Days after hurricanes Irma and Maria tore through Puerto Rico in 2017, Ernesto Diaz formed a team to survey what the category-5 storms had done to his home. Touring coastal areas Diaz, then an assistant secretary with the commonwealth’s Department of Natural & Environmental Resources, saw rooftops poking out from floodwaters, forests stripped bare, and windows and doors floating by. As a marine scientist who knew the shoreline ecosystems intimately, he also noticed something that intrigued him: Communities near coral reefs sustained less damage.
That became the genesis of a first-of-its kind project when, in 2022, the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave Puerto Rico $38.6 million to shore up its ailing reefs. It’s the first time the agency has tapped its Hazard Mitigations Assistance Grants program, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to help communities rebuild after disasters, to fund such restoration. Diaz has since moved to Tetra Tech, the contractor implementing the first phase of the effort. “I hope this is the pilot project for what I believe should be the way we protect ... Read more
