(New York, N.Y.) Eleven individuals and organizations from Puerto Rico received top honors today from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their work to protect the environment. Their exemplary efforts were recognized as they were presented with EPA Environmental Quality Awards by EPA Regional Administrator Alan J. Steinberg during a ceremony today in EPA’s New York offices. In addition, the Agency recognized two recipients from New York for winning the nation-wide President’s Environmental Youth Award (PEYA).
“These exemplary environmental stewards have gone above and beyond for environmental change in local communities,” said Regional Administrator Alan J. Steinberg. “Let their extraordinary contributions remind us all that we can make our world a better place and individuals really inspire others and make a lasting difference.”
EPA selects Environmental Quality Award winners from non-profit environmental and community groups, individual citizens, educators, business organizations and members of the news media, as well as from federal, state, local or tribal governments and agencies. The honor is given to those individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions to improving the environment and public health in EPA Region 2, which covers New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and seven federally-recognized Indian Nations. The Agency receives nominations for the awards from both inside and outside EPA. For information about the Environmental Quality Awards in EPA Region 2, go to http://www.epa.gov/region02/eqa/.
2008 ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY AWARD WINNERS
INDIVIDUAL CITIZEN
Dr. Luis Raúl Colón Rivera
Cidra, Puerto Rico
Dr. Colón has been a pro-bono human ecology professor at Notre Dame High School in Caguas since 2003. He engages students in critical thinking about their behavior towards their surroundings and the environment. He successfully helped organize the school’s environmental club, a recycling program, an Environmental Ecology Congress and tree plantings. Five of his students won awards in 2006 given by local newspaper El Nuevo Día and the Puerto Rico Senate for making a Human Ecology course for high school students compulsory.
Frank Coss
Comite Timon Conservacion Ambiental – COTICAM
Manatí, Puerto Rico
Frank Cross is the President of the Committee of Community Development, Agricultural Extension Service and President of Future Farmers of America. He is also co-founder of an environmental quality committee called el Comite Timon de Calidad Ambiental (COTICAM). He is a tireless, outstanding, environmental steward, has spearheaded an investigation of the source of contamination in drinking water wells, and forest conservation in Rio Abajo and Dos Bocas Lake in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.
José Marrero Torrado
Utuado, Puerto Rico
In Memoriam
José Marrero Torrado had a long, distinguished, history of environmental stewardship. During his tenure with the U.S. Forest Service in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, thousands of acres of abandoned land were acquired and converted into the Carite Forest, Rio Abajo Forest, Guajataca Forest, Gularte Forest and Susua Forest. Mr. Marrero Torrado supervised the planting and growth of 30 million trees, and helped create unique ecosystems in 20,000 acres throughout the island. He also taught tree propagation and reforestation courses to international students.
Maraida Balaguer Barbosa
Añasco, Puerto Rico
Maraida Barbosa has been a girl scout since the age of seven and has devoted her life to improving her community. She is engaged in environmental protection activities such as recycling, beach cleanups, and ecology and community service. For her Senior Community Service Scouting Project, she educated her community on recycling and transformed her house into a recycling center where residents could leave there recyclable waste. In April 2007, Maraida was recognized by the Puerto Rico Solid Waste Management Authority for her environmental work.
BUSINESS & INDUSTRY
EcoEléctrica L.P.
EcoEléctrica is the first independent power producer in Puerto Rico, shifting from fuel oil to natural gas, the cleanest fossil derived fuel. Using innovative techniques for transplanting seagrasses and corals, EcoEléctrica exceeded their requirements, and the corals contributed to the partial restoration of an impacted coral reef. EcoEléctrica has also monitored manatees, and planted mangroves. They have refrained from using fresh water reservoirs as they produce potable water from sea water.
FEDERAL, STATE, LOCAL, OR TRIBAL GOVERNMENT OR AGENCY
Public Building Authority of Puerto Rico
Escuela Ecológica Carmelo Delgado
Escuela Ecológica Carmelo Delgado was awarded the best built project of 2007 by the Engineers and the Land Surveyors Association of Puerto Rico. The school’s architectural, electrical and plumbing components are designed to incorporate many environmentally sound practices. The building is the first to implement the new “Net Metering” law and the first to implement the new Interconnection protocols between a private user and the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.
Municipality of Guaynabo
Recycling Program
The goal of the Municipality of Guaynabo is to make a positive contribution to the solid waste disposal problem in Puerto Rico. The Municipality has approved a local ordinance to enforce its recycling initiative, which requires the participation of all local residents, businesses and industries. Guaynabo’s residents and institutions have helped achieve the goal of recycling 35% of the solid waste that is received in the local landfill. Since its inception in 2003, the Municipality of Guaynabo’s recycling program has become a model for other municipalities.
University of Puerto Rico at Aguadilla
“Vida Marina”
Vida Marina is the first Monofilament Recovery and Recycling Program of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The goal of the program is to reduce the amount of monofilament fishing line in the aquatic environment of Puerto Rico. The program has impacted many different demographic groups and has served as a great training opportunity for dozens of future marine conservation biologist and environmental educators. Vida Marina has installed 45 monofilament recycling containers all around the island of Puerto Rico. And the program has recovered an incredible 430 pounds of fishing line since ---February 2007.
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION, ENVIRONMENTAL OR COMMUNITY GROUP
Rescata Playas Isabela, Inc.
Lourdes Irizzary founded a non-profit community group in Puerto Rico and, within its first 18 months of existence, she helped residents, businesses and government agencies start a recycling program; conduct beach and mangrove cleanups; adopt and maintain a previously littered section of the Beach Road under an “Adopt a Highway” program; and, beautify the area with colorful murals. Irizzary also encouraged municipalities to install large trash cans on beaches and other clean beach initiatives.
San Juan Bay Estuary Program
Mangrove Restoration Project
The San Juan Bay Estuary has the task of stewarding the estuary’s protection. They successfully planted more than 100 red mangroves in the Condado Lagoon in Puerto Rico. This effort was used as an educational experience for local area children who visited the site and helped plant the seedlings. The experience was designed to highlight the importance of these efforts for current purposes and for future generations.
PRESS & MEDIA
NuevaVisión
NuevaVisión’s mission is to enrich the lives of Puerto Rico’s residents through quality television programming, education and outreach services. During the year 2007, NuevaVisión produced over 18 hours of special programming associated to the protection of our environmental resources. Two series were developed and through the broadcast and re-broadcasting of the series, the audience received 45 hours of educational programming focused on environmental protection and finding solutions to two major environmental problems: solid waste management and the use and conservation of water as a natural resource.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
EPA Applauds Environmental Champions in Puerto Rico
Sunday, April 20, 2008
New documentary paints loving portrait of late Pirates' star
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As luminous as his life was in just 37 years, Roberto Clemente's post-life has been static in the media 35 years since his death. Even if you couldn't watch him enough when he played and sit riveted to every rehash of clips, footage and remembrances of him, new tidbits are welcome .
Bernardo Ruiz has assembled a documentary of old broadcast moments and well-used commentators, but his one-hour "American Experience" film, "Roberto Clemente" (9 p.m. Monday, WQED), offers fresh faces and insights, too. It also pays proper homage to Clemente's beloved Puerto Rico, its people and to Nicaragua, his last chapter still largely unexplored.
Narrator: Jimmy Smits
From his unbringing in the sugar cane fields to his death in 1972, the Pirates' superstar right fielder has become iconic, in part because of his death on a failed flight one mile off the Puerto Rican shoreline. He was bound for Managua, Nicaragua, with supplies for victims of a leveling earthquake eight days earlier.
His body was never recovered.
Described by historian Samuel Regalado as "a complicated individual, because he stepped into some very complicated times," one could argue the Pirates' superstar was complicated regardless; all times are complicated.
He was artistic, musical and open to non-traditional practices, such as chiropractic. He had a sensitive and fiery mind, one so much more active than the average ballplayer's but impeded by delivery in English in a city that had not heard Spanish spoken on broadcasts, if at all.
In Puerto Rico, blacks and whites share the same culture. Here, he found the bewildering and damaging parallel universes that still exist -- maybe the only part of life in Pittsburgh he would recognize were he to come back.
Arguably the richest and most poignant film clip from any World Series clubhouse celebration is included in this film, from 1971: Bob Prince has grabbed the ebullient Clemente, the catalyst of the team's win, for an interview and, before answering, Clemente speaks briefly to his family in Spanish.
The film, narrated by actor Jimmy Smits, includes many interviews with friends, family, teammates historians and writers, including David Maraniss, who wrote "Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero."
Steve Blass, the winning pitcher in the last game of the 1971 World Series, recalls Clemente walking up the aisle to him on the team airplane from Baltimore and saying, "Come here, Blass, let me embrace you."
"What cracked me up about Roberto was in a lot of interviews. ... he would start talking about life," says teammate Al Oliver, "and the writers just weren't ready for that."
Writers Roy McHugh and George Will comment on his eagerness to complain about what ailed him, which Mr. Will said put a lot of people off because it was unseemly for a ballplayer to bare his feelings.
Carol Bass was a girl when she approached Clemente for his autograph after a game, trying out her nascent Spanish and being regaled with a stream of Spanish in return. They became friends and, in fact, she was a guest of the family the night Clemente's doomed plane went down.
Vera Clemente recalls the look her husband gave her as he headed toward that plane: "He looked at me with a very sad look," she said. "I read many things in that look."
Historian Rob Ruck's comment that Clemente, near the time of his death, had blossomed into a man who would transcend baseball, set the stage for Osvaldo Gil's teary conclusion to the film.
Mr. Gil wondered what sense to make of his friend's death, and said his mother gave him "the only explanation that made sense," he said. "'If he had died as a player, only the sports fans would have remembered him. But because he died while helping others, the wider world would know him as a humanitarian.' "
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
CIRCA Puerto Rico ‘08 The First International Art Fair in the Caribbean - Mar 23, 2008
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CIRCA Puerto Rico ’08, the first international art fair in the Caribbean and Central America, will be held from April 11 – April 14, 2008 at the new Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan, and will feature over 40 commercial galleries from Puerto Rico, Latin America, the United States, Europe, Canada, and Australia. CIRCA PR ’08 will once again bring the best of Contemporary art to a local and international audience of collectors. It is the only art fair of its kind in the Caribbean and Central America, where an important group of collectors has emerged in the past few years. In just three years, CIRCA PR has shown its potential to give new visibility to the Caribbean art world where an exciting mix of regional artists, galleries, institutions, and collectors, together with a selection of international galleries, offered a very personal and dynamic art fair.
Far from the madding crowds and the gigantism of most of the art fairs, at CIRCA PR we are convinced that an art fair should be small, intimate, and intellectually challenging. CIRCA continues with its humane scale in a friendly and sunny setting allowing gallerists, collectors and other art professionals to interact on a more personal one-to-one basis. Respected economist E.F.Schumacher once said “Small is beautiful”, hinting clearly to the most appropriate scale for an activity. And for us, size does really matter.
WHAT THE PRESS SAID ABOUT CIRCA ‘07:
• “the fair featured a great mix of dealers and independent thinkers that aren’t found at other art fairs” (Walter Robinson, artnet)
• “Puerto Rico has something unique to offer to the world, which is increasingly about money and seeing the same thing everywhere you go” ( Joel Weinstein, Flash Art)
• “CIRCA is shaping up to be an exciting initiative” (Amanda Coulson Tema Celeste)
• “Puerto Rico possesses one of the highest densities of collectors that I know of in the art world” (Fernando Galán Art.es)
PARTICIPATING GALLERIES
356 (San Juan), Air de Paris (Paris), Altamira (Gijon), Artspace Witzenhausen (Amsterdam), Blow de la Barra (London), Botello (San Juan), Breenspace (Sydney), brot.undspiele (Berlin), Spencer Brownstone (New York), Adora Calvo (Salamanca), Casas Riegner (Bogota), Marta Cervera (Madrid), Contemporary Fine Arts (Berlin), Carmen Correa Contemporaneo (San Juan), CR3MA (San Juan), Dean Projects (New York), Espacio Liquido (Gijon), Henrique Faria Fine Art (New York), Gavlak (West Palm Beach), Alfredo Ginocchio Arte Internacional (Mexico DF), Moti Hasson (New York), Hardcore Art Contemporany Space (Miami), Caprice Horn (Berlin), Jacob Karpio (San Jose, CR), Diana Lowenstein Fine Arts (Miami), Federico Luger (Milan), Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art (Toronto), Museum 52 (London), Pan American Art Projects (Miami), Raquel Ponce (Madrid), Walter Otero (San Juan), Point of View (New York), PM Gallery (Toronto), El Museo/Fernando Pradilla (Bogota), Primer Piso (San Juan), Lyle O. Reitzel (Santo Domingo), Samson Projects (Boston), Schuebbe Project (Duesseldorf), Space Other (Boston), Spielhaus & Morrison (Berlin), Spinello Gallery (Miami), Storehouse Group(San Juan), Vane (UK), and Voges + Partner (Francfort).
THE CURATED ART FAIR
For the section In the Spot guest curators –among which Michel Blancsube from the Jumex Collection and Julieta Gonzalez from Espacio 1414- will put together a revolutionary concept-based exhibition from works exhibited at the fair; at the end of the day the curator will engage in a critical dialogue with the audience.
CHAMBRES DES COLLECTEURS and COLLECTOR’S PROGRAM
In response to the bourgeoning and dynamic artistic community, an important group of private collectors has emerged in Puerto Rico. In cooperation with these collectors and in hommage to Jan Hoet’s Chambres d’Amis (1986), the section “Chambres des Collecteurs” offers during CIRCA a unique possibility of visiting private collections. Our interesting and edgy collector’s program will offer visits to the following private collections: the Rosalia and Ugobono Collection with works by Melvin Martinez, Jonathan Meese, Guillermo Kuitca among others; Horacio Campolietto Collection with works by Erwin Olaf and Andres Serrano; in addition this year CIRCA will feature the opening of Luis Gutierrez Latin-American Photo Collection. Also on the VIP Programme is a visit to the exclusive “Country Club” Dorado Beach East in order to visit the Pepe Alvarez and Carlos Trapaga Collections. These are exciting collections you won’t miss that give a good idea of the collector’s vi
be on the island.
The VIP Program also hosts visits to artists’ studios, gallery walk, museum openings, and parties, in order to make Puerto Rico the ultimate experience for the visiting collector and art lover while enjoying the unique scene of Old San Juan and the incredible reggeaton parties. You can also enjoy the GOLF EXPERIENCE of a lifetime in one of the most celebrated courses in the Caribbean. A first for CIRCA, we invite you to tee off with us on April 15th, at 7:00am.For more information and bookings, call us at (787) 279-7675, or email us at info@circapr.com
About Circa Puerto Rico ‘08
CIRCA Puerto Rico ’08 is organized by Portfolio FIAC, Inc., a corporation founded by Roberto J. Nieves and Anabelle Lampón to serve as a leading cultural management company in the Puerto Rican and Caribbean communities.
CIRCA Puerto Rico ‘08 is sponsored by Caribbean Merchandiser Services, Caras, MCS, the Normandie Hotel, and the Puerto Rico Convention Center.
It is supported by: Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, and Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico.
