The president of the Governing Board of the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (AAA), Héctor del Río Jiménez, resigned from his position effective immediately after the public corporation decided to implement a rationing plan for customers of the Carraízo reservoir without consulting the governing body.

“The recent decision to announce and implement a rationing plan without first consulting or discussing a matter of such magnitude with the Governing Board led me to conclude that I could no longer responsibly carry out the duties inherent in my position”, reads the letter, dated this Thursday, in which he announced his resignation to the members of the Governing Board. The resignation was submitted on Wednesday, the letter states.

The executive director of the Association of Mayors and member of the Governing Board, Verónica Rodríguez Irizarry, confirmed to this publication that the letter had been sent and stated that it took them by surprise, since they had scheduled a virtual meeting for that day.

According to the letter, Del Río Jiménez submitted his resignation on July 3, but agreed to postpone it until September 15, a date close to the end of his term in November. However, he explained that he decided to step down immediately following recent events.

“I consider it essential that the Board be able to participate fully in the Authority’s fundamental decisions, particularly those that directly affect thousands of citizens”, the letter states.

The Secretary of Public Affairs at La Fortaleza, Jean Peña Payano, stated during a press conference at La Fortaleza that he does not know whether the AAA Governing Board was consulted regarding the plan for scheduled outages, but he noted that Governor Jenniffer González has the authority to decide how to respond to the emergency.

“Here, the reality of the situation with our reservoirs was consistently explained, , and they forget that the governor, by virtue of an executive order, has the constitutional authority to determine and declare when an emergency exists and how to assist the mayors and others . He (Del Río Jiménez) may have made those statements; they are being evaluated, but the governor certainly has the constitutional authority to issue executive orders and determine how to save people’s lives and how we are going to help them with water,” the official said during the “En Récord” conference.

El Nuevo Día requested a response from the AAA, as well as from the Association and Federation of Mayors regarding the departure of the Governing Board president.

For his part, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz acknowledged that the drought is an immense challenge and that it requires “surgical” management of valves and reservoir control to address it.

“The question is whether those who have clearly been unable to handle the structural challenge will be able to handle the serious complexity brought on by the drought, when they DON’T EVEN TAKE THEIR OWN GOVERNING BOARD INTO ACCOUNT when deciding on the crisis that their ineptitude has caused!,” he asked on social media in response to the news of Del Río Jiménez’s resignation.

Puerto Rico is facing a drought caused by the intense effects of El Niño over the archipelago and the lack of rain in the region. The situation caused a rapid drop in the water level at the Carraízo reservoir, and the public utility decided to implement a 48-hour scheduled water rationing plan for the approximately 180,000 customers served by that reservoir, beginning this Friday at 6:00 a.m. The municipalities subject to this rationing are: San Juan, Trujillo Alto, Carolina, Canóvanas, Gurabo, Loíza, and Juncos.

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Journalist Génesis Ibarra Vázquez contributed to this story.

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This content was translated from Spanish to English using artificial intelligence and was reviewed by an editor before being published.