Rep. Gutierrez's Remarks on Puerto Rico Natural Gas Pipeline Project

"It’s time they stop doing things the 'Via Verde' way and start doing things the right way"

(Washington, DC) – Continuing a series of speeches the Congressman has delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on the civil and human rights crisis in Puerto Rico, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) today addressed a proposed natural gas pipeline project that is being pushed by the Governor of Puerto Rico and his party.

The so-called "Via Verde" -- or "Green Way" -- is a 92 mile cross island project that has not received sufficient study or public scrutiny because it is being promoted as a response to an "energy emergency."

Rep. Gutierrez announced he has filed a series of Freedom of Information Act requests for information from all federal agencies that have addressed the project and asked the Army Corps of Engineers to

" o deny the permit request for the pipeline until experts testify, permits are applied for, community meetings are held, and environmental impact studies are done."

The following are the Congressman's remarks, delivered at approximately 10:00 a.m. ET, as prepared for delivery, REP. GUTIERREZ:

Mr. Speaker I rise today to talk once again about Puerto Rico, but this time it's a little different.

I rise to note that Governor Luis Fortuño of Puerto Rico has actually said something that I can agree with.

Speaking about a proposed gas pipeline, the Republican Governor said, “We can’t continue to depend on fossil fuels. Gasoducto is fossil fuels.”

He went on to say that “tying us down to natural gas for 30 years would be a grave mistake.”

He was referring to the construction of a natural gas pipeline on an island where the beautiful beaches, mountains and rain forests are both irreplaceable natural resources and part of the economic engine that drives tourism

-- a gas pipeline that sounds like a dubious proposition.

And I agree.

Mr. Fortuño spoke these words two years ago, as a candidate, criticizing his opponent.

Sadly, now that he is safely in office, Governor Fortuño has changed his mind.

Now, he enthusiastically supports not just gas pipelines, but a much bigger, more environmentally disruptive and more expensive pipeline.

And how the construction of this gigantic, super-sized pipeline is being handled is another reason I must speak out

-- again -- on the civil rights crisis in Puerto Rico.

The ruling party would rather people not notice that Mister Fortuño and Governor Fortuño have opposite positions on gas pipelines.

So they are working hard to move this project forward under the cover of night.

Every day – the ruling party answers this question:

If you wanted to undertake a potentially dangerous, economically dubious, environmentally disastrous and extremely unpopular project – how would you go about it?

Here’s the ruling party's answer:

You circumvent feasibility studies.

You avoid environmental impact studies.

You ignore the standard permitting and licensing procedures.

And you take every step possible to eliminate public hearings and public scrutiny.

But how do you proceed without these necessary safeguards and information?

If you are the government of Puerto Rico, and you want to build a 92 mile natural gas pipeline over the mountains; through forests, lakes and rivers; and across critical groundwater systems in Puerto Rico, you would amend a law designed to deal with natural disasters so you can bypass the normal permitting and public process.

What this ruling party does is declare an "energy emergency.”

This government’s “energy emergency” allows the pipeline to proceed

-- despite warnings from the Sierra Club, the environmental group Casa Pueblo, and even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service.

--- Despite residents’ concerns that it will be constructed near schools, churches and residential areas.

--- Despite geologists noting it is near earthquake faults and that there have been 2,500 seismic events in the last 3 years and one felt all over the island just 2 days ago.

The self-declared “energy emergency” also helps hide the fact that you’ve given a ten million dollar contract to a pal of the Governor’s who has no experience at all in constructing gas pipelines. He does, however, have experience skiing with the governor.

And maybe that’s why you run a slick, taxpayer funded PR campaign that renames the project "The Via Verde" -- "the green way."

So, instead of speaking to the huge financial, human and environmental costs -- this Orwellian ad campaign calls a gas pipeline over the mountains and through the woods a "green way." Like a lot of people, I think it would be better to name it “Green away"... a magical cleanser you apply to your forests, rivers and lakes, to make them go away...along with millions of green tax dollars.

Here’s an even more honest name for the project: the “wrong way.” Because it’s wrong to spend the people's money on a project they don’t want and hasn’t been appropriately studied, as the newspaper El Nuevo Día has shown in a series of reports. Candidate Fortuño was right. Governor Fortuño is wrong.

To shine some light on this matter, I have sent Freedom of Information Act requests to every and all federal agencies that have addressed the pipeline project.

I will release the results so that the people know who their government is meeting with, what documents exist, and what studies have been done to show the need for this project.

Furthermore, I have already urged the Army Corps of Engineers to deny the permit request for the pipeline until experts testify, permits are applied for, community meetings are held, and environmental impact studies are done.

Maybe the government can make the case for this project in the light of day.

But they shouldn’t be asking for a verdict without presenting their facts to the people first.

It’s time they stop doing things the "Via Verde" way and start doing things the right way.


Source: Douglas Rivlin (douglas.rivlin@mail.house.gov)

Puerto Rico lacks adequate place to house pre-Columbian artifacts

PONCE, Puerto Rico — The chief of the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture says the U.S. island does not have an adequate place to house indigenous artifacts.

Institute director Carmen Teresa Ruiz says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants to return dozens of ancient ceramic pieces, tools and bones to Puerto Rico but the U.S. territory is not prepared to receive them.

She said Sunday it is "a real problem" since local archaeologists and students do not have the chance to study the pre-Columbian pieces.

In 2007, the Army Corps uncovered a cache of artifacts outside the city of Ponce.

At the time, Puerto Rican archaeologists blasted the federal agency for shipping the indigenous artifacts to the U.S. for analysis.

Source: The Associated Press

Kearns: Federal grave robbing of Taino remains

by: Rick Kearns / Indian Country Today
© Indian Country Today November 23, 2007. All Rights Reserved

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its associates took ancient indigenous remains and artifacts from a newly discovered site in Puerto Rico in late October and flew them to a lab in Atlanta, Ga., for tests. There are laws in Puerto Rico prohibiting anyone from removing these kinds of materials from the island, and there are Taino people, real live human beings, who are furious over this latest episode of federal body snatching.

Probably in response to the public complaints of Puerto Rican scholars and archaeologists, the feds have promised to return everything that they have stolen, although we have to take their word for what has recently appeared as the list of items that will be returned.

As Yogi Berra once said, ''This is deja vu all over again.''

For Puerto Ricans of all kinds, especially for those of us with Taino roots - and that means most Puerto Ricans - we've heard this line before and we have no reason to believe them. On top of everything else, there is a sad echo effect at play here: It's the racist way in which the United States treats Puerto Rico and the way some officials treat Tainos or even the idea of Tainos that creates a sickening echo, one that keeps ringing in our ears and should be telling us something.

That something is to gain sovereignty for the island. It's the only way we can protect our heritage, our people and even the remains of our ancestors, as our Native cousins in North America have learned over and over again.

The series of events that lead to this latest outrage played out fairly quickly. Within the last few months, the Corps started clearing a section of southern Puerto Rico for the construction of a dam, for the purpose of preventing flooding that is all too common in that region. At some point the Corps hired New South Associates, an archaeological and historical consulting firm, to handle any potential discoveries. It has been widely known that the area north of the city of Ponce was home to some major Taino ceremonial sites; the centers at Tibes and Caguana are good examples of these highly developed community areas.

Near the end of October, a major Taino site was unearthed during the construction process. Archaeologists from both the United States and Puerto Rico are hailing it as being the best-preserved pre-Columbian site in the Caribbean, with the potential to reveal many aspects of Taino and pre-Taino life in the area, from eating habits to spiritual ceremonies. The newly discovered site has a ritual ball field (known as a batey) that measures 130 feet by 160 feet, surrounded by giant stones etched with petroglyphs, one of which portrays a masculine human figure with legs of a frog. Along with the plaza, many ceramic pieces were unearthed as well as graves of ancient peoples, some of whom were buried facedown with their legs bent at the knees.

Experts are already estimating that the site includes materials dating back as far as 600 A.D. with other items from approximately 1,500 A.D., a few years after the invaders arrived.

These facts are the only points of agreement. Otherwise, the tableau turns into a crime scene.

According to members of the General Council of Borinquen Tainos, leading Puerto Rican archaeologists and scholars from the island's Institute of Culture, the Corps and New South destroyed untold amounts of artifacts and human remains with bulldozers and backhoes. Puerto Rican archaeologists and local Taino leaders then protested these procedures, eventually embarrassing the federal grave robbers enough so that they had to halt the excavation. Sadly, the official chicanery did not stop there.

See full story at:

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096416166

Large Ancient Settlement Unearthed in Puerto Rico

Kelly Hearn
for National Geographic News

Bodies, structures, and rock art thought to belong to an indigenous pre-Columbian culture have been unearthed at an ancient settlement in Puerto Rico, officials recently announced.

Archaeologists say the complex—which dates from A.D. 600 to 1500—could be the most significant of its kind in the Caribbean.

"This is a very well preserved site," said Aida Belén Rivera-Ruiz, director of Puerto Rico's State Office of Historic Preservation.

"The site seems to show two occupations: a pre-Taino and a Taino settlement."

The Taino are thought to be a subgroup of the Arawak Indians who migrated to the Caribbean from Mexico or South America hundreds of years ago, experts say.

They were among the first tribes to encounter Europeans.

Huge Plaza

The ancient Taino settlement was discovered in southern Puerto Rico.

Archaeologists have known since 1985 that the area contained indigenous artifacts.

But the scope of the site became clear only recently, as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on a new dam meant to protect the region from flooding.

Perhaps the most significant find is a large plaza covering an area of about 130 by 160 feet (40 by 50 meters).

Rivera-Ruiz said the plaza appears to be a batey, a rectangular area around which the Taino built their settlements.

The plaza, which contains stones etched with ancient petroglyphs, might have been a court used for ceremonial rituals or ball games.

"If this information is confirmed, this would be the largest known indigenous batey in the Caribbean," Rivera-Ruiz said.

Roberto Mucaro Borrero, a representative of the United Confederation of Taino People, agreed.

The site "could be the largest ancient Taino cultural area found not only in Puerto Rico but throughout the Caribbean," Borrero said.

And petroglyphs of a masculine figure with frog legs could prove especially important in understanding the culture's roots, he added.

"They could reveal evidence of direct links between the Taino and the Mayan peoples," he said, although other experts strongly refute that the two cultures are related.

Storm of Controversy

Confusion and criticisms are already swirling amidst excitement over the findings.

Initial reports about bodies found in several graves at the site suggest that the people were buried in unique positions.

The bodies were "buried facedown with the legs bent at the knees—a style never seen before in the region," the Associated Press reported.

But Miguel Rodriguez, a member of the Puerto Rican government's archaeological council, said the burial positioning isn't unheard of in the area.

Kit Wesler, a Taino expert at Murray State University in Kentucky, also said that the "facedown position is unusual but probably not unprecedented."

Rivera-Ruiz of the state preservation office stressed that any claims about the uniqueness of the burial arrangements must await a full excavation and studies of any funerary objects.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-based New South Associates—a private archaeology company contracted by the Corps of Engineers to salvage the site—is at the center of controversy over their excavation methods.

According to AP, the company had initially been using a bulldozer that caused damage to centuries-old bones.

Members of the Taino who visited the dig on Saturday "witnessed damage to the site, particularly to some human remains and stones" that was apparently caused by a backhoe, Taino representative Borrero said.

Rodriguez was adamant that the company should be pulled off the project.

"This is a textbook case of what they shouldn't do," he said. "They are using mostly diggers and bulldozers and they must stop."

Rodriguez also accused the company of violating Puerto Rican law by failing to register artifacts it had taken off the island.

"They haven't told us anything about the materials, so they are not following the rules," he said.

An official from New South Associates said the Corps did not permit them to answer press inquiries.

But Rivera-Ruiz, of Puerto Rico's historic conservation office, defended the Corps and its contractor.

"The contractor was originally hired by the Corps of Engineers to conduct a salvage data recovery operation on a site that was essentially doomed," she said via email.

"Once preservation became an option, the scope and invasive nature of the project was shifted in favor of the more low-key, less intrusive hand excavation of already exposed features."

About 80 percent of the site will be left intact, Rivera-Ruiz added, allowing for the long-term preservation of most of the site.

She added that Puerto Rico's State Historic Preservation Office has overseen the company's operation, and the parties are complying with the law.

And Corps spokesperson David McCullough told National Geographic News via email that his agency stands behind New South Associates and is reworking its plans based on the new findings.

"When the Corps recognized the extreme significance of this site," he said, "we redesigned the parts of the dam project that would create the greatest adverse effect to the site."

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071029-puerto-rico.html

Puerto Rican archaeologists accuse U.S. Army Corps of taking artifacts without permission

The Associated Press

Puerto Rican archaeologists on Monday accused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of illegally shipping two dozen newly discovered pre-Columbian artifacts off the island without permission.

Diana Lopez, a University of Puerto Rico archaeologist, said the Army Corps should be fined for sending ceramic pieces, stone tools and bones, which may date from 600 A.D. to 1500 A.D., to Atlanta for testing without approval from a local archaeology council.

"They never told us that they were going to take those pieces," said Miguel Rodriguez, a member of the council who claimed such tests could have been done on the island.

Jose Rosado, chief of the corps' San Juan construction office, has promised that engineers will return the pieces to Puerto Rico once tests determine their origin and value. Calls and e-mails to his office went unanswered Monday.

The artifacts were discovered earlier this month when an Army Corps team began work on a dam project in southern Puerto Rico. Archaeologists said the find could shed light on most aspects of Indian life in the region, from sacred rituals to eating habits.

They called for a halt to the corps' heavy digging, which they warned could expose the pre-Colombian site to wind and rain.