Two companies, Hacienda Campo Rico and Caribbean Golf Academy, filed a 28-page memorial with the Puerto Rico Senate’s Tourism, Natural and Environmental Resources Committee, which is investigating the expansion of the Carolina landfill. They allege that Pedro Guevara, director of the Permits Division of the Compliance Office at the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DRNA), misled senators on critical points.
Engineer Luis Rivera Ortiz, president of both companies, said Guevara made inconsistent statements and has not provided documentary evidence for his defense of the expansion and of renewing the landfill’s permit. He said Guevara at times says the landfill has not grown beyond its permitted footprint and at other times that it covers about five cuerdas (a land measure of about 0.97 acre) previously affected by an alleged quarry.
Rivera Ortiz said expansion figures of five, ten and 7.65 cuerdas do not match, and that Guevara gave three incompatible answers on the authorized operating period in about ninety seconds. He said Cell C expanded into a 35-cuerda Buffer Zone protected by the Karst Law. No surveys confirm the footprint; the Carolina town government and a contractor said under oath in May 2024 they have no boundary documents.
Only four inspections are on record despite claims of quarterly checks. Groundwater records show a single April 2022 sampling with arsenic, and no sampling after the June 2024 leachate leaks. Rivera Ortiz also said a renewal cannot extend the footprint without an Environmental Impact Statement.