The River Is Ours, Too

The Río de la Plata runs through our history and our backyard. Caring for it is not an environmentalists’ topic: it is a neighbors’ topic.

Toa Baja owes its name and its memory to the river. The De la Plata — the longest in Puerto Rico — comes down from the mountain range, crosses our valley, and delivers its waters to San Juan Bay. Generations of Toa Baja people grew up watching that river: some crossed it daily, others fished on its banks, and we all learned early that the river commands respect.

The river is also a silent teacher. It reminds us that what is thrown upstream reaches someone downstream; that trash does not disappear, it only changes banks; that nature is not a backdrop but one more neighbor, with whom we share the same ground.

In Levittown we live among waters: the river, the lakes, the bay, the sea. That geography is a privilege and a task. A privilege, because few neighborhoods wake with so much water nearby. A task, because water is cared for with small, constant habits: do not throw, pick up, plant the banks, teach the kids that the river is not a trash can with a current.

Whoever has walked its banks knows its other face: the quiet stroll, the shade of the trees, the air that comes down cooler beside the water. The river is also recreation and landscape, the green background of family photos, the place where many of us learned to fish holding a father’s or a grandfather’s hand. That emotional memory is, perhaps, its best defense: nobody cares for what they do not love.

That is why every shore cleanup day that brings neighbors together has a double value: it picks up what needs picking up and, above all, it renews the pact. The kids who spend one morning between the river and the community understand, without speeches, that the town’s nature is not someone else’s business.

There is also a practical reason: the river protects us when we protect it. Banks with vegetation withstand floods better; clean channels drain better. Caring for the river is, literally, caring for everyone’s homes.

Let this column serve as a kind reminder: the Río de la Plata is ours, too. No great campaign is needed to honor it; it is enough to look at it as what it is — part of the family — every time we cross it.