While the Public Works Department celebrated naming the territory’s new St. John ferry, Spirit of 1733, getting a new ferry to travel between St. Thomas and St. Croix will be more difficult, officials told legislators Wednesday.
The soon-to-come ferry is scheduled to start traversing Pillsbury Sound before year’s end. Although the 35 miles of water between St. Thomas and St. Croix is also a federal marine highway, roughly $15 million is needed for an appropriate ferry boat.
Each of the three recent attempts to get mainland public funding has ended in failure, said Public Works Commissioner Dereck Gabriel. Federal officials require more hard data on cost and usage than the territory currently has. Unlike roads and bridges, infrequently traveled waterways are a non-starter in Washington, D.C., regardless of the number of people forced to fly the route instead, he said.
On the mainland, most ferry routes are run by private companies, Gabriel told the Committee on Budget, Appropriations, and Finance.
“Ferry transportation doesn’t really translate with grant opportunities,” Gabriel said. “If we want a ferry for that route, we will have to fund it locally.”
Public Works asked the Senate to fund a projected fiscal year 2025 budget of $23 million, plus $1 million to come from the Tourism Ad Revolving Fund, $1,225,000 from the Anti-Litter and Beautification Fund, and $500,000 from the St. John Capital Improvement Fund.
The department had many projects underway.
“On St. Croix, the first three bridges — Altona Lagoon, Queen Mary Highway, and East Airport Road — are all under active construction and will be completed this summer,” Gabriel said. “By October 2024, we anticipate starting on the next two bridges under the current contract — Route 669, adjacent to the Agricultural Fair Grounds, and Midland Road.”
Elsewhere on St. Croix, work began recently on Phase 1 of the Christiansted Road Rehabilitation Project after Prince Street, Hill Street, Queen Street, and East Street were rehabilitated. Phase 2 will include New Street, West Street, Smith Street, Strand Street, Queen Cross Street, and King Street.
“Residents are seeing much-needed re-paving for segments of the Queen Mary Highway, with Northside Road coming soon. We are focused on improving our major thoroughfares in the St. Croix district, as seen on Melvin Evans Highway. We are closing out the final phase of the highway rehabilitation as the contractor makes final pavement adjustments, waterway improvements, and pavement markings (striping). The Clifton Hill Connector project is in the final phases as the contractor anticipates intersection expansion and streetlight repairs and installation completed by Fall 2024,” he said.
Public Works was also reviving long-standing projects with federal help, including the Savan Gut and Turpentine Run projects with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Design was ongoing, he said, and meetings to update and inform the public were likely in September.
“I am pleased to report that Phase 2 of Veterans Drive is progressing nicely,” Gabriel said. “We expect the design review to be completed later this summer, paving the way for bid solicitation later this year. My commitment to break ground is unshakable as it will cap the revitalization and transformation of Charlotte Amalie.”
In most cases, it costs more than $1 million to pave a mile of road in the Virgin Islands, Gabriel said. Beating back roadside bush was measured in feet cleared, he said.
Committee Chairperson Sen. Donna Frett-Gregory hoped the department would return to collaboration with the Bureau of Corrections to get trustee inmates to work cleaning the roadside. “We feeding these inmates, clothing, paying their medical bills,” she said.
“We have to get our inmates out on the road and get to work,” Frett-Gregory said.
Gabriel said trustees would be back to cleaning cemeteries in 2025 and that a contract with Bureau of Corrections for roadside work could be signed soon.
The Waste Management Authority also presented its proposed budget Wednesday afternoon, asking for close to $44.5 million for its fiscal year 2025 budget.
While the authority benefitted from Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.’s state of energy emergency declaration by seeing its $3.8 million Water and Power Authority bill paid out of the territory’s Rainy Day Fund, it also has been working to increase tipping fees at local landfills and other collections measures, said Roger Merritt Jr. executive director of the Waste Management Authority.
“We would like to thank this body and Government House for understanding the need to add a line item to our budget for Utility Services so that we can provide monthly payments to WAPA going forward. Thank you to the WAPA team for always providing VIWMA with the required electrical power to serve the solid waste and wastewater needs of the territory,” Merritt said.
Getting the power bill paid helped alleviate one pressure area but another loomed, Merritt said. A vital $46 million government grant hung on local action. With permits and a signed lease, the authority could access the federal funds to close St. Croix’s Anguilla Landfill and open an alternative site, complying with a Department of Justice agreement.
“If we do not get a permit from DPNR and we do not get a lease from Port Authority we will not be able to access that $46 million. We will not be able to close the landfill properly, stay in compliance with the consent decree, build a new area so that the landfill has additional life. Right now the life of the landfill is a little bit over a year. If we do not get that funding and we cannot get those projects started, there will be a waste management issue on the isle of St. Croix,” Merritt said.
One goal, Merritt said, was to limit the amount of material going into landfills while also raising money to care for the landfills. During the pandemic doldrums, when cruise and overnight arrivals slowed, the authority measured a dramatic decrease in trash tonnage.
He proposed implementing a $5 or $10 tax on cruise arrival fees and the Hotel Occupancy Tax to help counter visitors’ impact on the territory’s landfill.
“We’re a tourism-based economy, but if they’re putting 70 percent of the volume into the landfill, and there’s not a benefit for us, at least there needs to be a fee to help us manage that trash,” Merritt said.
