The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency collected $32,137 in fines in the Virgin Islands during fiscal year 2010, getting rid of more than one million pounds of pollution.
Kmart was by far the biggest offender, slapped with a fine of $28,812 for improperly disposing of more than 8,000 mercury-containing waste lamps. Mercury is a highly toxic substance that persists in the environment and can enter the food chain with disastrous results.
Kmart paid the penalty and instituted procedures to properly manage its hazardous and lighting wastes in a settlement with the EPA in May.
The Westin Resort and Villas on St. John was hit with a $1,800 fine because it failed to close up the hole left behind by the removal of a secondary containment line in a fuel tank storage area.
“It’s been resolved,” said Keith Glenn, an EPA on-scene coordinator.
He said the Westin also had minor issues concerning the storage capacity and type of oil in its spill prevention, control and countermeasures plan. Additionally, Glenn said there was an issue about staining from a grease trap. Both were resolved.
Executive Flight Services on St. Thomas paid a $1,225 fine for for its failure to make repairs to a secondary containment line on its fuel tank storage area. Glenn said repairs were ongoing. He said there were also some minor issues with its spill prevention plan such as missing signatures. He said they were fixed.
The Tamarind Reef Hotel on St. Croix paid a $300 fine because it had an inadequate release detection system on its underground storage tank and an outdated method of release detection on the tank. The case was closed after Tamarind Reef installed an automatic tank gauging system, Rebecca Jamison, an underground storage tank inspector, said via email.
Additionally, the federal agency initiated actions against the V.I. Waste Management Authority that so far have not resulted in fines.
“Justice is negotiating with the Virgin Islands,” said George Meyer, the New York-based chief of Resource, Conservation and Recovery at EPA.
In its press release, EPA recapped its actions this year concerning the V.I. Waste Management Authority. On March 2, EPA issued an emergency order directing the Waste Management to immediately stop discharges from the Figtree and LBJ pump stations on St. Croix. EPA’s order also required Waste Management to implement measures to prevent equipment failures.
Equipment failures at the Figtree pump station led to daily discharges of 300,000 to more than one million gallons of raw sewage from January to March into several water bodies that feed into the Caribbean Sea. This wastewater should have flowed to the Anguilla Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Waste Management stopped the discharges from the two pump stations and immediately installed a second house pump at the Figtree to ensure that there were two functioning pumps, EPA’s press release indicated.
In May, a judicial complaint was filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of EPA to bring the Anguilla Landfill, located on St. Croix, and the Bovoni Landfill, located on St. Thomas, into compliance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the Clean Air Act. Both landfills are operated by Waste Management on behalf of the Virgin Islands government.
EPA will require the landfills to institute final closure under an approved schedule, install gas control and collection systems, and develop a 30-year post-closure care plan. These actions will control the unabated release of landfill gases, which are made up of methane, non-methane organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants.
