Dear editor,
It occurs to me that the petroleum excise tax may be available to the Virgin Islands in a form if we approach the situation in a particular way.
There are some things that would have to be done to convince the U.S. Congress and the Treasury Department. One is that the money will be spent responsibly. The other is that we have a pressing need for some extraordinary expenditures outside of the day-to-day annual operations of the V. I. government.
The way of doing the first would be to keep the funds out of the general treasury. If the funds went into it would be a standing invitation to the status quo of waste and corruption. Much of this is caused by personal pressure placed on ordinary human beings. "Cousin, employ me or buy my goods."
Instead there should be a special officer from the Interior Department managing a trust with the V.I. Inspector General.
As we're all aware, the territory is small and space is limited. We need economic development, especially on St. Croix. There is an expansion underway of Henry E. Rohlsen Airport, and we have the container and molasses ports.
In between there are several hundred acres of what used to be the VIALCO refinery. The whole area between the container port and the old Texaco tanks could be developed as a manufacturing and distribution center.
What breaks up the area are from west to east:
1.) The horse race track, which could be included within a business hotel site if the sewage plant were managed properly.
2.) The sewage treatment plant is a necessity
3.) The red mud pile, the bauxite tailings of VIALCO a couple hundred acres and five stories high.
The grim fact is that we have little likelihood of VIALCO revitalizing and an enormous brownfield. Were the area to be developed and the red mud pile ignored and never used for a productive purpose or it could be factories and warehouses.
Executives of the Alcoa up in the U. S. made an economic decision to shut down and move operations to Surinam. By a curious turn of events, the new Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, is one of those individuals who decided to leave our industrial park under a pile of skit. (A Danish word meaning refuse.)
Were a suit to be brought to ship the red mud off island the case could read: "The People of the USVI vs Paul O'Neill, chair, Alcoa."
Alcoa did not create the whole pile, but as last operator they should have cleaned it up. The bauxite fields of Surinam, a country with 63,037 squar miles instead of 84, might be a good place for such a relocation. The V.I. government could generously offer to share the cost out of the clean up out of a special trust funded with petroleum excise taxes.
I wonder who we would ask.
Richard Bond
