The groundbreaking ceremony for the Mid-Island Fisherman's facility has been rescheduled for 2 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 21, at Estate Body Slob, adjacent to the Farmers Market at Ville La Reine.
This planned construction will serve to correct some of the problems with selling fish on the roadsides on St. Croix. When completed, this facility will coincide with the Farmers Market at Estate Ville La Reine and provide an enhanced shopping experience for the people of St. Croix.

Sept. 20, 2001 – Junior and senior high school students and parents are invited to an orientation session for the Science Awareness Saturday Academy Programs and Mentoring Program, at 11 a.m. Saturday at the University of the Virgin Islands. The sessions will be in the Business Room B-110 in St. Thomas, and EC 401/Theater in St. Croix.
Interested students should come with an essay stating which science area they are interested and why.
The Junior Academy will be for students from grades 6-8 and the High School Academy will be for students from grades 9-12. Each academy will accommodate 30 to 35 students.
Sponsored by the Division of Science and Mathematics, the programs will meet monthly. Experiments will be conducted with doctors, scientists, health professionals, engineers, computer specialists and other science professionals. Students will do some homework or follow-up assignments, and will work toward a science poster presentation for the closing May 4, 2001.
For information on St. Thomas, contact the coordinator, Dr. Rosenid Hernández-Badía at (340) 693-1383 or email rhernan@uvi.edu. On St. Croix, contact Dr. Barbara Evans at: email bevans@uvi.edu or (340)692-4101.

The V. I. Bureau of Internal Revenue is now accepting credit cards as payment for all types of taxes.
Director Louis Milton Willis says that the type of credit cards presently accepted by the Bureau are VISA and MASTER CARD. For convenience, ATH cards (debit cards) will also be accepted. Taxpayers must go to the bureau to make these payments.

Sept. 20, 2001 – Junior and senior high school students and parents are invited to an orientation session for the Science Awareness Saturday Academy Programs and Mentoring Program, at 11 a.m. Saturday at the University of the Virgin Islands. The sessions will be in the Business Room B-110 in St. Thomas, and EC 401/Theater in St. Croix.
Interested students should come with an essay stating which science area they are interested and why.
The Junior Academy will be for students from grades 6-8 and the High School Academy will be for students from grades 9-12. Each academy will accommodate 30 to 35 students.
Sponsored by the Division of Science and Mathematics, the programs will meet monthly. Experiments will be conducted with doctors, engineers, scientists, health professionals, computer specialists and other science professionals. Students will do some homework or follow-up assignments, and will work toward a poster presentation for the closing May 4, 2001.
For information on St. Thomas, contact the coordinator, Dr. Rosenid Hernández-Badía at (340) 693-1383 or email rhernan@uvi.edu. On St. Croix, contact Dr. Barbara Evans at: email bevans@uvi.edu or (340)692-4101.

The League of Women Voters' luncheon meeting scheduled for 12 noon on Monday, Sept. 24, in the Room With a View at Bluebeard's Castle, has been cancelled.
Watch for a rescheduling of this meeting with guest speakers Mark Augenblick, Chairman and CEO of Caribe Waste Technologies, and former Senator Osbert Potter.

The League of Women Voters' luncheon meeting, scheduled for 12 noon on Monday, Sept. 24, has moved to Room With a View at Bluebeard's Castle.
The guest speakers will be former Senator Osbert Potter and Mr. Mark Augenblick, Chairman and CEO of Caribe Waste Technologies. They will speak about the proposed gasification technology for the treatment of waste in the Virgin Islands.
For more information and reservations, contact Mrs. Eleanor Cerge at 776-9357, Mrs. Elizabeth Delagarde at 776-0287, or Jason Budsan at 777-7190.

Sept. 20, 2001 – Three senators are on record as saying they think the governor's Fiscal Year 2002 budget needs to be reworked in light of the terrorist attacks on the mainland and the resulting effect on tourism and, thus, the Virgin Islands economy.
The whole administrative budget package is being considered by the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. Whatever is approved is to go before the Rules Committee on Saturday, and whatever is approved there is scheduled to be put to a final vote by the full Senate on Monday and Tuesday.
In recent days, Sens. Lorraine Berry and Emmett Hansen II have written separately to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull asking him to redo his FY 2002 revenue projections, which envision a healthy V.I. economy and a continuation of the income-tax "windfall" the governor and his fiscal aides announced in June for FY 2001. Sen. Vargrave Richards has said airline cutbacks make a total review of the budget essential.
(In addition, Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen said on Wednesday that she intends to submit proposals to revise the budget, including making sure all money in the Tourism Advertising Revolving Fund goes for advertising. (See "Hansen: Bailout could subsidize flights to V.I.")
Berry urged the governor to call a meeting of executive officials, the legislative branch and his national financial advisers to go over the FY 2002 budget before the full Senate considers it next week. "I suggest you confer soon … about the impact on our economy stemming from national anxiety over air travel," Berry wrote the governor. In a release, Berry noted that she had urged the governor to the same effect in a personal conversation shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Hansen said on Tuesday that he was not urging an executive/ legislative meeting. "Whatever formula the governor … deems necessary to readdress the budget will do," he said, adding that whatever the Legislature sends him, "he will have to implement and line-item veto."
The governor "needs to look at the individual department spending," Hansen said. "The Tourism Department is chock full of nonclassified positions."
Hansen said he has been working with the Finance Committee, "going from 10 a.m. right through 1 a.m." in recent days. "We need to put more money toward revenue-generating departments," he said.
Sen. Vargrave Richards called on Monday for a review of the proposed budget. Cutbacks by the airlines are "going to have a major impact on the territory," he said. "We need to look at every single capital project on the table and see how we can get each one started. It's necessary we get these projects going — like the St. Croix boardwalk for one — to offset the impact on tourism."
Richards added, "The Legislature is going to have to revisit the present budget in planning for 2002, with the hotels down about 10 percent now and probably worse by the beginning of season."

Sept. 20, 2001 – Three senators are on record as saying they think the governor's Fiscal Year 2002 budget needs to be reworked in light of the terrorists attacks on the mainland and the resulting effect on tourism and, thus, the Virgin Islands economy.
The whole administrative budget package is being considered by the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. Whatever is approved is to go before the Rules Committee on Saturday, and whatever is approved there is scheduled to be put to a final vote by the full Senate on Monday and Tuesday.
In recent days, Sens. Lorraine Berry and Emmett Hansen II have written separately to Gov. Charles W. Turnbull asking him to redo his FY 2002 revenue projections, which envision a healthy V.I. economy and a continuation of the income-tax "windfall" the governor and his fiscal aides announced in June for FY 2001. Sen. Vargrave Richards has said airline cutbacks make a total review of the budget essential.
(In addition, Sen. Alicia "Chucky" Hansen said on Wednesday that she intends to submit proposals to revise the budget, including making sure all money in the Tourism Advertising Revolving Fund goes for advertising. (See "Hansen: Bailout could subsidize flights to V.I.")
Berry urged the governor to call a meeting of executive officials, the legislative branch and his national financial advisers to go over the FY 2002 budget before the full Senate considers it next week. "I suggest you confer soon … about the impact on our economy stemming from national anxiety over air travel," Berry wrote the governor. In a release, Berry noted that she had urged the governor to the same effect in a personal conversation shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Hansen said on Tuesday that he was not urging an executive/ legislative meeting. "Whatever formula the governor … deems necessary to readdress the budget will do," he said, adding that whatever the Legislature sends him, "he will have to implement and line-item veto."
The governor "needs to look at the individual department spending," Hansen said. "The Tourism Department is chock full of nonclassified positions."
Hansen said he has been working with the Finance Committee, "going from 10 a.m. right through 1 a.m." in recent days. "We need to put more money toward revenue-generating departments," he said.
Sen. Vargrave Richards called on Monday for a review of the proposed budget. Cutbacks by the airlines are "going to have a major impact on the territory," he said. "We need to look at every single capital project on the table and see how we can get each one started. It's necessary we get these projects going — like the St. Croix boardwalk for one — to offset the impact on tourism."
Richards added, "The Legislature is going to have to revisit the present budget in planning for 2002, with the hotels down about 10 percent now and probably worse by the beginning of season."

Sept. 20, 2001 — More light was shed Wednesday on the proposed $180 million facility being touted as the panacea to the territory’s solid waste woes.
Mark Augenblick, chairman and CEO of Caribe Waste Technologies, the company leading a group of firms proposing to finance, build, own and operate a waste-to-energy gasification plant, told members of the St. Croix Chamber of Commerce that the project cannot move ahead without the backing of the Water and Power Authority.
WAPA’s decision is expected to come at a board meeting Thursday. If the gasification plant does go forward, it will be the most costly project ever undertaken by the V.I. government. In real costs, the territory would be paying about $37 million a year for 30 years in order to dispose of its solid waste.
WAPA is a major part of the picture because it could reduce the government’s costs by about $11 million to $12 million a year over the 30 years — by purchasing the water and power generated from the plant, Augenblick said. While the Turnbull administration is supporting CWT’s proposal, it is not clear what the WAPA board will decide.
If WAPA were to sign a contract with CWT to purchase power and water -– something the utility’s management has said it doesn’t need — that would leave the government with payments of approximately $25 million a year. Augenblick said that cost would likely be covered by grants and subsidies from the federal government and by a solid waste "user fee" for homes and businesses. That fee could range from about $1 to $18 a month for residents to $100 a month for businesses, he said.
Augenblick said that after paying bond holders, the French company that would actually operate the facility and other miscellaneous costs, CWT is looking at $4 million a year in tax-free profit as part of the Economic Development Agency program.
"What is left over, if anything, goes to us," Augenblick said, adding that "at the end of the day, we are the final point of responsibility."
Environmental implications
Just as staggering as the economics of the project are the environmental implications. Augenblick didn't bat an eye when he told chamber members Wednesday that any type of garbage other than nuclear waste can be disposed of in the proposed facility: tires, refrigerators, batteries, construction debris — anything.
Under CWT’s proposal, garbage from St. John and St. Thomas would be barged to a single waste-to-energy plant on St. Croix. The facility could be built adjacent to the Gordon Finch Molasses Pier or on the St. Croix Alumina property, Augenblick said. The plant, he said, will allow the government to close the Bovoni and Anguilla landfills. The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered the territory to close the Anguilla facility by the end of 2002 because birds that feed off of it pose a danger to aircraft at the nearby Henry E. Rohlsen Airport.
Obtaining required permits and constructing the plant will take at least 30 months, Augenblick said. He expressed the view that the FAA might extend its deadline if it knew the V.I. government had entered into a contract to construct an enclosed waste-disposal facility.
"This is 100 percent recyclable," Augenblick said. "Nothing gets dumped into a landfill. This is a waste-processing facility. There will be nothing dumped on St. Croix."
To dispose of waste, CWT is proposing to use a gasification process, a technology owned by a Swiss company called Thermoselect. Through a process explained on CWT’s website, waste is compressed and then intensively heated by conduction. The resultant synthesis gases are cleaned and then used to drive high-efficiency, low-speed gas engines that produce electricity.
Currently there are three municipal waste gasification plants in operation, one each in Germany, Japan and Italy. Permits have been granted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a facility in Arkansas.
Because the EPA has approved permits on the mainland and because German air-quality standards are more strict than those in the United States, Augenblick said, CWT is confident that the technology can pass muster anywhere in the world.
When told the gasification process sounds too good to be true, Augenblick said it is proven. "Buy into this project. It is real. It is what it is," he said. "It is not perfect. It is expensive. It is there."

Heavy lifting not enough without support
At the Chamber of Commerce function on Wednesday, former Sen. Holland Redfield told Augenblick that CWT must have the government's administrative branch by its side as it goes through the legislative approval process.
If WAPA decides to sign on, the project would then be subject to public hearings, and then the Legislature would have to approve the contract between CWT and the government. In the past, Redfield said, outside businesses such as Beal Aerospace and Southern Energy had the administration’s tacit support, but when it came time to stand before the Legislature, Gov. Charles W. Turnbull was nowhere to be seen, and the ventures ultimately failed.
The administration, Redfield told Augenblick, "is going to force you to do the heavy lifting," but the project "will not succeed unless they stand with you."
Augenblick said he has already encountered opposition to the proposal from some senators. He said some skeptics in the government view the company as one that is bent on raping the Virgin Islands.
"I do business from Chile to Shanghai," he said. "It is humbling to do business here." Still, he said, "I believe if we took a vote today, we’d get the votes.
"Maybe I'm dreaming, and we'll be like all those other businesses here. We will see."