Puerto Rico’s Water Crisis Stretches into Another Month

Current conditions: Wildfire smoke tinted the skies orange across the Northeastern United States, rendering the air on New York’s Long Island thick and hazy all afternoon • London is a balmy 83 degrees Fahrenheit today, but new research shows that the number of days topping 86 degrees has quadrupled since the 1980s • Chile declared a state of emergency across 10 regions ahead of a series of major storms.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Oil traders issue a stark warning as Trump ramps up Iran War

The resumption of fighting between the United States and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz could hammer energy markets harder than the previous phase of the conflict, as the crude stockpiles governments tapped at a record volumes to avert the worst economic impact of the war are now depleted. That’s the warning oil traders issued to the Financial Times on Wednesday. “We’ve burned through all of the buffers we had. Everything,” one trader said. “All of that’s now gone.” The gloomy assessment came as The Wall Street Journal reported that President Donald Trump has weighed expanding the U.S. military operation in Iran.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration, meanwhile, released its short-term energy outlook for July, in which the agency estimated that global crude oil inventories declined by 5.1 million barrels per day throughout the second quarter of this year, marking a decline above the seasonal average for that period over the past five years. Even before the conflict picked up again, my colleague Matthew Zeitlin wrote that it would be a long time before the Strait of Hormuz returned to normal operations. Don’t hold your breath.

2. Puerto Rico’s water crisis stretches into another month

A boy fills a container with drinking water from a tanker truck at an emergency water distribution point amid ongoing water shortages in San Juan.Ricardo ARDUENGO / AFP via Getty Images

In the steamy final weeks of August 2019, I found myself on Puerto Rico’s southeast shores. Set against the backdrop of the island’s central mountain range with streams that quench its underground aquifers, this sun-soaked coastal plain was coveted by Spanish and American sugar barons for centuries before transforming into a hub for U.S. agribusiness in recent decades. By the time I arrived, the aquifer was facing threats on multiple fronts. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority — known as PRASA or AAA in its Spanish acronym — was losing, by some estimates, more than half the water in its system to leakage, forcing the state-owned utility to draw more from aquifers. With the island’s electrical system still in tatters from Hurricane Maria and its debt at crushing levels, PRASA had little capacity to make the upgrades needed to prevent further decline. Meanwhile, local environmentalists accused regulators of providing little to no oversight of how much water industrial facilities drew from their wells. The story I ultimately reported suggested that water would follow electricity as the next major infrastructure crisis. It was just being felt first, at that time, in places like the town of Salinas, where people like Manases Vega — then a 65-year-old with a chronic respiratory illness — lost access to water every two weeks due to rationing.

Now the crisis has indeed spread. Last month, I told you when Governor Jenniffer González Colón called in the National Guard to help after a major water pipeline cracked. More than a month later, El Nuevo Día reported that the ongoing shortages are forcing residents to pay up to $700 per week for water. Businesses are paying up to $3,500 per week to buy enough bottles to cook, clean, and flush toilets. Hotels are spending up to $100,000, the island’s newspaper of record also reported last week. “We were without water for more than 50 days here on Calle Loíza,” Jonathan Collazo, a restaurant owner, said, referring to the popular street with bars and restaurants in Santurce, roughly the equivalent of San Juan’s Williamsburg.

3. Hungary’s ex-foreign minister quits parliament to join BYD

For 12 years, Péter Szijjártó served as Hungary’s top diplomat in the government of former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. On Wednesday, he announced his resignation from parliament to take a job at China’s top electric automaker. “I have received an extremely honorable offer to fill an international position from one of the world’s leading companies,” he wrote in a post on Facebook. “BYD is one of the greatest automotive success stories of the past twenty years and is also the world’s leading manufacturer of new energy vehicles.” His critics may quibble with the word “honorable.” Szijjártó established his relationship with the company while serving as foreign minister, and his government had planned to provide subsidies to BYD to open its new hub in Budapest. Just a few months ago, CNBC reported that the European Union was investigating labor violations at BYD’s factory in Szeged. Last month, the Hungarian investigative site 444 reported that a worker died at the plant.

Sign up to receive Heatmap AM in your inbox every morning:

4. Energy Department licenses a seawater uranium project

The Department of Energy has granted the startup SuperCritical Materials an exclusive license to commercialize patented technology to extract uranium from seawater. The deal requires the Austin-based company to manufacture and deploy the technology in the U.S. before exporting to allied nations, according to The Northern Miner. The concept of drawing uranium out of seawater has existed for years, an idea that took root before the vast new reserves of the metal were discovered on land. But seawater extraction remained on the agenda in countries without access to mines. When I visited the Philippines in 2024 to report on the country’s nuclear ambitions, I met scientists at the state atomic energy agency who were researching methods to secure a uranium supply from the water. But Ted Garrish, the assistant U.S. secretary of nuclear energy, said “this technology represents a potentially significant contribution to America’s long-term fuel security and industrial competitiveness.”

5. Michigan veers from New York on data centers

On Tuesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order enacting the nation’s first statewide moratorium on data centers. On Wednesday, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a fellow Democrat, staked out a different position, unveiling what E&E News called a “package of 10 commitments to ensure companies pay the full cost of construction, operation, power, and water” from new data centers for artificial intelligence. “On my watch, Michiganders have been protected from any rate increases due to data center development and we adopted some of the strongest protections for people and communities, but we need to do more,” Whitmer said in a statement.

“It’s been exciting to see different states — and, to be blunt, to see Democratic-governed states, particularly those in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic — try to take on the data center boom. It’s good to see them test out ideas, solve problems through legislation, and harness this moment for the public good without strangling the buildout entirely,” my colleague Robinson Meyer wrote yesterday. “For too long, blue states have leaned into a particular economic model, one in which states want to attract varying forms of development but in fact succeed only in creating new suburbs, office buildings, and warehouses.”

THE KICKER

It is, according to Bloomberg, “the plastic America loves to hate.” But a new industry group wants to save polystyrene by convincing lawmakers to stop targeting styrofoam. Formed by 17 companies that produce the material, the Polystyrene Recycling Alliance aims to forestall bans by making sure styrofoam is treated as recyclable under state packaging laws. “There’s the narrative that polystyrene is not part of the circular future,” Justin Riney, chair of the alliance and an executive at manufacturer Ineos Styrolutions, told the newswire. “We are adamant that we have the data, and we know that our products are part of the future.”