Dredging the St. Thomas harbor, yes. Dumping the spoils in Lindbergh Bay, no. This was the consensus of those testifying Friday before the Senate Planning and Environmental Protection Committee on the Port Authority's proposed deepening of the Charlotte Amalie harbor to make it accessible to larger cruise ships.
All testifying agreed that the dredging is necessary to accommodate the deeper-draft mega-cruise ships now being built. The problem, they also agreed, is what to do with the dredged material.
Discussion to date has centered on plans to dump the material – sand and other substances – into a huge hole on the floor of Lindbergh Bay – created, ironically, by a 1930s dredging project. At issue are the ecological impact the dumping would have on the bay and beach, and the commercial impact it would have on the the three hotels ringing the bay and neighboring businesses.
Testifying were Port Authority senior planner Darlin Brin; West Indian Co. spokesman Calvin Wheatley; Emerald Beach and Carib Beach Hotels owner William Dowling; attorney Ann Marie Rost, representing the Island Beachcomber Hotel; Helen Gjessing of the League of Women Voters; Carla Joseph, president of the Environmental Association of St. Thomas-St. John; Aimee Dempsey of the Port Authority's consulting firm, Bio Impact; Barbara Kojis of the Fish and Wildlife Division; and Coastal Zone Management director Janice Hodge.
Brin detailed the dredging project, initiated in 1997 but not followed through on until now, as the Port Authority faces the prospect of ever-larger ships and the need to accommodate them.
Lindbergh Bay is only one option for disposing of the dredged material, Brin said. "In fact," he said, "it looks like the Army Corps of Engineers may be leaning toward placing the ‘spoils,' the dredged material, in the municipal landfill" – a reference to Bovoni.
Committee chair Adlah "Foncie" Donastorg and the other two committee members present – Donald "Ducks" Cole and George Goodwin – asked about the toxicity of the spoils. Brin said samples from the harbor floor have been sent off-island for analysis. He said he doubted they would be found to contain dangerously toxic substances.
Angela Hodge-Sheen, a concerned citizen, voiced strong disapproval of dumping the material at the Bovoni landfill. "Whether it is toxic or not, it affects all of us," she said. "We all live here and breathe this air – what about all that silt flying around? We should all be concerned about one another."
Dowling, noting he has lived on Lindbergh Bay for almost 50 years, said he was "vehemently opposed to dumping 200,000 cubic yards of dredged debris in Lindbergh Bay."
Backing up the opposition of those testifying were letters from John deJongh Jr., president of the St. Thomas-St. John Chamber of Commerce; and Tom Bolt, attorney for the St. Thomas-St. John Hotel Association. They, like Gjessing and Joseph, acknowledged the need for the dredging project. Gjessing said a detailed environmental impact report is needed before anything is deposited into Lindbergh Bay.
Wheatley said the dredged material can be deposited temporarily on WICO-owned land until a place is identified for it to be disposed of permanently.
Kojis stated that filling in the Lindbergh Bay hole could have beneficial results in the long term but not in the short term. Dempsey agreed but said she thought the best plan was to let nature take its course in terms of filling the hole in the bay.
The Lindbergh site would need the approval of several government entities before any dumping could take place, Brin told the senators, and this will involve review by the Public Works and Planning and Natural Resources Departments. He said a public meeting on the matter is scheduled for 1 p.m. July 14 in the conference room of the Port Authority building at the edge of the Cyril E. King Airport. Representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Port Authority, and Planning and Natural Resources have been asked to attend, he said.
