How a Puerto Rico Development Polluted the Caribbean 81 Times While Flouting EPA Orders

A Caribbean Paradise Used as a Drainage Ditch

Rincón, Puerto Rico is internationally famous. Surfers call it the “Caribbean Capital of Surfing.” The waters off Puntas Ward, where this project sits, draw tourists from around the world and support local fishing communities that have worked those waters for generations. The developers knew exactly where they were building.

Desarrolladora Yahir, Inc., led by President Alexis Medina Soto, owns the 6.52-acre site at PR-413 Road, Km. 2.2. The company hired A & M Group, Inc., led by President Omayra Torres Sánchez, as the general contractor. Construction of ten residential lots, called “Tres Palmas Sunset View,” began on May 15, 2024.

Federal law is unambiguous: any construction project disturbing more than one acre of land requires a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit before the first shovel breaks ground. The permit requires a written pollution prevention plan, erosion controls, regular inspections, and documented corrective actions. The developers ignored the requirement for the general contractor altogether, and the developer’s own permit application was riddled with errors and omissions.

The Permit They Didn’t Bother To Get

Desarrolladora Yahir filed a Notice of Intent for permit coverage on April 30, 2024. That application listed only two outfalls at the site. The EPA’s inspector found four. The application did not disclose that stormwater would flow into the PR-413 Road’s public storm drain system. The application did not list Piletas Creek as a receiving water body at all, despite the creek being directly downstream of the site. The company built a pollution plan for a project that did not match the project it was building.

A & M Group, the contractor doing the actual earth-moving, clearing, grading, and excavation, never obtained a permit at all. EPA checked its Central Data Exchange database on June 27, 2025, over a year after construction began, and confirmed A&M had filed nothing. The company dug up 6.52 acres of Caribbean hillside and sent runoff into protected waters for more than 14 months, entirely outside the federal permitting system.

The Non-Financial Ledger

What Money Cannot Measure: The Assault on a Living Ecosystem

The Caribbean Sea adjacent to Rincón is a connected, living system. Piletas Creek is not a decorative waterway. It feeds directly into the sea. What enters the creek at the construction site travels downstream and enters the ocean. Sediment, concrete washout, disturbed soil, and chemical-laden runoff do not stay where they land. They spread. They settle on coral. They cloud the water column, blocking the sunlight that reef ecosystems depend on for photosynthesis. Every single one of those 81 documented storm events sent a fresh pulse of construction pollution into that system.

The EPA inspection of May 20, 2025, documented in staggering detail just how completely these companies ignored their basic environmental obligations. Inspectors found erosion controls absent from the northern, western, and southern perimeters of the site. Stockpiles of disturbed earth sat completely unprotected. There were no storm drain inlet protections. There was no sediment basin at all, despite the project’s own original plan referencing one. Concrete washout was actively leaking from the mixing area. The entire eastern side of the site had no management to divert runoff away from areas being actively graded. This was not a site that tried and fell short. This was a site that, in multiple critical respects, never tried at all.

Perhaps the most telling detail from the EPA’s review of the company’s own documentation: the Safety Plan, the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP), was unsigned. It was not certified. Critical sections, including the corrective action log, the training documentation, the grading and stabilization log, the delegation of authority form, and the rainfall gauge recording, were entirely blank. Not insufficient. Not incomplete. Blank. These were not oversights. They were signposts pointing to a company that treated pollution control as paperwork theater rather than a real obligation to the environment and the people who live near it.

Citizens in the Rincón community were the ones who documented the harm first. Three separate citizens filed email complaints with the EPA, attaching videos and photos taken on April 27, May 15, and July 15 and 27, 2025. Those videos show turbid, brown-colored stormwater flowing from the construction site into the public road drainage system, crossing the highway, flowing into surface depressions, and reaching Piletas Creek. These were not abstract regulatory violations. These were real people watching brown water pour off a developer’s construction site and drain toward the sea they swim in, fish in, and depend on economically, and picking up their phones to document it because no one in an official capacity was stopping it.

Legal Receipts: What The Documents Actually Say

“Respondent A&M did not submit an individual NPDES permit application, as required by 40 C.F.R. 122.21, nor did they timely file a complete and accurate NOI seeking coverage under the 2022 CGP. The period of violation for this claim is from May 26, 2024 (14 days prior to first rain event equal or greater than 0.25 inches) through July 30, 2025 (the due date for A&M to file the NOI under the Order), which are four hundred and thirty (430) days.” — EPA Complaint, Claim 1 Findings of Violation

“Storm events of 0.25 inches or greater occurred on eighty-one (81) instances during the period between May 15, 2024 (commencement of construction activities) to July 30, 2025.” — EPA Complaint, Paragraph 68, NCEI Meteorological Database Review

“At all relevant times, Respondents discharged storm water runoff containing ‘pollutants’ from the Site into the Piletas Creek and the Caribbean Sea.” — EPA Complaint, Paragraph 51, Jurisdictional Statements

“The Appendix E (Corrective Action Log) was blank; the Appendix H (Grading and Stabilization Activities Log) was blank; the Appendix J (Delegation of Authority Form) was blank; and the Appendix M (Rainfall Gauge Recording) was blank.” — EPA Complaint, Paragraph 66(f), Review of SWPPP Findings

“The EPA review of the September 12 Letter also revealed that Respondents failed to provide information to EPA demonstrating compliance with paragraphs 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 85, 86, and 87 of the Order.” — EPA Complaint, Paragraph 77, Review of Respondents’ September 12 Response Letter

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation: Dumping Construction Waste Into the Caribbean

The EPA’s complaint identifies Piletas Creek and the Caribbean Sea as “waters of the United States,” meaning they carry the full weight of federal environmental protection. The construction activities at the site involved clearing, grading, and excavation of the entire 6.52-acre parcel. The EPA’s own definition of construction activity pollutants in the complaint lists what typically flows off uncontrolled construction sites: sediment, nutrients, heavy metals, pesticides and herbicides, oil and grease, bacteria and viruses, trash and debris, treatment polymers, and toxic chemicals. Every one of those categories of pollutant had pathways to the sea at this site.

The inspection documented that concrete washout was actively leaking from the concrete mixing area. Concrete washout is highly alkaline. When it enters a waterway it changes the pH of the water, which directly damages aquatic life. The inspection also confirmed a complete lack of dust controls, unprotected stockpiles of excavated material, and no sediment basin to capture runoff before it left the property. These are not minor procedural failures. They are the core infrastructure of pollution control, and they were absent.

The NCEI meteorological data the EPA reviewed confirmed 81 rain events of 0.25 inches or more within a 24-hour period between May 15, 2024, and July 30, 2025. Each event represents a flush of uncontrolled runoff from a disturbed 6.52-acre hillside into a creek that flows directly to the Caribbean. The cumulative sediment load and chemical exposure delivered to that ecosystem over 14 months of uncontrolled discharge is not captured in any fine amount proposed in this complaint.

Public Health: Brown Water, Citizen Alarms, and a Broken System

The community of Rincón documented the pollution themselves. At least three separate citizens filed email complaints with attached photographic and video evidence on April 28, May 15, and July 15 and 27, 2025. The complaint describes these videos as showing “turbid, brown-colored stormwater runoff being discharged from the Site into the PR-413 Road MS4,” then flowing across the road and into Piletas Creek. The public road drainage system, which the community uses and which children walk along, was carrying brown construction runoff through the neighborhood.

Rincón’s economy and community identity are inseparable from its water. The area’s beaches and surf breaks attract tourists and support local livelihoods. When construction sediment and waste flows into the Caribbean repeatedly over 14 months, the harm is not abstract. It affects water clarity, marine health, fish populations, and the long-term economic viability of a community built on the quality of its natural environment. Puerto Rico already faces compounding environmental stressors. This development added 81 documented pollution events to that burden.

Economic Inequality: A Fine That Barely Registers

The EPA proposes a total penalty of $86,578 (roughly what a Puerto Rican median-income household earns in approximately 3 years, given Puerto Rico’s median household income of around $25,000-$28,000 annually). This fine is the full price these companies face for 430 days of operating without a permit, 81 documented pollution events into the Caribbean Sea, filing a false permit application, refusing to amend a defective safety plan for 47 days after a direct order, and failing to install erosion controls for 71 days after EPA inspection. For a company developing a 10-lot residential project in one of Puerto Rico’s most desirable coastal communities, this fine is a rounding error on the project’s projected revenue.

The companies can also negotiate the fine down further in an informal settlement. The EPA complaint explicitly invites settlement discussions and confirms that the proposed amount can be reduced. Puerto Rico’s communities of color bear environmental burdens disproportionately. The Clean Water Act’s penalty structure, which caps administrative Class II penalties at a daily rate that pales against the profit from a single real estate transaction, means that developers can rationally calculate that ignoring environmental permits is cheaper than complying with them. That calculation happened here. Fourteen months of evidence proves it.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now?

The People Running These Companies

• President, Desarrolladora Yahir, Inc. (DYI): Alexis Medina Soto
• President, A & M Group, Inc.: Omayra Torres Sánchez
• Regulatory Authority Issuing Complaint: Carmen R. Guerrero Pérez, Director, Caribbean Environmental Protection Division, EPA Region 2
• Project: Tres Palmas Sunset View Residential Development, PR-413 Road, Km. 2.2, Puntas Ward, Rincón, Puerto Rico

The Watchlist: Regulators With Power to Act

• U.S. EPA Region 2, Caribbean Environmental Protection Division — Issued complaint; can pursue final penalty order and enforce in federal court if companies default. Contact: melendez-colon.suzette@epa.gov
• Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER) — EPA is required to notify DNER of this action and offer a conference on the proposed penalty. DNER holds independent authority over Puerto Rico’s natural resources.
• Puerto Rico Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC) — Issued the original construction permits to A&M in February and March 2024. Has authority over construction permitting on the island.
• U.S. EPA Office of Inspector General — Can investigate whether enforcement timelines and penalty amounts adequately protected a vulnerable coastal community.

What You Can Do Right Now

The EPA complaint was filed September 30, 2025. The 30-day public comment window is active. You have a legal right under Section 309(g)(4)(B) of the Clean Water Act to be heard and to present evidence on the appropriateness of this penalty assessment. Use it. Submit a comment to the Regional Hearing Clerk at Region2_RegionalHearingClerk@epa.gov and state clearly that $86,578 (barely more than a median Puerto Rican family earns in three years) is an inadequate deterrent for 81 documented Caribbean pollution events.

Connect with local environmental and community organizations in Rincón and across Puerto Rico who have been fighting for coastal protection for years. Organizations defending Puerto Rico’s coasts, fishing communities, and marine ecosystems run on community support, not corporate grants. Find your local chapter of a coastal defense network, a surf rider foundation affiliate, or a neighborhood mutual aid group in Puntas Ward. They are the ones who filed those three citizen complaints that forced the EPA to act. Their vigilance created this record. Fund and support that kind of work directly.

Puerto Rico’s environmental future depends on residents, organizers, and independent journalists holding developers accountable when the fine is smaller than the profit. Share this investigation. Translate it. Put it in front of every person in Rincón who swims in those waters.