22/04/2023
April 2020, Teva Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients was fined more than $500,000 for alleged Clean Water Act and other environmental violations at its pharmaceutical manufacturing plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico. The plant shut operations after TAPI struggled to come into compliance, Jose Rivera, lead environmental engineer of multimedia permits and compliance branch of the Caribbean Environmental Protection Division, told ABC News.
"After TAPI closed, which was around 2017, we found out that there was also pollution to the groundwater coming from this plant," Santiago said.
When asked for comment, a representative for Teva Pharmaceuticals, TAPI's parent company, told ABC News, "While Teva did not admit liability, the Company has resolved all of the claims raised at that time."
And one mile away is the Fiber Public Supply Wells super fund site, created over 20 years ago and for which six different manufacturing companies were found responsible for the pollution from the solvents that they used, according to Santiago. Because it is so difficult to remove pollutants from groundwater, the EPA says the remediation efforts take a very long time but that monitoring indicates that the pollutants are contained.
The environmental effects from manufacturing activity on the island are expected to require treatment and monitoring for decades to come, the experts said.
Lilia Geho/ABC News
The entrance for the shuttered TAPI Pharmaceutical plant in Guyama, Puerto Rico.
Lilia Geho/ABC News
But several residents told ABC News tha
