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Borikén Syllabus 2.0: 2026 Current Context | Water, Infrastructure, and Reciprocity

Date postedAugust 17, 2026
Conference,

As the ASHE community returns to San Juan in 2026, we do so during a period of significant water insecurity. In August, more than 180,000 residents in San Juan and surrounding municipalities were placed on rotating 48-hour water outages as severe drought lowered reservoir levels. These conditions bring a present-day climate stressor into contact with a water system shaped by aging infrastructure, pipe breaks and water loss, reservoir sedimentation, dependence on an unstable electrical grid, uneven access to backup systems, repeated disasters, fiscal constraint, and delayed modernization. Understanding the 2026 crisis therefore requires attention to the immediate drought and the longer histories through which water is stored, treated, distributed, governed, and accessed across Puerto Rico. 

Water insecurity in Puerto Rico emerges through the interaction of rainfall and drought, geography, reservoir capacity, treatment and distribution systems, electricity, maintenance, public investment, political decision-making, and household access to resources such as cisterns and filtration. These layers help us understand how a shared infrastructure disruption can produce very different experiences across communities. They also invite us to approach Puerto Rico through a framework that recognizes community knowledge, political history, and the material conditions that shape everyday access to water.

In This Section:

Why the Water System Is Vulnerable: Historical and Structural Context

Puerto Rico's public water system is highly centralized. The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (PRASA) serves roughly 97% of the population, while tens of thousands of residents—especially in rural and mountainous communities—rely on smaller community-managed or non-PRASA systems. This structure creates a series of interdependencies among treatment plants, pumps, reservoirs, transmission lines, electrical service, and distribution networks. A disruption in one part of the system can therefore travel across a much larger service area, especially when electrical outages affect pumping and treatment or when major pipelines fail.

The San Juan metropolitan area is especially dependent on reservoir storage. The Lago Loíza/Carraízo reservoir, built in the mid-twentieth century, has lost storage capacity over time because of sedimentation. U.S. Geological Survey research has documented how recurring drought and sedimentation compound one another: reduced rainfall limits inflow while accumulated sediment reduces the volume available for storage. The history of the reservoir therefore becomes part of the present experience of drought.

Distribution losses add another layer to this history. PRASA's 2023 fiscal planning reported losses of approximately 65% of the water produced through leaking pipes, overflows, and other system losses, alongside metering and revenue challenges. These losses shape how much treated water ultimately reaches households and communities. Pipe deterioration and pressure changes also affect water quality when service is interrupted and restored, making public-health guidance an important part of understanding water access during outages.

These conditions also reflect a longer fiscal and regulatory history. Federal enforcement actions required major wastewater and water-system upgrades before Hurricane María. In 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency restructured more than 200 delinquent clean-water and drinking-water revolving-fund loans totaling approximately $571 million so that Puerto Rico could regain access to infrastructure financing. Together, these histories locate the vulnerabilities exposed by María within decades of infrastructure needs, financing constraints, regulatory pressures, and uneven public investment.

Hurricanes Irma and María in 2017 intensified these existing vulnerabilities through cascading failures across water and electrical systems. Water treatment and pumping depended on an electrical grid that also collapsed, producing prolonged service interruptions in some communities. Subsequent earthquakes, Hurricane Fiona, recurring power outages, and continuing system failures have repeatedly tested the archipelago's recovery. Scholarship and community practice increasingly center resilience, decentralization, community aqueducts, renewable backup power, rainwater harvesting, and community governance as pathways for strengthening water security across Puerto Rico.

Peer-reviewed scholarship further situates infrastructure vulnerability within Puerto Rico's territorial relationship to the United States, the debt crisis, austerity, uneven federal disaster response, and longstanding environmental injustice. Decisions about public investment, debt, recovery, regulatory compliance, and the distribution of reliable infrastructure unfold within this political and economic context. Reading the technical and political histories together allows us to understand water infrastructure as both a material system and a site where questions of power, governance, and community self-determination converge.

Tourism, Water Demand, and Uneven Protection

Tourism enters this landscape as an additional source of concentrated water demand, particularly in places and seasons where visitor activity is high. International peer-reviewed research on tourism and water use shows that hotels and visitor economies draw water through guest rooms, laundry, kitchens, pools, landscaping, cleaning, food service, energy use, and other forms of consumption that extend across the tourism system. In Puerto Rico, this demand becomes especially significant during periods when drought, infrastructure failures, and electrical disruptions are already placing pressure on water access. 

In San Juan, tourism also intersects with uneven capacity to absorb and manage infrastructure disruption. Hotels and large tourism facilities may rely on cisterns, generators, contractual suppliers, and tanker deliveries to maintain operations during outages. Many households have far fewer resources available to buffer the same disruption. As a result, a visitor may experience uninterrupted showers, air conditioning, laundry service, and restaurant service while nearby residents organize daily routines around the timing of water restoration, transportation to distribution sites, the cost of purchased water, and the labor of storing and rationing household supplies.

The June 2026 outages made this uneven capacity especially visible. The Puerto Rico Tourism Company reported that its emergency operation supplied more than 557,000 gallons of potable water to affected lodgings and tourism establishments in only a few days so that visitor-facing operations could continue. During the same period, residents in affected communities also relied on emergency tanker deliveries while managing the physical, financial, and logistical burdens of prolonged outages. This contrast helps us see how institutions with greater financial and logistical capacity can create continuity for visitors even as scarcity remains part of everyday life beyond the spaces where visitors gather.

The visitor economy also redistributes the labor and cost of infrastructure disruption. Hotel workers, restaurant workers, maintenance crews, drivers, and other service workers may arrive at work after managing outages in their own homes. Businesses may purchase tanker water in order to remain open, while public agencies and private suppliers respond simultaneously to residential, institutional, and tourism-related demand. These conditions invite us to ask whose labor makes visitor comfort possible, whose resources absorb the cost of continuity, and how conference attendees can move through Puerto Rico with greater awareness of the systems and people sustaining their experience.

Tourism also sustains jobs, businesses, and livelihoods across Puerto Rico. Responsible visiting, therefore, asks us to participate in the local economy with intention and accountability. For ASHE members, this means using water and electricity with care, directing spending toward Puerto Rican-owned businesses, respecting workers and community spaces, following local guidance, supporting Puerto Rican-led organizations, and recognizing land, water, energy, and labor as relationships that carry responsibilities.

What Responsible Visiting Requires During the Water Crisis

Responsible conservation begins with care for hydration, hygiene, disability access, medical needs, and public health. Within those needs, attendees can reduce discretionary consumption and practice forms of stewardship that connect individual choices to the wider infrastructure conditions surrounding the conference.

Before traveling:

  • Read the Borikén Syllabus and current-condition updates before arrival so that the water crisis is understood through its infrastructure, governance, climate, and justice contexts.

  • Check ASHE and local public-safety guidance close to departure, recognizing that water conditions may shift during drought and hurricane season.

  • Bring a reusable water bottle and follow local and hotel guidance about safe drinking water and refill stations. Purchase and store bottled water in ways that follow current public-safety recommendations.

  • Plan with flexibility for the possibility that service interruptions may affect restaurants, transportation, bathrooms, meeting spaces, or local excursions even when the main conference hotel remains operational.

During the conference:

  • Use water intentionally by taking shorter showers when possible, turning off taps while brushing teeth or soaping, choosing showers over baths when appropriate, and reporting leaking faucets, toilets, or fixtures immediately.

  • Reuse towels and linens and decline automatic daily replacement when doing so aligns with your health and accessibility needs. Laundry represents a significant component of hotel water and energy use.

  • Understand cisterns, generators, and tanker deliveries as forms of emergency resilience that carry financial, environmental, and labor costs. Their presence can sustain operations while the wider conditions of scarcity continue.

  • Reduce discretionary electricity use by turning off lights, televisions, and electronics when leaving rooms. Puerto Rico's water and power systems are deeply interdependent because treatment and distribution depend on electricity.

  • Follow local water restrictions, boil-water notices, and public-health guidance as the primary source for decisions about water use and safety throughout the conference.

  • Support Puerto Rican-owned restaurants, cafés, artists, vendors, transportation providers, and community organizations, and tip service workers appropriately. Intentional local spending can help conference activity circulate resources within the communities hosting us.

  • Practice patience and care when services are interrupted, recognizing that workers supporting the conference may be navigating the same infrastructure conditions in their homes and communities.

  • Treat residents' experiences of water collection, outages, generators, cisterns, and damaged infrastructure with privacy, consent, and context. Responsible visiting centers the dignity of community life and the agency of the people whose experiences we encounter.

  • Take responsibility for your own learning by beginning with the syllabus, the scholarship listed below, and Puerto Rican reporting and community resources. This practice creates more space for Puerto Rican colleagues, staff, and community partners to participate as scholars, hosts, collaborators, and community members on their own terms.

After the conference:

  • Continue supporting Puerto Rican-led water, community-aqueduct, disaster-preparedness, and resilience organizations after the conference concludes.

  • Cite, teach, and engage Puerto Rican scholarship and community knowledge about infrastructure, coloniality, disaster, climate, and higher education.

  • Carry the principle of responsible visiting into future ASHE conference locations by asking what the Association FROM JASON: CHANGE TO WE? MEMBERS? OUR SCHOLARLY COMMUNITY? receives from a place, what it contributes, and what relationships can be sustained after departure.

What ASHE (FROM JASON: DEFINE WHO IS ASHE HERE--THIS ALL NEEDS TO BE ASSIGNED TO AN INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP) and Conference Partners Should Do -- FROM JASON: THIS ALSO FEELS LIKE IT SHOULD BE COMMITMENTS RATHER THAN WHAT "ASHE" SHOULD DO SINCE THE ASHE LCEC IS THE ONE PUTTING THIS OUT

  • Monitor water conditions through November and provide attendees with clear, updated guidance before travel and throughout the conference.

  • Request information from conference hotels and venues about water sources, cistern capacity, conservation practices, leak-response procedures, contingency planning, and the sourcing of supplemental water during outages.

  • Develop an event-specific conservation and contingency plan with conference hotels and venues. The plan should address discretionary water reduction, tanker and cistern sourcing, rapid leak response, and the protection of hydration, sanitation, disability access, and medical needs. Framing backup capacity as emergency resilience can help align conference operations with the wider conditions of the host community.

  • Work with venues to reduce unnecessary linen changes, decorative water use, and other discretionary consumption while maintaining sanitation, hydration, and accessibility.

  • Provide safe water-refill options where public-health guidance permits and communicate clearly with attendees about situations in which bottled water is recommended for safety.

  • Design conservation messaging around accessibility from the beginning, recognizing that some attendees require additional water, bathing, laundry, refrigeration, or electricity for disability- and health-related needs. This approach centers necessary access while encouraging stewardship in discretionary use.

  • Compensate local experts, guides, artists, and community partners for their labor and prioritize Puerto Rican-owned vendors and businesses where feasible.

  • Situate the 2026 campaign within an ongoing relationship with Borikén and use this experience to consider how ASHE's place-based giving, Foundation work, and conference practices can support future host communities over time.

Reciprocity in Practice: Community Solidarity Campaign

The 2021 ASHE statement called the Association to make a sincere contribution to Puerto Rico and to engage deeply with the meaning of gathering in San Juan. Returning in 2026 gives ASHE an opportunity to carry that commitment forward through material practice. The Association has committed $2,500 of its $5,000 place-based contribution to Project PR Relief, a Boricua-led, volunteer-run organization focused on moving clean drinking water to communities during shortages, storms, and infrastructure failures. The remaining $2,500 is reserved for an Indigenous contribution that will be communicated separately as that process is finalized.

ASHE will also invite members to participate in a collective giving campaign for Project PR Relief. The member goal is $5,000: 100 gifts of $50 or 200 gifts of $25 would reach that goal. Members can extend this commitment by learning from and contributing to other Puerto Rico-based organizations engaged in community water security and resilience.

ASHE is also renewing attention to the Graduate Student Travel Scholarship Fund, an annual fund that operates separately from endowed scholarships, grants, and named funds. In 2026, 150 graduate students applied for travel assistance and available funds supported 14 scholarships. Together, support for Borikén and support for graduate members reflect ASHE's responsibility to the places that host our gathering and to the scholars who sustain the future of the Association. The 2026 scholarship cycle is closed, and gifts made now strengthen the annual fund for future conference cycles.

Puerto Rico Water and Community Resilience Resources

Peer-Reviewed Scholarship: Puerto Rico Water, Infrastructure, Disaster, and Governance

  • Ficek, R. E. (2018). Infrastructure and colonial difference in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María. Transforming Anthropology, 26(2), 102–117. DOI

  • García-López, G. A. (2018). The multiple layers of environmental injustice in contexts of (un)natural disasters: The case of Puerto Rico post-Hurricane Maria. Environmental Justice, 11(3), 101–108. DOI

  • Joseph, S. R., Voyles, C., Williams, K. D., Smith, E., & Chilton, M. (2020). Colonial neglect and the right to health in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. American Journal of Public Health, 110(10), 1512–1518. DOI

  • Lin, Y., Sevillano-Rivera, M., Jiang, T., Li, G., Cotto, I., Vosloo, S., Carpenter, C. M. G., Larese-Casanova, P., Giese, R. W., Helbling, D. E., Padilla, I. Y., Rosario-Pabón, Z., Vélez Vega, C., Cordero, J. F., Alshawabkeh, A. N., Pinto, A., & Gu, A. Z. (2020). Impact of Hurricane Maria on drinking water quality in Puerto Rico. Environmental Science & Technology, 54(15), 9495–9509. DOI

  • Roque, A., Wutich, A., Brewis, A., Beresford, M., García-Quijano, C., Lloréns, H., & Jepson, W. (2021). Autogestión and water sharing networks in Puerto Rico after Hurricane María. Water International, 46(6), 938–955. DOI

  • Keenum, I., Medina, M. C., Garner, E., Pieper, K. J., Blair, M. F., Milligan, E., Pruden, A., Ramirez-Toro, G., & Rhoads, W. J. (2021). Source-to-tap assessment of microbiological water quality in small rural drinking water systems in Puerto Rico six months after Hurricane Maria. Environmental Science & Technology, 55(6), 3775–3785. DOI

  • Crisman, T. L., Dumke, D., Rivera, F. I., & Santiago-Pimentel, L. (2022). Resilience of environment, infrastructure, communities, and governance in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and the need for community empowerment to develop decentralized, nature-based solutions to sustainability. Journal of Emergency Management, 19(8), 11–23. DOI

  • Ruiz-Aviles, V. D., Pijawka, D., Manuel-Navarrete, D., White, D., & Ortiz-Garcia, C. (2022). Restoration versus transformative adaptation of community drinking water systems after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Puerto Rico. Journal of Emergency Management, 19(8), 25–40. DOI

  • Moraes, F. D. S., Mote, T. L., & Rasmussen, T. C. (2023). The role of physical geography on Puerto Rico’s water budget. Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies, 47, 101382. DOI

  • Nelson, T. N. T., Poleacovschi, C., Ikuma, K., García, I., Weems, C. F., Rehmann, C. R., & Estes, K. (2023). Knowledge–behavior gap in tap water consumption in Puerto Rico: Implications for water utilities. ASCE OPEN: Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering, 1, 04023001. DOI

  • Lin, Y., Li, G., Rivera, M. S., Jiang, T., Cotto, I., Carpenter, C. M. G., Rich, S. L., Giese, R. W., Helbling, D. E., Padilla, I. Y., Rosario-Pabón, Z., Alshawabkeh, A. N., Pinto, A., & Gu, A. Z. (2024). Long-term impact of Hurricane Maria on point-of-use drinking water quality in Puerto Rico and associated potential adverse health effects. Water Research, 265, 122213. DOI

  • Pérez Figueroa, O., & Roque, A. D. (2025). Water governance in the wake of disasters: Implications for resilience, security, and environmental justice. Environmental Justice, 18(5), 303–313. DOI

  • Atimboro, M. T., Mneimneh, F., Poleacovschi, C., & Berzina, B. (2026). Determinants of drinking water filtration decisions in Puerto Rican households: A logistic regression analysis of user perceptions. ACS ES&T Water, 6(5), 2731–2740. DOI

Peer-Reviewed Scholarship: Tourism, Water Use, and Resource Equity

The following comparative studies draw from tourism contexts beyond Puerto Rico and offer useful frameworks for understanding concentrated visitor water demand, hotel water use, and the responsibilities of visitors in water-stressed destinations:

  • Gössling, S., Peeters, P. M., Hall, C. M., Ceron, J.-P., Dubois, G., Lehmann, L. V., & Scott, D. (2012). Tourism and water use: Supply, demand, and security. An international review. Tourism Management, 33(1), 1–15. DOI

  • Becken, S. (2014). Water equity—Contrasting tourism water use with that of the local community. Water Resources and Industry, 7–8, 9–22. DOI

  • Gössling, S. (2015). New performance indicators for water management in tourism. Tourism Management, 46, 233–244. DOI

Reflection Questions for Returning Visitors

  • What responsibilities are different when an association returns to a place where it has already gathered, learned, and made commitments?

  • How does the 2026 water crisis invite us to understand disaster as a condition shaped over time through drought, infrastructure, governance, coloniality, and uneven investment?

  • How does tourism redistribute who experiences scarcity directly and who is buffered from it through cisterns, generators, tanker deliveries, and purchasing power?

  • What forms of visitor consumption are necessary, and which are discretionary? Who performs the labor required to make our consumption appear seamless?

  • How might our access to hotel cisterns, generators, air conditioning, transportation, and other conference resources insulate us from conditions experienced by nearby communities?

  • What responsibilities should ASHE, hotels, venues, vendors, and individual members each carry when convening in a place experiencing infrastructure stress?

  • What forms of reciprocity can continue after the conference ends, and how might ASHE sustain relationships with Borikén across time and between conference cycles?

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