The Institute of Statistics develops an initiative to document compliance with the law that makes library services accessible to people with disabilities
March 20, 2019. San Juan, Puerto Rico — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) is carrying out an initiative to ensure that libraries at the University of Puerto Rico, as well as libraries at private universities, post-secondary education institutions and municipalities in Puerto Rico, are complying with Law No. 63, “Act to Establish Inclusive Library Services for Technological Assistance.” This law requires library services to be accessible to people with disabilities through the use of technological equipment.
The initiative, developed by the Institute, in conjunction with the Technological Assistance Program (PRATP), consists of the creation of an electronic questionnaire that each entity or municipality can access to report progress in compliance with the aforementioned law. The Institute is also responsible for data management and the possible publication of related statistics.
“Each library must select a person who is responsible for accessing the platform and providing the data relevant to compliance with Law 63. This process can be completed in approximately 30 minutes. This representative will also serve as a link between his library, the National Library of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Council of Education, the Office of the Ombudsman for Persons with Disabilities of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Technological Assistance Program and the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics,” explained Dr. Oville M. Disdier, acting executive director of the Institute.
The new system will facilitate government access to collect, analyze and disseminate data describing how effective the libraries of public universities, private universities, post-secondary education institutions and municipalities in Puerto Rico have been in implementing Law No. 63, which was signed and approved on April 15, 2011.
“We urge all agencies, municipalities and universities, which must comply with this law, to access and complete the questionnaire before March 29,” said Disdier.
For questions about technical questions related to the questionnaire, entities can contact the Institute via email at cuestionario.ley63@estadisticas.pr or by calling (787) 993-3336. Also, for questions about the programmatic content of the law, you can contact the PRATP at (787) 474-9999 or by writing to pratp@pratp.upr.edu.
PRESS RELEASE DR. MARIO MARAZZI‐SANTIAGO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
May 9, 2018
STATISTICS INSTITUTE PUBLISHES PUERTO RICO'S TOXIC EMISSIONS PROFILE
In this way, a contribution is made to facilitate access and knowledge of statistics on the toxic waste emitted by establishments in Puerto Rico, which are reported annually to the EPA.
San Juan, PR, May 9, 2018 — In Puerto Rico, 101 facilities handled a total of 33,165,925 pounds of toxic substances during 2016, some 4,330,512 pounds (13%) less than in 2015. Of these, 17,836,676 pounds (54%) were recycled, as revealed by the Puerto Rico Toxic Emissions Profile conducted by the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute).
The Puerto Rico Toxic Emissions Profile, the first of its kind carried out by the Institute, summarizes data from the Toxic Emissions Inventory (TRI) that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been published annually since 1987. Its purpose is to publicize what toxic waste establishments in Puerto Rico emit in order to help the public understand how their communities and environments may be affected.
The TRI emerged from the need for communities to know what toxic waste is being managed around them, and how it is available, so that people can prepare in the event of an environmental emergency. The information comes from estimates made by the facilities themselves based on production. They are reported on an annual form conducted by the EPA.
The federal law that creates the TRI, the Environmental Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA), approved in 1986, represented a paradigm shift in environmental regulation, of an end-of-cycle type (end-of-pipe), whose focus is on remedying the production of pollutants, to an open data approach, where the public is given the tools to pressure companies to reduce their emissions.
Here are some of the findings from the publication:
Since 1987, toxic waste released in Puerto Rico has fallen by 87%.
Of the total toxic waste handled in 2016, just over half (54%) was recycled.
Of the total toxic waste emitted, 81% was emitted inside the facilities, and of this, 98% was emitted into the air.
Of the total toxic waste emitted within the facilities, about a third was sulfuric acid, 100% of which came from the industrial sector of generation, transmission and distribution of electrical energy.
In addition, the report details that the 101 facilities in Puerto Rico that reported data to the TRI during 2016 cover a total of 43 municipalities and are generally located close to coastal areas. Guaynabo, Manati and San Juan had the highest number of facilities participating in the TRI in 2016. However, if municipalities are grouped by amount of toxic emissions, Guayama, Salinas and Manati rank in the first three places.
It is important to clarify that the data presented do not contain all the toxic waste managed, nor all the facilities that handled such waste in Puerto Rico during 2016, since the TRI only requires information from those facilities that meet three main criteria. These are: having at least 10 full-time employees; being federal facilities, or classified under one of the industrial sectors to which the TRI requires them to report; being manufacturing sectors that handle over 25,000 pounds of any of the substances for which the TRI requires reporting data and, if they belong to a non-manufacturing sector, must exceed 10,000 pounds.
In addition to publishing the Toxic Emissions Profile, fulfilling its function of facilitating access to the statistics related to this report, the Institute contributes by making available the complete historical series of the TRI in https://datos.estadisticas.pr/dataset/tri and through the Internet of Toxic Emissions application in your Community http://emisionestoxicaspr.org.
The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access. The IEPR has in its inventory, accessible through https://estadisticas.pr.gov, about 300 statistical products. In addition, it is a custodian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through https://data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: https://www.indicadores.pr.
In addition, as the leading entity of the Puerto Rico SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, where you can find the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey (Puerto Rico Community Survey) and official statistics on Puerto Rico's 10-year population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed through: https://censo.estadisticas.pr.
Statistics Institute reveals the Results Report of its 2018 Statistics Publication Calendar
San Juan, PR, February 2, 2018 — The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute) today released the Results Report of its 2018 Statistics Publication Calendar (CAPe), which includes the schedule for the publication of statistics on Puerto Rico for this calendar year and which, in turn, provides an evaluation of the commitment of government entities to users regarding the publication dates of their statistics for the calendar year 2017.
As detailed in the CAPe Results Report, for calendar year 2018, 22 state and federal agencies have been included in this commitment to publish their 45 statistical reports. Regarding the specific performance of compliance with the CAPe, the report highlights in its introduction that: “For 2017, the first 3 local agencies that achieved greater consistency in complying with their publication schedule on time were the Department of Labor and Human Resources (with the Employment and Unemployment report, as well as Non-Agricultural Wage Employment), the Department of Health (with its Weekly Report on Arboviral Diseases) and the Puerto Rico Police (with its Type I Crimes report)”.
On the other hand, the agencies with the lowest on-time compliance were the Puerto Rico Police (with their Fatal Accident Report), the Trade and Export Company (Retail Sales), the Port Authority (Air and Sea Cargo and Passengers) and the Tourism Company (Monthly Statistics Report).
The 2018 CAPe Results Report is available at the following link: https://estadisticas.pr/calendario. In addition, it has been distributed through the Institute's Statistical Report Subscription System, which allows users to receive directly to their email and free of charge, some of the statistical reports published by state and federal agencies. During the calendar year 2017, 34 different statistical reports published by 21 agencies of the Government of Puerto Rico and the Federal Government of the United States were released through the Subscription System. While the total number of subscriptions from its inception in 2008 to December 2017 amounts to a total of 1,609.189 million.
”Throughout these 10 years of existence of the Statistics Publication Calendar, we have been able to verify that not only during 2017, but historically, the statistical publications of the Tourism Company, the Trade and Export Company, the Industrial Development Company and other entities attached to the Department of Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC), are among the monthly publications with the longest delays in publication or data lag”, said Dr. Mario Marazzi-Santiago, executive director of the Institute.
One of the main reasons that led to the creation of the Institute was the excessive delay in producing certain statistics. That is why the Act established strict schedules for the publication of statistics with which the Institute has fully and consistently complied during its 10 years of existence.
The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access. The IEPR has nearly 300 statistical products in its inventory, accessible through www.estadisticas.pr. In addition, it is a guardian and provides access to over 100 data sets or “data sets” through www.data.pr.gov and to over 40 tables and more than 6 thousand indicators through: www.indicadores.pr.
In addition, as the leading entity of Puerto Rico's SDC, the IEPR manages the SDC portal, which contains the main statistical reports and publications of the U.S. Census Bureau on Puerto Rico, specifically those that are most in demand, such as annual population estimates; the Puerto Rico Community Survey and official statistics on Puerto Rico's decennial population and housing censuses, among others. The Puerto Rico SDC portal can be accessed at: https://censo.estadisticas.pr/.
For more information you can visit our website: www.estadisticas.pr.gov. In addition, you can follow us on social networks through Facebook (estadisticas.pr), Twitter (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.
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