Soccer, Anyone?

Well, the news out of Washington—or anywhere else in the world, it seems—is so abysmal, so frightening…well, wait. Stop using these puny adjectives: Barack Obama said it in two words in his most recent email to me—we’re finished.

Right—so what’s happening on the island? All going well in the Isle of Enchantment?

Doesn’t seem so. Though there is good news: the children of San Juan, in an imaginative plan, will have a place to play soccer!

Critics sniff at the proposal, of course, saying that the idea of renting out a couple of acres in a park to a developer, who will install three soccer fields and two beach volleyball courts, as well as provide a “deli juice bar” that also has beer—craft beer, that is—and wine is going to benefit only those people (hint, we don’t know them) who can pay 80 bucks an hour. In short, all of the kids in the projects are going to be left playing kick-the-ball in the parking lot.

There’s also a little question about the rent, which according to El Nuevo Día, would be only 2,500 bucks a month. But wait, cried the mayoress of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz, the developer has promised to give the first weekend of the month, as well as one weekday night, free! This she deems “services in kind,” and so the real sum is a respectable 8,690 bucks a month. Great deal, right?

Predictably, the argument leaves some cold; here’s one critic:

González Costa señaló que en 25 años la empresa “habrá pagado apenas un millón de dólares y lo que va a generar Ecofútbol en un año es cinco  veces lo que generará el Municipio en 25 años”.

(González Costa pointed out that in 25 years the business would have paid scarcely a million dollars, and Ecofútbol would have generated five times in one year what the Municipality earned in 25 years.”)

“Ecofútbol,” you say? What’s so “eco” about soccer?

The plot, as it seems to in the tropics, thickens….

Ecofútbol sprang into existence in—no surprise here—July of last year, and was awarded the contract without a public auction. Why? Well, according to the paper, the matter was in “the public interest.” And the developer behind the project? A father / son team of guys named Víctor González Serrallés and Víctor González Barahona.

The first impression was good; here’s what Wharton School’s alumni magazine had to say about the father, Víctor González Barahona:

Gonzalez’ business ventures are grouped into three companies. Puerto Rico Land and Fruit Co. produces and sells organically grown coffee, manages ecological restoration projects and is involved in setting up a mitigation bank. The concept behind a mitigation bank, says Gonzalez, is to establish an inventory of restored and created wetlands which are then sold as credits to developers whom regulatory agencies allow to impact environmentally sensitive areas.

“No one else in Puerto Rico is doing this, although it is becoming more common in the U.S.,” he adds. “These mitigation banks are seen as a way of resolving the main conflict between the business and environmental communities by offering companies a way to both make money and protect our environment.”

But González is no stranger to controversy. There was the brilliant scheme to put a wind farm in Culebra, a plan that riled the residents, since the turbines…well, consider this source:

This project involves the construction of five wind turbines 390 feet high, four residences, an office structure, a maintenance shop, an electrical substation, and a water storage tank of 10,000 gallons, among other facilities, which are all visible from Flamenco Beach.

Flamenco Beach, by the way, routinely makes the ten-best-beaches-in-the-world list in travel magazines. Here, take a look….

Happily, the residents prevailed—not without a good deal of struggle—and González withdrew the project. But now, he’s back at it, because guess what? According to the print edition of El Nuevo Día of 24 April 2014, the son, Víctor González Serrallés is going to operate Ecofútbol, but papa is going to have “a part” by using solar and wind power to generate electricity.

Wonderful scheme, right?

There is, as always, a problem. We might have the sun, but do we have the wind? Because González put up twenty-five or so wind mills in a fertile valley of Puerto Rico, with the expectation of generating enough energy to sell back to the power company, and now…

…well, I’ve looked, and I can’t tell you. The last thing I remember is that the whole thing was shut down, and the contracts were being “renegotiated.” Oh, and that the whole affair was such an environmental mess that González Barahona had to cede 623 cuerdas (one cuerda is roughly an acre) of land to the Department of Natural Resources. What did he do? He gave up only 427 cuerdas, and then turned around and asked for a million dollar tax credit from the treasury department. Why? He claimed the land was a “donation,” when in fact it was part of a settlement…..

So the news about the wind project is scarce.  What I can tell you is that the company website is, well, unimpressive, and curiously incomplete. I have just spent—what’s time to a blogger?—ten minutes going through the site, and guess what? The Guayanilla project doesn’t appear there. What does? Photos of solar panels on private residences.

Guys? According to the print version of El Nuevo Día, Windmar was awarded six contracts worth 524.6 million dollars, and your company is showing me solar panels on rooftops? Somebody out there, tell me if there isn’t something just a bit screwy about this….

“Windmar has acquired extensive experience with the local government permitting process and has received several PPOA’s for wind and solar projects from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (“PREPA”).”

That’s from the home page of the company website.

And it seems it’s not just “extensive experience with the local government permitting process” that Windmar has acquired. They also seem to know how to bamboozle the municipality of San Juan….

An alternative for the municipality….