A social media flyer was enough to bring a small group of frustrated residents to the Legislature on Tuesday morning, where they gathered to protest the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority following days of outages, power interruptions, and growing concerns about the utility’s reliability.
The demonstration began with about a dozen people outside the Earle B. Ottley Legislative Hall and grew modestly throughout the morning. Several attendees said they were unsure who originally created or circulated the flyer but felt compelled to show up after another week marked by service disruptions across St. Thomas and St. John.
The gathering came at the tail end of about three days of outages on St. Thomas-St. John. On Monday, WAPA Chief Executive Officer Karl Knight warned that the Randolph Harley Power Plant remained in an unstable condition after Unit 27 tripped Saturday evening because of a fuel valve issue, triggering what he described as a “series of cascading technical issues” that complicated restoration efforts. Knight cautioned that additional interruptions remained possible as crews worked to bring generating units back online. Service disruptions continued Tuesday, with additional outages reported in portions of the district.
For many attending the protest, the latest outages were simply the most recent chapter in a problem they say has persisted for years.
“It’s certainly a cause,” resident Tim Moos said. “Everybody complains about WAPA. The public keeps paying. There are major life inconveniences and financial strains. When is somebody going to fix it?”
Among those attending was Sen. Ray Fonseca, who used the occasion to renew his call for federal assistance to help address the utility’s longstanding challenges.
“WAPA has reached the crisis stage,” Fonseca said. “The problems that exist at WAPA are not for a lack of financial resources. It’s partly due to a lack of technical expertise and deferred maintenance.”
Fonseca said he plans to bring a resolution before lawmakers during an upcoming special session that would petition Congress for assistance from agencies including the U.S. Department of Energy, FEMA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“I’m not talking about a federal takeover,” he said. “I’m talking about federal assistance.”
The senator argued that despite substantial public funding directed toward the utility in recent years, reliability has continued to decline.
“We’ve given WAPA over $300 million,” Fonseca said. “The hospital needs this money. The Health Department needs this money. Human Services needs this money. We’re pumping all this money into WAPA and the service is getting worse and worse.”
Business owners also spoke about the practical effects of recurring outages. Moos said businesses without generators often struggle to process credit card transactions, keep customers comfortable, or operate normally during extended power interruptions.
“If your businesses don’t have power and they don’t have a generator, they can’t run their credit cards. They can’t run air conditioning,” he said, noting that generators themselves represent a significant investment for many small businesses.
Labor leader Carver Farrow said the frustrations expressed Tuesday are likely to carry into the political season. He pointed to a Democratic gubernatorial debate scheduled for June 26 at Charlotte Amalie High School and discussions being organized by the newly formed Virgin Islands Area Labor Federation, an AFL-CIO affiliate, where WAPA’s future is expected to be a major topic.
“One of the concerns that people have is WAPA hasn’t been doing a good job for years and years and years,” Farrow said. “Some people are advocating privatizing WAPA. They believe it would do a better job than what we’re doing now.”
Farrow said residents are increasingly looking for answers about why outages continue despite years of public investment and ongoing federal recovery funding aimed at modernizing the territory’s energy infrastructure.
“Right now, there’s no accountability,” one resident said. “Nobody is answering any questions. The governor is not answering. The administrator for WAPA is not answering. The board is not answering. So who do we go to?”
The protest was followed Tuesday evening by another district-wide outage, which WAPA said in an alert was also caused by reduced generation at the Harley Plant.
