Senate Denies Alpine Lease For St. Thomas Waste To Energy Plant
Public Opposition To PetCoke Sinks St. Thomas Agreement; Sanes Blasts St. Croix Dissenters
Sen. Sammuel Sanes
The Virgin Islands Legislature voted Monday to deny a lease to Alpine Energy Group for land to construct a waste to energy plant in the Bovoni area on St. Thomas. In a vote of 11 against and 4 in favor, the action sends the Territory back to the drawing board for an acceptable solution to the issue of solid waste.
Those opposing the lease cited community resistance to the potential public health and environmental concerns raised by the use of petcoke. Those in favor cited the need to close the Territory’s landfills to avoid sanction by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that has mandated that landfills on St. Thomas and St. Croix be closed within a specified time to avoid hefty fines.
And Sen. Sammuel Sanes, who voted in favor of the lease, chastised those activists on St. Croix who opposed the deal for not mounting the same level of opposition to the Hovensa refinery.
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The lease under consideration was for the land Alpine was going to use to construct the plant that would convert solid waste into Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). A second lease for the land to be used to construct the power generation plant, the process that would use RDF in conjunction with the hotly contested fuel petroleum coke to generate electricity, was not on the agenda today.
In recent weeks, information had surfaced that indicated that an alternative plan, one that did not involve the use of petcoke, was in the works and was being discussed with both the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority (WAPA) and the VI Waste Management Authority (VIWMA), both of which are parties to the agreement with Alpine. No such plan had been submitted to the Senate prior to today’s hearing.
Today’s action leaves several unanswered questions about the Alpine project and their contract agreement with WAPA and VIWMA. While Legislative approval was needed to lease the land on St. Thomas for construction, no such approval is necessary for St. Croix, as the south shore location designed for that facility is not government land. Can Alpine move ahead with the St. Croix portion of the project on its own?
The entire project is currently under review by the EPA for permitting purposes and that review must be positively completed before the project can proceed.
We have previously questioned the wisdom of a process that allows contracts to be signed before all reviews are completed. It has never made sense that ANY contract or Power Purchase Agreement could be signed with Alpine or any provider prior to all necessary reviews, permits and leases being completed and/or approved.
Voting against the leases were Sens. Craig Barshinger, Adlah “Foncie” Donastorg, Carlton Dowe, Neville James, Shawn Malone, Terrence Nelson, Nellie O’Reilly, Usie Richards, Patrick Sprauve, Celestino White and Alvin Williams.
Voting in favor of the leases were Senate President Louis Patrick Hill, and Sens. Wayne James, Sammuel Sanes and Michael Thurland.
So the question is now what?
Just after the vote was completed, Sen. Craig Barshinger encouraged officials of WAPA and VIWMA to continue to work on a proposal to eliminate the landfills and address the solid waste problem.
We look forward to Plan B.
Based on my understanding, whether or not Alpine burns our trash doesn’t deal with the current landfills. I thought that the trash would be newly generated trash. Can someone please inform me?
So Sanes, Hill, Turdland, and W. James voted for the Alpie deal. I hope St. Thomas is paying attention, because Hill is going home with his friend, Gov. John deJongh.
Is Senator Sanes going crazy? Most of those people were not even around these parts when the Hovensa deal was passed by the Senate years ago. He perhaps does not even know the difference between the orgninal agreement and the extention agreement. Now I can see why he’s on his way home. Bring on Pedro Cruz, I am quite sure he can read and has a better command of the english language.
No problem St, Thomas will “HANDLE” Hill.
Do you see why Thurland, Sanes, and W.James are looked at as the most vulnerable and most likely not to get re-elected.
Those three simply just don’t GET IT!
@ EWO
Don’t be fooled, they all have no choice but to vote in approval. All are in the tank with this administration and will have the same defeat as the dewolf come November 2, 2010, if not sooner in the primary.
I couldn’t be more pleased that Thurland, Sanes, & W James have shown by their public vote that they have NO interest in anyone but theirselves. None of them have an interest in the people they serve: only the governor they kiss up to.
btw, does anyone know if W James has finished remodeling his office yet? Has he moved into the ofice yet? Does anyone know how many dollars he has spent on this office remodel? Just curious, haven’t heard anything lately on this matter.
I’m sure Wayne will be taking the furniture with him.
I could feel sorry for them. They have obviously made a huge political error in thinking that deWolf would have coattails they could safely ride the next election in on. Wrong!
You fools, don’t you see Celestino backing away? You should have never PRETENDED to be leaders when you are in reality deWolf’s SHEEP. Hopefully, you can all move away and retire on your corrupt payoff money. Make sure you get enough because your professional careers are over in the VI. No one will trust you again. You have all allowed yourself to look stupid, foolish and like small time crimminals to cover deWolf’s ass. What will you tell the Feds(under oath)?
ALL SHEEP run for your lives or be prepared for slaughter.
Sanes is an idiot and Turdland based his vote solely on Hugo and May being Native Sons who would do no ‘harm’ to those who live here and have our best (?) interests at heart. Does Turdland not know of the Native Sons who are in prison for doing their ‘best’ while working for the government? Family names like Biggs, Plaskett, Simmons, Roebuck, etc????
Hill has clearly been paid off…….
Well, well, well… we now officially have the three stoogies in the Virgin Islands. What a thing…OH NO! They are from St. Croix? Here are their names – Wayne James is officially Larry; Samuel Sanes or better known as Senator Insane is Moe; and last but not less is the good senator Michael Thurland is Curly. There you have it, THE OFFICIAL THREE STOOGIES OF THE VI ON THE ISLAND OF ST. CROIX. WHAT A SHOW…BOY-OH BOY…GOOD SHOW YOU GUYS. We will now retire them with an Oscar of their own come September.
Of all the idiotic performances I have seen in this Legislature, and there have been many, Sanes’ little hissy fit yesterday was one of the worst yet.
Is someone telling him that he is doing himself a favor with these rants? He sounded nuts and to deride your own voting constituency for protesting against a plan that has so many disadvantages is just destructive.
Didn’t he get a clue when DOWE voted no????
If he wanted to assure he won’t serve another term, he sealed that yesterday.
After seeing the way those 3 rookie senators voted yesterday for Alpine, they made the people they replaced in the last election look like angels. Maybe that’s how we on St. Thomas need to vote. Keep voting out the incumbants until we have leaders that are truly representing the people. Don’t pay attention to the threats or politicial games. For real change, we need to a new governor and a new legislature for 2011.
@T
To your point, Hill clearly does not hear the people and what they want. His speech elevating Hodge and Cornwall to near sainthood yesterday said a lot to me. If you are a native, you are above question when suspect deals are done. Giving the past of our leader’s and given the public outcry on AEG, why would not the first thought be that they were paid off?
Yes, we need new representation. Especially here on STT. Too many of the same doing the same.
this alpine deal is being blown out of proportion…..the vote yesterday was not about the petroleum coke………some of the senators were being spiteful because they were no documentation in front of them with the new deal…..let me see when the government has to pay 55 million dollars a year…….i dont want to hear the foolish complaints, because that is what it is going to be…… foolish……they should of supported the plant to just burn our waste..now we have to worry about hefty fines….come on engineers bring a solution to the table…quick
No one is citing the fact that the VIWMA was formed 6 year’s ago under Turnbull, as a semiautonomous agency, with May Adams Cornwall’s who’s first objective was to close the dumps. She failed to do so. Now we should do the wrong thing in a hurry to save her behind.
We could downsize the WMA, get rid of the board, put it back under Public Works, and do a much better job and save money. The cost savings will pay for the bundling of trash in addition to the $19 million/year we would have paid AEG to burn our trash until we get a viable solution. And we would save millions in dollars WMA pays out to consultants because we have managed to staff the agency with people who are not qualified to do their jobs, or are too lazy to do their jobs.
In short, we have yet another high paid government employee with a bloated budget who did not do her job. Anyone remember the $1 million she paid for a failed rate system to a startup consultant? We cannot continue to expect different results doing the same thing with the same government people in charge.
Hey if the 3 senators from STX had voted for the deal with the petroleum coke, they have the right to be blasted. However, what they and Senator Hill voted for was just for turning solid waste into RDF. NOT FOR PETROLEUM COKE. And if you listened carefully to all the SENATORS speak, it was clear that Malone, Barshinger, Richards, and Sprauve would of voted yes if the proper documentation was in front of them. Its called playing politics.
Senator Richards made the joke that some didn’t know what they had for lunch, obviously most of the senators did not know what they were voting for
I wonder what the governor is thinking when he found out that not only the Senate overrode seven of the bills he vetoed, but they shot down the bill to approve the lease for the Alpine plant. It must be a terrible thing tocome back to after a long vacation.
I don’t think it was a simple as just voting for rdf and not for pet coke – at least not yesterday.
First of all without any formal info, how do we know the Alpine contract would even allow one part of the project to go forward without the other? Are we supposed to assume that since they split the vote on the leasesthat it was okay from a contractural basis? What is the cost structure if that’s the new arrangement? And keep in mind that gets rid of the trash but doesn’t address the power generation issue. If all we want to do is get rid of the trash by turning it into RDF there are MUCH cheaper ways to do it than to sign up for the deal we have with alpine now.
They didn’t have the information to vote on one section of that agreement yesterday.
What I want to know is what is our cost liability now that this deal has been delayed and possibly denied? They’ve already spent $6 mil on consultants.
And I agree with a previous poster – Cornwall has had years to deal with the landfill issue and now that the sanctions are knocking on the door, we’re supposed to accept another deal (or a per of the deal) that has serious issues that haven’t been addressed.
This is not that tough a nut to crack. There are many, many simple solutions to the solid waste issue. And althought the initial costs of these plans will be significant and will require, dare I say it, some self discipline around sorting and recycling, it can be done.
I applaud them for not smashing through another deal based mainly on the fact that a couple of our “native sons” said it would do no harm.