Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
As hurricane waste builds, Virgin Islands debate rages
U.S. territory wrestles over what to do with debris from 2 big storms
ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands — Kenneal Smith used to enjoy the coastal and mountain views offered from his guard shack here at the largest landfill of St. Thomas.
But after back-to-back hurricanes pinwheeled across the Virgin Islands in September, Smith feels like he’s burried under piles of sheared metal roofs, waterlogged appliances and crumpled mango and bay rum trees that have been dropped off here.
“You used to actually be able to see over these banks,” said Smith, as he looked up at four-story debris piles lining the entrance to Bovoni landfill. “And the trucks just keep coming.”
Over the past 4 ½ months, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and local contractors have collected more than 736,000 cubic yards of debris — the equivalent of 61,000 truckloads — as they rush to clean up St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, the three major islands of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
As the mountains of wreckage continue to grow, crowding landfills and littering roadsides, debate has raged over how to get rid of the detritus tarnishing the islands’ famous Caribbean landscapes.
A plan to burn the waste was squashed after residents protested over the potential health and environmental effects. Shipping the waste to the U.S. mainland is complicated by the threat of invasive species.
Other Caribbean nations don’t want it either.
Meanwhile, Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp fears the heaps of debris are not only an eyesore but also a major fire hazard on these islands with limited firefighting resources.
Mapp is demanding that the Army Corps remove all of the debris from the islands, threatening to extend the agency’s formal cleanup mission that is already projected to cost $275 million.
“The biggest question everyone has is where are we taking it?” said Brooks O. Hubbard IV, an Army Corps spokesman for the Virgin Islands recovery effort. “All I can say right now is we are seeking locations where we can take it, either in the continental United States or out of the continental U.S.”
The Army Corps, tasked with overseeing removal of hurricane debris on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, proposed an incineration process similar to one used by the federal government in New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. With jungles covering the islands’ mountainous terrain, about 80 percent of the debris left behind by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria consists of uprooted trees, vines and other foliage, according to Army Corps statistics.
Mapp endorsed the Army Corps’ plan, arguing that incineration was the cheapest and most efficient way to get rid of the vegetation. But outcry against the proposal began on St. John, which is surrounded by coral reefs and includes a lush 20-square mile national park.
Within days, residents of St. Thomas and St. Croix joined in to express their opposition through community meetings, a petition drive, letter writing and social media campaigns.
The rebellion was rooted in the territory’s past problems with pollution as well as a heightened concern about President Donald Trump’s skepticism of climate change.
Residents of the U.S. Virgin Islands are American citizens, but they can’t vote in the presidential general election and have no voting representation in Congress.
For much of its history as a U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands has endured repeated environmental hazards, including underground landfill fires and pollution from the oil and rum industries.
In the mid-1960s, when the tourism industry here was still in its infancy, the Hess Corp. built a hulking oil refinery on the southern beaches of St. Croix. The Hovensa Refinery became one of the world’s largest, producing hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day.
Though the refinery created thousands of jobs, St. Croix residents endured multiple health and environmental hazards, including underground petroleum leaks and air pollution.
In 2011, after decades of local complaints, the Environmental Protection Agency reached a settlement with Hovensa LLC, including $5.37 million in fines and $700 million in remediation to control air pollution.
The refinery closed in 2012.
In response to the protests, the territory’s senate approved legislation barring the burning of hurricane debris.
But Mapp, worried the federal government could walk away from the cleanup effort if the territory defied the Army Corps, vetoed the legislation.
In late December, the Senate voted 12-2 to override Mapp’s veto.
Still, as Virgin Island residents struggle to clean up from the hurricanes, not all residents are happy that debris can’t be incinerated.
Raphael Munchez, whose home was damaged during Hurricane Maria, said the burning ban was shortsighted.
“We need our government to get back on its feet — it’s struggling right now — and they don’t need any more burdens,” Munchez said. “Burn it. Burn it. Burn it . . . . Nobody is worried about pollution right now. We are worried about getting all of this debris off the island.”
The Army Corps’ plans to deploy incinerators in the Caribbean have also been met with resistance in Puerto Rico, where the agency estimates the hurricanes left behind nearly 10 times as much debris.
The Army Corps is instead grinding vegetative debris in Puerto Rico into mulch and making it available to local property owners.
Local activists want the Army Corps to do the same in the Virgin Islands so local farmers and landscapers can use the vegetative debris to create regenerative compost.
But federal and territorial authorities are skeptical that there is enough space on the islands for stockpiles of mulch. The 624,000 cubic yards of vegetative debris collected thus far would fill 190 Olympic-size swimming pools.
On St. John, Josephine Roller, 60, hopes the vegetative debris never leaves the island.
Roller owns Coral Bay Organic Gardens, which produces much of the island’s fresh produce but was badly damaged during the hurricanes.
Standing on her 18-acre property, Roller panned plans for shipping out the debris instead of allowing it to be used as compost.
She believes all of St. John’s vegetative debris could be stored on her property, which is wedged between Bordeaux Mountain and the maritime community of Coral Bay.
“They are just making these dumb piles when they should have been chipping it up right away and putting it in a truck to deliver it here right away,” Roller said.