More than 1,200 people joined this Saturday to monitor 82 bodies of water through Puerto Rico, as part of the seventeenth Water qualityan event led by the San Juan Bay Estuary.
“This year’s impressive thing is to see how citizens wrapped in the event have managed to raise awareness in their environments. It is evident through increased participation this year. Every action counts to move towards a sustainable island ”highlighted the executive director of the estuary, Brenda Torres Barreto.
“Now, the other half of the responsibility is handled by the water infrastructure. This is why I feel satisfied with the reaffirmation of the commitment we have received this year by the Government of Puerto Rico and municipalities, such as the Aqueduct and sewer authority (AAA), the Department of Natural Resources (and Environmental, DRNA) and the Municipality of Bayamón. The latter received us on the Bayamón Linear Paseo to launch this effort. This walk is a model to follow with comprehensive actions towards resilience, ”he added, in written statements.
The initiative, held every year since 2009, has the purpose of raising awareness about the importance of the Water quality and promote citizen participation. The event joins 8,000 water quality monitoring stations through all continents, as part of the World Water Quality Monitoring Daya world event that promotes monitoring and education about the water resource.
The participants had the opportunity to identify a body of water close to them, monitor it and finally provide the student with the information collected, which will be collected in a database.
This event was possible thanks to collaborators such as Environmental Ford-Donations, Earth Eco Water Challenge, DRNA, the AAA, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Municipality of Bayamón, as well as environmental and community organizations, among others, which joined the effort.
To learn more about the estuary and join as a volunteer, you can visit the Organization website and the social networks of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram under estuaries Anjuan.