It looks as if all that's holding up dredging the St. Thomas harbor is a waiver on a Coastal Zone Management permit, a water quality study, a chemical determination of the harbor bottom, and an appeal the League of Women Voters has filed with CZM opposing the waiver.
At a Friday meeting of VI. Port Authority officials, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representatives and other local and federal government officials, all of those issues were addressed except for the LWV appeal.
All parties agreed that VIPA's proposal to dredge the harbor to accommodate the megacruise ships that are to begin arriving in the fall is a sound idea. The proposed dumping of the dredged material into Lindbergh Bay is in question.
What to do with the estimated 200,000 cubic feet of dredged matter was the subject of a Senate committee hearing on July 7 where many voices were heard – the CZM, the environmentalists, representatives of three Lindbergh Bay hotels, the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel and Tourism Association and the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce. The last three parties, along with environmentalists, strongly oppose the dumping in Lindbergh Bay. No conclusions were drawn at the hearing, and none were anticipated at Friday's meeting.
The meeting, conducted by Edwin E. Muñiz, the Army Corps of Engineers regulatory section chief in San Juan, was basically to thrash out the advisability of dumping the "spoils" – the dredged material – into a hole on the floor of Lindbergh Bay that was itself created by a dredging project in the 1930s.
Muñiz made it clear that the Corps of Engineers supports the harbor dredging. He encouraged VIPA to resolve the dispute about disposing of the spoils. He said he had visited alternative sites available for the spoils Friday morning. The West Indian Company has offered to store the material at its Long Bay landfill area temporarily until a final site is chosen.
Felix Lopez of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service and Barbara Kojis of the Fish and Wildlife division of the Planning and Natural Resources Department strongly favor placing the dredged matter in Lindbergh Bay. Lopez has extensive knowledge of Lindbergh, having done diving and studies on it 10 years ago. Kojis said, contrary to enviromentalists' concerns, that filling the hole would, over the long run, refurbish and preserve the bay. "If it goes on too much longer unfilled, there will be major problems with beach erosion," she said, citing deterioration she has observed over the last decade. Amy Dempsey of Bioimpact, VIPA's environmental consultant, agreed: "Until the hole is filled in, it will only get worse."
Island Resources Foundation researchers, Ed Towle and Bruce Potter have said in commentary in the Op-Ed section of St. Thomas Source that they see "no significant long-term risk in filling the existing dredge hole in Lindbergh Bay," although they said there would be short-term turbidity until particle matter settled.
The factions opposed to the Lindbergh Bay dumping see it as ruining the beach and posing a serious threat to tourism in the area. Carib Beach Hotel owner William Dowling, who has lived in the area for nearly 50 years, said the sand comes and goes and should be left alone to let nature take its course. "It's hard to predict what would happen," he said.
Lopez said the depression in the bay is impeding bay's natural processes. "If it hasn't replenished itself in the 70 years since the hole was dug, it won't do it any time soon," he said.
Dempsey described a sea grass protection project under way in Charlotte Amalie harbor that she said must be finished before the dredging begins. "We have to relocate the habitat the dredging will destroy," she said.
Port Authority executive director Gordon Finch, in obvious exasperation, said, "If something isn't done in a timely manner, the whole thing will end up in court, and there goes the cruise ship season, the economy, and it'll probably wind up in Washington."
Muñiz assured Finch that the Corps of Engineers has no formal objection to the dredging. He said he appreciated Finch's time frame concerns. He also noted that there is dredging equipment on St. Thomas now, and that bringing such equipment in again later would add to the project's cost.
Dempsey said that chemical analysis of samples of dredged matter sent to a mainland laboratory on Wednesday would be e-mailed from the testing company.
Port Authority planner Darlan Brin, who had spoken at length at the week-earlier Senate hearing, said VIPA plans to spread the dredged matter over refuse at the Bovoni landfill. He said everything else is in the hands of Planning and Natural Resources, which was not represented at the meeting. The only CZM board member present was Austin Monsanto, who said he could make no decision without the other two commission members, who were unable to attend the meeting. Also not in attendance was CZM director Janice Hodge.
