A Puerto Rico Senate resolution seeks to renew attention to environmental contamination at the site of a former petrochemical complex along PR-2 between Peñuelas and Guayanilla. Operating from the 1950s to the 1970s, the complex once housed Commonwealth Oil Refining Company (CORCO) and Puerto Rico Olefins, and at its peak could refine 161,000 barrels of oil per day, generating thousands of jobs in southern Puerto Rico.
After its closure, more than 1,000 jobs disappeared and the land was left contaminated with toxic substances, catalytic residues, and buried chemicals. José Manuel Díaz, a community leader from Tallaboa—a neighborhood adjacent to the facility—said the petrochemical complex brought disease, unemployment, and pollution, adding that profits were taken from Puerto Rico while the problem was left behind.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that contaminants released into the soil and groundwater include benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and naphthalene, found both in the subsoil and dissolved in groundwater.