Oct. 24, 2001 — At the behest of Gov. Charles W. Turnbull, the Water and Power Authority has postponed a special meeting set for Wednesday to decide if the utility will agree to purchase water and power for the next 30 years from the administration’s proposed waste-to-energy gasification plant.
WAPA and Caribe Waste Technologies, the company that would construct the $180 million facility for the government, returned to the negotiation table last week to rework a contract for the utility to purchase water and power from the proposed plant. A contract approved by the WAPA board, which was somewhat leery of the proposal last week, is crucial if the project is to go forward.
Carol Burke, board chair, said the board agreed to Turnbull’s request Tuesday to delay a vote until next month.
"The governor requested we don’t vote on this matter and we acquiesced," she said, adding that she had promised to make a courtesy call to Turnbull before Wednesday’s scheduled meeting. "The outstanding issues remain outstanding," she added.
The project, Burke said, is "important to him and his administration and the territory."
WAPA and CWT, the company leading a group of firms proposing to finance, build, own and operate the waste-to-energy gasification plant, have been in negotiations since June trying to work out a contract for WAPA to purchase power and water that will be produced by the gasification plant. The plant is being billed by the administration and CWT as the solution to the territory’s long-standing solid-waste problems.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the local government to bring the dumps on St. Thomas and St. Croix into federal compliance, and the Federal Aviation Administration has ordered the territory to close the St. Croix dump by the end of 2002 because birds that feed off of it and smoke from frequent garbage fires pose danger to aircraft at the nearby Henry E. Rohlsen Airport.
The Turnbull administration selected CWT earlier this year to construct and oversee the operation of the gasification plant, but the agreement is contingent on WAPA agreeing to buy electricity and water — something the utility's management has said it doesn't need. WAPA consultants have meanwhile questioned the commercial reliability of CWT’s technology.
WAPA is a major part of the picture because its purchase of the water and power could reduce the government’s costs by about $11 million to $12 million a year over the 30-year contract, according to CWT's president, Mark Augenblick. That would leave the government with payments of about $25 million a year, which Augenblick has said could likely be funded by federal grants and a solid waste disposal user fee.
The proposed $180 million price tag for the gasification plant would make it the V.I. government’s single most expensive project ever undertaken.
Under CWT’s proposal, garbage from St. John and St. Thomas would be barged to a single waste-to-energy plant on St. Croix, which could be built adjacent to the Gordon Finch Molasses Pier or on the St. Croix Alumina property. The plant would allow the government to close the Bovoni and Anguilla landfills on St. Thomas and St. Croix, respectively.

Oct. 23, 2001 – A volleyball tournament featuring St. Thomas girls' varsity teams will be held at Antilles School courts on the weekend. Teams from Charlotte Amalie High School, All Saints Cathedral School, Sts. Peter and Paul School, Antilles School, and an all-star Antilles JV team will compete.
The public is invited. Food, drinks and t-shirts will be on sale during the tournament, which starts at 2 p.m. Friday and continues at 8 a.m. Saturday, according to a release from Antilles School.
The 10th Annual Ocean Spray Volleyball Tournament, sponsored by B&D Wholesale, distributors of Ocean Spray products, was originally scheduled with visiting teams from St. Croix and Puerto Rico. It has shaken down, however, to a competition among girls' teams from St. Thomas, said Antilles coach Dawn Wheatley. Eudora Kean School also dropped off the rosters.

Oct. 23, 2001 – The Firearms Bureau in St. Thomas will be closed Friday and Nov. 2, Sgt. Annette Raimer said in a V.I. Police Department release.
The closing is for the purpose of updating and processing records. The department regrets any inconveniences due to this revised schedule.
The public is also reminded that firearms license renewals can be made up to 90 days in advance of license expiration date.
Questions regard renewal, or care and safety of firearms and ammunition, can be addressed to Sgt. Anthenia Brown at 774-2211 ext. 4124 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Oct. 23, 2001 – FBI and other federal agents raided the three Plaza Extra supermarkets and other places of business in the Virgin Islands on Tuesday morning as part of what authorities said was an investigation into illegal alien smuggling.
Agents of the FBI, Internal Revenue Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshals Service and the V.I. Police Department executed search warrants at the two Plaza Extra Supermarkets on St. Croix and the one on St. Thomas.
One of the principal Plaza Extra owners, Fathi Yusuf, a U.S. citizen who was born in Palestine, was inside the St. Thomas store speaking with investigators Tuesday morning.
Federal law-enforcement officials said there were other locations searched as well, but they did not disclose where those raids occurred.
The search warrants and all documents attached to them were being kept under seal to protect the integrity of the investigation, according to an announcement of the raids from the U.S. Attorney's Office on St. Thomas.
No arrests were made, and no charges have been filed in connection with the investigation, according to Acting U.S. Attorney David Atkinson. He did not say what the nature of the investigation was.
In a release, Atkinson urged the public not to draw any conclusions from the fact that the principal owners of Plaza Extra are Arab-Americans, and he noted that discrimination against anyone based on ethnicity or religion is a federal crime.
One of the other businesses federal officers visited was the Food Town Supermarket on St. Croix, also owned by Arab-Americans. There, a source said, authorities came in Tuesday afternoon, asked questions, and then left.
Also Tuesday afternoon, agents searched several convenience stores owned by Palestinian-born residents on St. Thomas, including the One Stop in Altona, the Esso station in Red Hook and the Lindbergh Bay Grocery across from Cyril E. King Airport.
Majdi Muhyieden, the owner of the St. Thomas One Stop and Red Hook Esso station as well as several other stores, said the agents searched the One Stop for about 45 minutes on Tuesday afternoon. He said the agents were pleasant and that he cooperated completely with them, but that he did not see a search warrant and felt that they were unfairly targeting Arab-owned stores.
"I think it's only against Arabs, and I don't think it's right," Muhyieden said. "I cooperated 100 percent, and they were nice, but it doesn't look good for our customers. It makes us suspect."
"They are executing routine search warrants," Hugh Mabe, assistant U.S. attorney, said Tuesday morning. He added that more information might be available later Tuesday. No arrests had been made Tuesday morning in connection with the raids.
The Plaza Extra supermarkets had been open a short time when the agents made the raids at about 8 a.m. Employees at the St. Thomas Plaza Extra store said the agents gathered the employees to photograph and interview them, then let them leave the store. The supermarket area in the Tutu Park Mall was blocked off by police throughout the morning as agents carried out small boxes said to contain evidence.
Last year Yusuf, 60, pleaded guilty to three counts of hiring three illegal immigrants from Palestine. That plea came in connection with an investigation in which several other St. Thomas businessmen with connections with the island's Arab community also pleaded guilty to charges that they tried to help the three men immigrate to the United States illegally.
The illegal immigrants, Ahmed Daas, Mohammed Alqadi and Suleiman Mohammed Jussef, were stopped at the airport in San Juan as they attempted to fly from St. Thomas to Florida in 1999, according to court records.
As part of Yusuf's plea bargain, he agreed to cooperate with future investigations and to make monthly reports of all of the employees at Plaza Extra, according to court papers. He was sentenced in September to one month of home confinement and a year of probation.
Muhyieden, a naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in the United States since 1974 and on St. Thomas for about 10 years, said he has never been in any trouble with the law and has not been connected to any illegal immigration cases.
"There is no reason for them to be at my place, and I told them that," he said, adding that he signed a consent to search the store only after the agents had completed their work. Muhyieden said he and all of the other Arabs he knows completely condemn any terrorist attacks, and he told the agents he would call them if he heard anything suspicious.
Workers at several other Arab-owned convenience stores on St. Thomas — the Hometown Grocery in Anna's Retreat, Fort Mylner Grocery and Friendly Grocery in Dorothea — said no agents had been to their stores as of 4 p.m. Tuesday.
In the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the mainland, federal agents have cited illegal immigration to the U.S. Virgin Islands as a national security issue. They have not said whether any recent immigration investigations are connected to the nationwide search for people linked to terrorist activities.

Oct. 23, 2001 – Scientists of the Puerto Rico Seismic Network are taking a close look at the half-dozen minor earthquakes that occurred in the region Monday.
"We are studying the situation," geophysicist Victor Huerfano said Tuesday. The tremors ranged from 4.4 to 5 on the Richter Scale, which measures earthquake strength.
A total of 118 minor earthquakes have been recorded in the area since Oct. 16. However, Huerfano and John Minsch, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake information Center in Golden, Colo., both said there is no cause for alarm.
Minsch said earthquakes often occur in a series. His agency reported a total of five, a difference Huerfano said was due to the fact that the Puerto Rico Seismic Network has more stations in the area.
The earthquakes occurred at mid-day in the Sombrero Seismic Zone, located about 85 miles northwest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. While no one in the territory reported feeling the tremors, Huerfano said three were felt in Puerto Rico.

Oct. 23, 2001 – Scientists of the Puerto Rico Seismic Network are taking a close look at the half-dozen minor earthquakes that occurred in the region Monday.
"We are studying the situation," geophysicist Victor Huerfano said Tuesday. The tremors ranged from 4.4 to 5 on the Richter Scale, which measures earthquake strength.
A total of 118 minor earthquakes have been recorded in the area since Oct. 16. However, Huerfano and John Minsch, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake information Center in Golden, Colo., both said there is no cause for alarm.
Minsch said earthquakes often occur in a series. His agency reported a total of five, a difference Huerfano said was due to the fact that the Puerto Rico Seismic Network has more stations in the area.
The earthquakes occurred at mid-day in the Sombrero Seismic Zone, located about 85 miles northwest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. While no one in the territory reported feeling the tremors, Huerfano said three were felt in Puerto Rico.

Oct. 23, 2001 – Scientists of the Puerto Rico Seismic Network are taking a close look at the half-dozen minor earthquakes that occurred in the region Monday.
"We are studying the situation," geophysicist Victor Huerfano said Tuesday. The tremors ranged from 4.4 to 5 on the Richter Scale, which measures earthquake strength.
A total of 118 minor earthquakes have been recorded in the area since Oct. 16. However, Huerfano and John Minsch, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake information Center in Golden, Colo., both said there is no cause for alarm.
Minsch said earthquakes often occur in a series. His agency reported a total of five, a difference Huerfano said was due to the fact that the Puerto Rico Seismic Network has more stations in the area.
The earthquakes occurred at mid-day in the Sombrero Seismic Zone, located about 85 miles northwest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. While no one in the territory reported feeling the tremors, Huerfano said three were felt in Puerto Rico.

The Territorial Committee of the Democratic Party will hold a retreat from Friday, Nov. 2, to Sunday, Nov. 4, at the Divi Bay Hotel and Casino.
For more information contact the State Chair, Arturo Watlington at 774-9697.

Oct. 23, 2001 – Although solutions were called for, few were found Monday night at a meeting between the V.I. Taxi Association and representatives of the water tours industry.
The meeting was called after Rik Van Rensselaer, vice president of the V.I. Marine Industries Association, prevailed upon Sen. Celestino A. White Sr., co-sponsor of a bill that would block marine tour operators from picking up passengers at cruise ship docks throughout the territory, to hold off on having the bill reviewed in committee until the parties involved could meet and try to reach a compromise. [See earlier story, "Taxi drivers, tour operators to meet on bill". ]
White was not present Monday night due to illness, according to the bill's other co- sponsor, Sen.Norma Pickard-Samuel, who said she wouldn't stay for the meeting unless she heard "solutions."
She also said, in response to remarks by Edward Thomas, president and chief executive officer of The West Indian Co., implying the proposed legislation might be unconstitutional, "I don't want to hear about constitutional laws while men and women of this community … are being taken advantage of."
Pickard-Samuel went on to rail about outsiders "coming into my home" and taking over an industry.
Eustace Grant, president of the V.I. Taxi Association, repeatedly called on the drivers, who periodically broke into loud discussion among themselves, to please "listen" during the course of the three-hour meeting that drew up to 300 people, mostly taxi drivers, to the V.I. Taxi Association building in Contant.
"You may not agree with what they are saying … but you have to learn to listen, if we are going to come to some sort of an agreement," Grant told his associates.
Many of the remarks made by the taxi drivers, who strongly favor the legislation, were directed at Judy Reeve, president of Cruise Ship Excursions Inc., a large water tour operation which runs the vessels Island Girl and the Kon Tiki, which can each carry hundreds of passengers.
One driver, Louis Industrious, said he watched over a period of many years as Reeve wrapped up all the tour business by developing an "inside track" with the ships' cruise directors and the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association. In 1963, when he started driving a taxi, Industrious said, the taxi drivers ran all the land tours for the cruise ships, but slowly that business was taken entirely away from the drivers.
Industrious said a solution to the situation would be for Reeve to use her influence with the F-CCA to help the taxi drivers.
Reeve, who did not formally speak at the meeting, said on Tuesday morning that the taxi drivers came to her many years ago asking her to represent them to the cruise lines, which she did for a period of time. The agreement, which Reeve said was never official because the association refused to sign a contract, was that the drivers would retain the business they had already developed with the cruise lines, while any new business would be commissionable to Reeves.
After about six months, she said, the taxi drivers went directly to the cruise lines, saying they didn't need Reeve and would deal directly with the lines. But, she said, that was not what happened. Instead, the cruise lines opted to stay with Reeve.
One driver speaking Monday night said race was the real issue. "In order to get through, we'll probably have to change the color of our skin," this individual stated.
Thomas said he has taken members of the taxi associations to meet with F-CCA officials, but "it has never worked out." He added, "It's time to try again."
White and Pickard-Samuel's bill would require water tour operators to pick up their St. Thomas tour passengers either on the water alongside the cruise ships or at the Charlotte Amalie waterfront, with the tour takers presumably getting there via taxi from the docks. Tour operators have said it would be dangerous and unworkable to have passengers board on the water directly from the ships.
On Monday night, Thomas said he would never support transporting more people, and therefore causing further congestion, to the downtown waterfront. He said two locally owned ferry companies, Varlack Ventures and Transportation Services, had proposed running water taxi services from the WICO dock to the waterfront to ease traffic, but Thomas said he was "totally opposed to anything more going to the waterfront."
Much of the controversy Monday night seemed to stem from the fact that Reeve is not a "local" and the perception on the part of the taxi industry that "locals" have lost their edge in the tour business.
Meanwhile, insiders say the F-CCA has called for a consolidator who could negotiate all of the tours.
Shore excursions booked aboard ships provide a revenue stream for the cruise lines, which,Thomas pointed out, are hurting financially due to a drastic cutback in leisure travel since the events of Sept. 11.
Industrious suggested that Reeve negotiate on behalf of the taxi drivers and that the ships be split between the drivers and other tour operators.
Sen. Donald "Ducks" Cole, into whose committee the bill was introduced, said taxi drivers and tour operators alike stand to lose from the proposed legislation. But he also suggested Reeve should, "go onto the ships" and represent the taxi drivers to them.
Reeve said Tuesday that the V.I. Taxi Association represents itself and runs tours for at least two cruise lines — Carnival and Holland America. "We live in a free enterprise society," she said. "They have the right to approach the cruise lines directly."
Pickard-Samuel, in the end, was satisfied that there was enough goodwill expressed at the meeting to make it possible for a public-private initiative to move forward. She said that would be her report to White.

The Territorial Committee of the Democratic Party will hold a retreat from Friday, Nov. 2, to Sunday, Nov. 4, at the Divi Bay Hotel and Casino.
For more information contact the State Chair, Arturo Watlington at 774-9697.