6/13/24, 9:50 AM Gmail - Re: Thank you for your message

CORALations Culebra <coralations@gmail.com>

Re: Thank you for your message

1 message

CORALations Culebra <coralations@gmail.com> Fri, Sep 16, 2022 at 1:37 PM

To: "DOT Exec Sec (OST)" <DOTExecSec@dot.gov>

Dear Secretary Buttegeig:

We continue requesting a meaningful contact with whom we can begin to address the ATM ferry problems. Again there
have been two civil rights reports by law clinics-
We now understand that we may have FOIA'd the incorrect division of DOT.
The FOIA office representative said he's not able to reach the correct points of contact to find information requested, and
then also suggested we FOI'd the wrong division.

This is with regard to serious concerns regarding ATM ferry transport for the environmental/ social justice island
communities of Vieques and Culebra Puerto Rico.

Both US islands were used as targets while inhabitated by US and NATO forces.

Hoping we can be given a meaningful point of contact.

Thank you,

Mary Ann Lucking

Director
CORALations, Inc-
798-390-3133

On Jun 17, 2022, at 5:34 PM, DOT Exec Sec (OST) <DOTExecSec@dot.gov> wrote:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me.

I am honored to be entrusted with leading the U.S. Department of Transportation at this consequential
moment. Your voice is important, and my team will consider your thoughts as we work to meet the
department’s mission and support the administration’s priorities: to help create millions of good-paying jobs;
move people and goods safely; revitalize communities that have been left behind; tackle the climate crisis,
and enable our country to compete and win in the global economy.

I hope will you continue to share your views and to follow our work.

-Secretary Pete

From: CORALations Culebra <coralations@gmail.com>

Sent: Friday, June 17, 2022 9:09:43 PM
To: SecretaryScheduler (OST) <SecretaryScheduler19@dot.gov>; Kerry Kehoe - NOAA
Federal <kerry.kehoe@noaa.gov>; Lourdes Feliciano <culebramarine2@gmail.com>; Dolly
Camareno <azucarnegra775@yahoo.com>; Hon. Edilberto Romero
<alcaldeculebra2021@gmail.com>; Lcda. Pamela Gonzalez <pgr@abogadopr.com>; Pedro
Saade Llorens <pedrosaade5@gmail.com>; Ruth Santiago <rstgo2@gmail.com>
Cc: Ruperto Chaparro <ruperto.chaparro@upr.edu>; Ariel Lugo <aelugo1234@gmail.com>
Subject: Urgent: ferry routes and Puerto Rico MTA

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6/13/24, 9:50 AM Gmail - Re: Thank you for your message

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the Department of Transportation (DOT). Do
not click on links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is
safe.
Pete Buttigieg
Secretary of Transportation
US Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20590
email: secretaryscheduler@dot.gov

Dear Secretary Buttigeig:

CORALations is an award-winning coral conservation organization founded in Puerto Rico in 1995 and based on the
island of Culebra. Our small organization has been affected by ferry service and we have joined with other
community groups and citizens to document what has been decades of failures that can be linked to planning and
public participation failures for this critical government transportation service.

This service continues to disproportionately affect the outer island's environmental justice communities of Vieques
and Culebra.

We have two concerns based on recent press:

1) DOT may be formalizing the relocation of overseas transit paths and a move of a terminal from Fajardo to Ceiba,
without benefit of public notice in the federal registry, and,

2) While funding is of course always needed, without anti-corruption safeguards as simple as measures that can
increase public fiscal transparency, funding will likely fail to make it where it's needed most.

We found no formal notice regarding plans to change the ferry routes from Fajardo to Ceiba in the federal registry.
Local government began constructing the Ceiba terminal without permits. This move continues to hurt the low
income islanders to the extent that two civil rights law groups conducted interviews and filed reports documenting
civil rights violations associated with the move and ferry service.

The move of the terminal to Ceiba placed the terminal we are forced to use today on lands contaminated by the
military who formerly had a base at Roosevelt Roads. The wells used to monitor contamination in the area where the
Ceiba terminal was placed were impacted by construction of a parking area, later moved almost a half mile away
from the dock. Of course neither the ongoing monitoring of the wells nor the move of the parking lot does anything to
decontaminate the area. The public waiting for ferries today at Ceiba, are likely exposed to contaminants every time
the rains flood the waiting areas with adjacent storm water runoff.

The ferry port at Ceiba also does not yet have a refueling port or dock. The vessels are still being refueled from large
fuel trucks brought in near the terminal and the waiting passengers.

We have more information to share and more groups that are concerned that deserve an opportunity to express
opinions for the record on the move of the MTA terminal from Fajardo to Ceiba.

Please help to restore public participation.

Sources:

El Vocero:
6 JUN 2022
https://www.elvocero.com/gobierno/agencias/discrepan-sobre-el-uso-de-fondos-federales-en-las-islas-
municipio/article_39801cee-e602-11ec-8831-1386f57374d5.html

News is My Business
9 JUN 2022
https://newsismybusiness.com/project-to-expand-puerto-rico-vieques-culebra-maritime-service-okd-for-federal-
funding/

Thank you for all you are doing.

Sincerely,

--

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6/13/24, 9:50 AM Gmail - Re: Thank you for your message
Mary Ann Lucking
Director
CORALations
P.O. Box 750
Culebra, PR 00775
www.coralations.org
787.556.6234
email: maryann@coralations.org, coralations@gmail.com

Trabajando con comunidades del Caribe para proteger y restaurar

sus arrecifes de coral.

<<><<<>>><>>

Working with Caribbean communities to protect and restore their coral reefs.

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