Water authority outlines $7.1B capital program, details cyber response and smart‑meter pilot

Engineer Doriel Pagán, president of the Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillado, told the Transition 2024–2025 committee the authority is executing a large capital portfolio — 291 active projects with an estimated $7.1 billion in investment across planning, design, procurement and construction stages. Pagán said refinancing and FEMA/EPA reimbursements have strengthened the authority’s financial position and supported accelerated rehabilitation work on critical plants and distribution systems.

On cybersecurity, members raised a March 13, 2023 incident that exposed some customer data and affected payment functions. Pagán and the authority’s planning vice president said the incident impacted the payment platform but did not interrupt operational control of treatment plants. The authority said it engaged the contracted cybersecurity firm (Pritz), coordinated with the FBI and DHS, segmented administrative and operational networks, updated servers to supported versions, installed a managed detection and response (MDR) service with 24/7 monitoring and restored payment services in under a week. The authority reported obtaining PCI certification for its payment processing as part of the remediation steps.

Committee members also discussed generation capacity and continuity: Pagán said the authority has purchased about 500 generators (of which 326 were already installed at the time of testimony) and maintains access to rental units during hurricane seasons, reaching an operational pool of roughly 1,600 generators when needed.

On metering, the authority described a smart‑meter pilot in Guaynabo that replaced defective meters and moved customers from estimated to actual readings. Witnesses said the pilot’s evaluation is near complete and that some customers saw higher bills because prior meters were malfunctioning; the authority said it will provide the pilot’s data, cost per unit and a plan for evaluating islandwide impacts before full deployment.

Pagán closed by reiterating that the authority has advanced projects to rehabilitate plants, replace pipe, and install redundancies and generators to improve service resilience; the committee requested itemized project lists, the ARPA/FEMA/EPA funding breakdown and the smart‑meter evaluation report.