The Department of Public Works’ successful repair of the LBJ Pump Station is being overshadowed by continued million-gallon-a-day sewage discharges from the Figtree station.
On Wednesday, District Court Judge Thomas Moore ordered Public Works repairs on the St. Croix wastewater system. The order came after he toured the system of pump stations and the island’s wastewater treatment plant on Aug. 29.
On that tour he inspected the LBJ station humming along after court-mandated fixes had been performed.
But Moore found the Figtree station shut down due to electrical problems. Those problems are causing about two million gallons a day of raw sewage to be discharged into Cane Garden Bay just east of the HOVENSA refinery.
Even if the Figtree station was operating, the wastewater treatment plant east of Henry E. Rohlsen Airport couldn’t treat the sewage because of its own problems.
Still, Moore commended Public Works field personnel for their work.
"All that good effort, however, is cast in the shadow of the new pump failures at Figtree, which again bypasses millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Caribbean Sea, and the equipment failure at the (wastewater treatment plant)," Moore wrote in his latest order.
The order follows one the judge issued in May in which he threatened Turnbull administration officials with contempt of court charges if a series of deadlines to fix the sewage system weren’t met. But while many of the dates were missed, Moore said this week that it wasn’t the fault of Public Works crews in the field.
"While the status of affairs is disheartening, the Court recognizes the efforts of DPW employees to comply with this Court’s orders and that most of the recent failures at the Figtree Pump Station and the Waste Water Treatment Plant resulted from circumstances largely beyond their control," Moore said. "Accordingly, sanctions are not warranted at this time."
Instead, Moore directed his "ire" at the people in the government who control money and contracts. He noted that two of the backup pumps required at the Figtree station are not online because Public Works owes some $8,500 to a contractor. Combined with the recent failure of the lone operating pump, the station is dead and is discharging sewage into the sea.
In the meantime, Moore ordered Public Works to do whatever it needed to ready the Figtree station for the arrival of a six-inch backup pump, which will stop the discharge by pumping sewage past the station to the wastewater treatment plant. Neither Moore nor Public Works have estimated when the new, temporary six-inch pump will be on island to stop the discharges.
Until then, Moore issued a new set of deadlines to Public Works for repairs to equipment at the wastewater treatment plant and the Figtree station.
The breakdowns at LBJ and Figtree, which began in August and November of last year, respectively, have caused between 250 and 300 million gallons of untreated sewage to flow into the Caribbean Sea. Moore’s recent orders are amendments to the original 1984 consent decree between the federal and the local governments aimed at bringing the territory’s wastewater treatment systems into compliance with the U.S. Clean Water Act.
