'll facilitate that process. While
- 18:13Speaker 1: that people will.
- 18:14Speaker 2: Like water tankers, well, I can't go into too much
- 18:20Speaker 2: detail because then I'll be I'll be giving away some
- 18:23Speaker 2: information that I'm not authorized yet to get to give away.
- 18:27Speaker 1: But I promise that when we're ready to roll out,
- 18:31Speaker 1: I'll let you know and we'll come on and announce
- 18:33Speaker 1: it on your show.
- 18:35Speaker 2: Well hopefully by you know, the people of Puerto Rico
- 18:37Speaker 2: aren't starving by then, right, I mean.
- 18:40Speaker 1: Now, it'll it'll be soon, It'll be soon, it'll be
- 18:42Speaker 1: in the next month or so.
- 18:44Speaker 3: Outstanding.
- 18:45Speaker 2: Now, if people want to get a hold of you,
- 18:46Speaker 2: learn more about the stuff that you're working on and
- 18:48Speaker 2: what you're doing besides helping us and giving us some
- 18:51Speaker 2: great information, Where do they find you?
- 18:54Speaker 3: How do they get you?
- 18:55Speaker 1: Yes, they can find me on my website. So my
- 18:58Speaker 1: firm is called Gonzales Strategies and Solutions. As you know,
- 19:01Speaker 1: I retired from HHS a year ago and so I
- 19:05Speaker 1: formed this consulting firm and I do uh and I've
- 19:09Speaker 1: been doing some business in Puerto Rico and as well
- 19:12Speaker 1: as here in New Jersey and in New York.
- 19:15Speaker 4: Uh.
- 19:15Speaker 1: And the website is gons g O n z S
- 19:21Speaker 1: S for Strategies and Solutions dot com, gons s S
- 19:25Speaker 1: dot com.
- 19:26Speaker 3: G O n z s S dot com dot com.
- 19:30Speaker 2: Yes, sir, Stanny Dennis Gonzalez, I always appreciate talking to you.
- 19:33Speaker 3: You're a gentleman of scholar. Thank you, sir, Thank you Rich.
- 19:37Speaker 1: Take care of us. This is a Marion.
- 20:02Speaker 4: Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot