June 26, 2001 – Conflict at a town meeting in Nadir Monday night came down to what could be a choice between protecting the residents of St. Thomas's worst flood plain and protecting pond apples in the nearby mangroves.
After hearing Nadir residents say an $18 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plan to channel rain water out of the area to prevent flooding won't work, Sen. Norma Pickard-Samuel, who had called the meeting, said she will press the Planning and Natural Resources Department to allow water that collects in Nadir to drain through nearby protected mangroves.
Corps of Engineers and Public Works Department officials said Planning and Natural Resources would not permit that to happen because of the environmentally sensitive pond apples that thrive in the mangroves and grow at the mouth of the Nadir gut.
The Corps of Engineers, in conjunction with Public Works, is planning to start construction within the next year on a long-delayed project to prevent flooding in Nadir. The project involves making the gut that runs through Nadir five feet deeper and three times wider, and channeling water from the gut to a drainage pipe six feet in diameter that would carry the water under the Clinton E. Phipps Race Track and out to the lagoon.
The plan also includes rebuilding the infamous "bridge to nowhere" and connecting it to Turpentine Run, which is to be elevated 10 feet at its intersection with the Bovoni road to connect with the bridge roadway.
Officials say they expect it will take six months to settle land issues with some residents who will lose part of their yards and driveways, and with the owners of a trucking business which will have to relocate. The Nadir Esso service station will have to be torn down, and that also will take time, Rodney Platzke, Public Works construction program manager, said.
It is expected to take another three to six months to get the Coastal Zone Management permits to begin construction, Platzke said, meaning construction on the project would not start for at least another nine months.
Many of the approximately 40 residents attending the three-hour-plus meeting called by Pickard-Samuel at the Nadir basketball court Monday night noted that the neighborhood has dealt with severe flooding after rain storms and hurricanes for over 30 years. Many were adamant the Corps of Engineers plan won't work. Raising the roadway 10 feet and building culverts below sea level, they said, will mean storm water will concentrate the flooding in their neighborhood.
Some residents were also unhappy that the project would mean relocating the basketball court and playground to Frydenhoj or near the Humane Society of St. Thomas site.
Alpheus Bailey, a 32-year Nadir resident, said engineers and government officials appear unaware that the main source of flooding is rainwater coming from surrounding hills and roadways which converge in the neighborhood. When the gut overflows and the lagoon backs up, he said, the water gets sent right back to Nadir, flooding the houses surrounding the basketball court and horse track. Widening the gut and running a drainage pipe into the lagoon will not solve the problem, he said.
Many at the meeting raised concerns that raising the roadway 10 feet to meet the "bridge to nowhere" would create a virtual pool in the neighborhood and flood out some residents.
"You are going to spend millions of dollars building culverts below sea level, and it is going to back up. It's not going to work," Steven Thompson, who grew up in Nadir, said.
Marvette Peterson, a longtime resident, said she has seen raging flood waters carry dead animal carcasses, furniture and a woman through the neighborhood. She said widening the gut would do little to limit flooding during storms.
"No culvert is going to save us from getting flooded," she said. "You are going to drown us out."
Public Works Commissioner Wayne Callwood and an engineer from the Army Corps insisted the plan will reduce the amount of flooding and can handle flood waters up to a "25-year-storm" — one of an intensity that historically occurs only an average of once in 25 years. (Hurricanes Hugo and Marilyn, which occurred six years apart, were considered "100-year storms.")
"It will work. We are going to make the gut three times wider and five feet deeper. This can handle up to a 25-year rain storm," Michael Shultz, Corps of Engineers civil engineer, said.
But residents at the meeting weren't buying it.
Bailey said government officials and engineers need to come up with a better plan and consult with residents before beginning construction. He and other Nadir residents chastised the engineers and officials for not consulting residents before drafting the plan, and for not visiting the area during a flood period to get an idea of where the flooding occurs.
"We live here, and we are trying to tell you what is wrong, but you are not listening," Bailey said.
Some residents called for rain water to be channeled through the nearby mangroves and out to sea. Shultz agreed that would be a simpler and more effective plan. However, he added, Planning and Natural Resources will not allow it, because of the damage it could cause to pond apples that thrive in the mangroves.
"Fish and Wildlife would not allow construction that would affect pond apple growth," Shultz said.
"If you are telling me that the best way is to go into the mangroves, then we need to go to Washington or to Fish and Wildlife and get it done," Pickard-Samuel said at that point. "People are more important than mangroves or pond apples."
After the meeting, she said she would be contacting Planning and Natural Resources Commissioner Dean Plaskett about the possibility of channeling the runoff through the mangroves.
Callwood said Planning and Natural Resources environmental regulations that protect pond apples and the mangroves themselves have Public Works in a bind as far as maintaining the Nadir gut. Pond apples growing near the mouth of the gut prevent his department from effectively cleaning out the channel that drains the water into the sea, he said.
"We are in a 'Catch-22' because we are supposed to maintain the gut, but they won't let us clean the gut," he said.
