Gov. Charles Turnbull is in the nation’s capital lobbying the new chiefs of the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on issues affecting the territory.
Turnbull, in Washington, D.C., for the National Governors Conference, said Monday that he spoke to Christie Todd Whitman, the new EPA administrator, and Interior Secretary Gale Norton about solid-waste regulatory issues and the recent establishment of controversial national monuments in the waters off St. Croix and St. John.
"I’ve known Whitman as the governor of New Jersey," Turnbull said. "We’ve been discussing the needs of the Virgin Islands."
The V.I. government and the EPA have a long and turbulent relationship, especially in the areas of solid waste and sewage disposal. The Turnbull administration is now taking bids for comprehensive solid-waste management facilities for St. Croix and St. Thomas, an undertaking that will require significant EPA involvement.
Additionally, over the last 15-plus years, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice have been after the V.I. government to bring its wastewater treatment systems — particularly on St. Croix — up to basic compliance levels, but with little success.
Despite the past difficulties, Turnbull said the Whitman-led EPA appears to be receptive to working with the territory.
Turnbull met Monday with Norton and plans to have a longer meeting with her Tuesday to discuss the monument issue, which has caused an uproar from the local fishing industry that fears it will be hurt by the monuments’ no-take zones.
According to the proclamation signed by former President Bill Clinton just before leaving office in January that expands the Buck Island Monument by 18,000 acres, the secretary of the Interior, who oversees the Park Service, has two years to prepare a management plan to protect natural and historical resources. For the 12,700-acre St. John monument, the time line is three years.
That, however, is based on the assumption held by the past regime in Interior that the lands belong to the federal government.
"I pointed out to her that there is a contention that the land is ours in the first place," Turnbull said. "In any case, we were not consulted by the federal government."
While Norton will carry out the Bush administration’s edict of giving states and territories more flexibility when dealing with federal mandates, she said in an interview with the Washington Post last week that reversals of Clinton’s monument designations are unlikely and that she had "not yet heard any calls to repeal any of the monument designations."
She said it is likely that efforts to alter the rules governing commercial activities within the monuments will be undertaken when the management plans are drafted.
"We may need to manage those plans in a way that takes into account current uses and that better tailors the monuments for local needs and circumstances," Norton told the Washington Post.
