The Martín Peña Channel (Spanish: ''Caño de Martín Peña'') is a body of water in

San Juan, Puerto Rico San Juan (, , ; Spanish for "Saint John") is the capital city and most populous municipality in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, an unincorporated territory of the United States. As of the 2020 census, it is the 57th-largest city under the jur ...

. The similarly named Martín Peña is a neighbourhood, with informal housing, adjacent to the channel. The channel runs from

San Juan Bay San Juan Bay ( es, Bahía de San Juan) is the bay and main inlet adjacent to Old San Juan in northeastern Puerto Rico. It is about in length, the largest body of water in an estuary of about of channels, inlets and eight interconnected lagoons ...

in the west to Laguna San José and Laguna Los Corozos in the east. It separates the

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish word that means " quarter" or " neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), social, a ...

of Santurce on the north side from

Hato Rey Norte Hato Rey Norte is one of the 18 barrios of the municipality of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hato Rey Norte was part of the former municipality of Rio Piedras, before it was merged with the municipality of San Juan in 1951. It is bounded by Hato Rey Ce ...

Hato Rey Central Hato Rey Central is one of the 18 barrios of the municipality of San Juan, Puerto Rico. With a population density of 16,155.3 per square mile. It has a land area of 1.03 sq mi and a 2010 Census population of 16,640. Hato Rey Central was a bar ...

, and Oriente on the south side.

Improvement initiatives

The channel has had a history of being strewn with trash, which breed mosquitoes, and a health hazard for its nearby residents in the Martín Peña subbarrio. Due to the narrowing of the channel over time, the area is subject to frequent flooding, including raw sewage from buildings with insufficient sanitation. The Caño Martín Peña ENLACE Project Corporation (Spanish: ''Corporación ENLACE del Caño Martin Peña'', English acronym ''ENLACE'') is a corporation owned by the Puerto Rico government, created to improve the local sewage system. As of 2016, ENLACE has spent $120 million from the territorial government on sewage improvements. Implementation of a $600 million ecosystem restoration plan that will dredge the canal depends on resolution of the

Puerto Rican government-debt crisis The Puerto Rican government-debt crisis was a financial crisis affecting the government of Puerto Rico. The crisis began in 2014 when three major credit agencies downgraded several bond issues by Puerto Rico to "junk status" after the governmen ...

and federal funding for assistance from the

United States Environmental Protection Agency The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...

and the United States Army Corps of Engineers. In 2015 the area won an UN award to fix the area. In 2017 the community continued demanding the betterment of their community with a campaign stating, "don't look at me, look at the channel" ( es, no me mires a mi, mira al canal). According to the community's campaign website there remained 26,000 people affected by the polluted channel. After

Hurricane Maria Hurricane Maria was a deadly Category 5 hurricane that devastated the northeastern Caribbean in September 2017, particularly Dominica, Saint Croix, and Puerto Rico. It is regarded as the worst natural disaster in recorded history to affect t ...

on September 20, 2017, the canal caused flooding in eight barrios nearby for weeks and was the most impacted community of San Juan. In August 2019, a resolution was passed to improve the infrastructure of Martín Peña.

References

External links

EPA Urban Waters Partnership / Caño Martín Peña

Caño Martín Peña ENLACE Project Corporation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin Pena Channel Geography of San Juan, Puerto Rico Channels of the United States

Improvement initiatives

See also

References

External links