FEMA-funded El Junker bridge fix in Aibonito clears environmental step

In its filing, the municipality describes the project, PW-2191 Road and Bridge El Junker, as exempt public improvement works and says the facility was damaged by Hurricane María and received FEMA funds for its repair. A categorical exclusion is a finding that a routine or predictable action needs no further environmental planning. It does not show that work has started.

The municipality's FEMA repairs

Since August 2022 the municipality has taken 57 projects carrying a PW number to a legal pre-consultation, and the filings of 54 of them say the work received FEMA funds.

Among filings that carry a PW number, three exclusions were filed in April 2025, one for PW 3646 Mirador Piedra de Degetau on April 20, 2026, and one for the PR-716 repair in Sector Ratones, Barrio Cuyón, on October 7, 2026, six days before El Junker. Some of these projects have older filings under other names: the Sector Sabana bridge on Carretera 723 in Asomante, PW-1342, has an exclusion filed on November 20, 2021 and recorded as approved, and two construction permit filings from May 2022, one recorded as archived and one as incomplete.

Along Carretera 718

El Junker first appeared on October 10, 2024, as a legal pre-consultation recorded as approved, two years before the exclusion. Two other repair projects sit on interior branches of the same road, both in Sector Noriega: a bridge, PW 2151, whose exclusion was filed on April 4, 2025 and which returned for a second legal pre-consultation, recorded as approved, on April 13, 2026; and PW-1486, whose legal pre-consultation was filed on June 10, 2025 and recorded as approved.

No construction permit filing of any type is on record for El Junker, so the project is at an early stage.