The Water And Power Authority announced Wednesday it will be using a recently installed reverse osmosis plant to supply potable water to St. John while the island's desalination unit is down for maintenance.
WAPA has contracted with Seven Seas Water Corp. to use its reverse osmosis plant to produce water meeting the standards of the Safe Drinking Water Act. The water will be supplied through WAPA's distribution system and the St. John standpipes.
The desalination unit is expected to be out of service for six weeks.

The Water And Power Authority has scheduled an emergency power outage from 1 to 3 a.m. Thursday that will cut off St. John while repairs are made to the Tutu and East End St. Thomas substations.
According to a release from WAPA, all the C and D feeders will be affected, including those for Tutu Park and Ridge Road as well as St. John.
Heavy winds and surges caused damage to lightening arresters and potheads at the Tutu and East End substations over the weekend, the release said. As a result, a fault developed at the Krum Bay power plant, forcing an emergency power outage on feeder 7 Tuesday morning.
The release said WAPA opted to conduct the repairs in the night hours to minimize inconvenience to customers.

The V.I. Water and Power Authority has scheduled an emergency early morning power outage to make repairs on the Tutu and East End substations.
The power will be out from 1 to 3 a.m. Thursday, according to a release from WAPA.
All the C and D feeders will be affected, including Tutu Park and Ridge Road feeders as well as St. John.
Heavy winds and surges caused damage to lightning arresters and potheads at the Tutu and East End substations over the weekend. The damages resulted in a fault at the Krum Bay power plant, forcing WAPA into an emergency power outage on feeder 7 Tuesday morning.
The release said WAPA chose to conduct the repairs in the early morning hours to minimize any inconvenience to the public.

Dozens of volunteer bird watchers spent New Year's Day in the bush counting the species they sighted across St. John as part of the national Audubon Society's 100th annual "Christmas bird count." From the reported sightings, it appears that a number of local flocks depleted in recent years are making a comeback.
Next, the National Park Service will be looking for some good spotters to help count sea birds in evidence around the territory's islands.
About 50 birders who took part in the New Year's Day exercise gathered for a post-count meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18, at the St. John Legislative Conference Room. National Park Service interpreter Don Near showed a video on the migration patterns of North American birds using data collected from regional Christmastime bird counts plotted on a map over a period of 40 years.
He asked society members to assist the park in an upcoming project to count sea birds, which are one of six plant and animal groupings that are to be counted nationwide as part of an inventory program that is getting under way at the V.I. National Park on St. John and at the Buck Island Reef National Monument on St. Croix.
He said, volunteers will be recruited later this year to conduct counts on pelicans, which are considered an endangered species, and terns.
President Clinton recently signed a "natural resources initiative" providing a reported $20 million for national parks across the country to carry out the inventory program. Near said the allotment "will break down to about $100,000 a park."
According to Dr. Will Henderson, who collected the data, some bird populations are only now returning to the numbers seen before Hurricane Marilyn in 1995. Hummingbirds, pigeons and the great blue heron are among those making a comeback, he said, as is the pearly-eyed thrasher, locally called the "thrushee."
Once-familiar flocks yet to return in their former numbers include doves and warblers, he said.
A total of 48 species and 1,242 individual birds were identified on the island during the centennial bird count, Henderson said.
Disruptions of habitat and food supplies can cause flocks to settle elsewhere, at least temporarily, after a storm. But Henderson said some birds, especially those that nest on the ground, can also lose population to predators, such as the "tremendous number of feral cats we have on the island."
During almost every bird count, some watchers catch a glimpse of something unusual. This year, Henderson said, a "cameo appearance" was made by an honest-to-goodness yellow-bellied sap sucker. It was sighted in the cool forest atop Bordeaux Mountain. Personally, he said, "I've never seen one here."

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The body of a 3-year-old girl was brought into the Roy L. Schneider Hospital late Tuesday night in an advanced state of decomposition.
The mother reportedly told police the child died Friday of a seizure. The girl reportedly had a history of seizures.
The mother said she panicked when her daughter died and she put the child's body in a bushy area in Solberg.
Police and hospital authorities were notified of the child's death by the child's grandmother and uncle, who said the mother eventually told them about it.
The mother led the relatives to the body after they questioned her about where she had taken it.
Investigation Bureau detectives, forensics agents and Major Crime Unit
investigators were all summoned to the hospital when the body was brought there by one of the girl's parents.
Sources have said the police will rely upon results of an autopsy to determine if the death was the result of foul play.

Two Chicago residents have been arrested by local white-collar crime investigators on charges of possessing more than 20 fraudulent credit cards.
The two, Diane Gordon and Norris French, were arrested at the Cyril E. King Airport on Jan. 3 after a five-day shopping spree on St. Thomas where the pair purchased many big-ticket items, according to the Daily News.
French also goes by the name Reggie Dean.
The two racked up a $2,000 bill at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef resort and rented a vehicle from Budget Rent-A-Car using the fraudulent credit cards.
The report said the two also used the cards to buy airline tickets, designer glasses, electronic items, shoes, T-shirts and towels. It was when they attempted to buy a $14,000 Rolex watch that they were detected by a retail clerk who alerted authorities to the possible card scam.
The scheme involved the two using blank plastic cards, embossing logos and their names on the cards and then adding real credit card numbers from unknowing victims.
Investigators at the V.I. Justice Department have reportedly contacted the people whose credit account numbers may have been used and urged them to watch out for inflated bills for purchases they did not authorize.
This is not the first run-in with the law for the two. They were charged with a string of felony crimes in other jurisdictions, according to investigators on the case.
The two are expected to appear in Territorial Court for arraignment proceedings Thursday, the paper said.

At long last, St. John's primary medical-care facility has added a second staff physician — although hospital officials say it's only short-term.
Dr. Norbert Straub, a board-certified family practice physician, joined the staff of the Myrah Keating-Smith Clinic on Jan. 4, senior physician Dr. Elizabeth Barot said. As a result, the clinic has expanded its hours and is now open from 8 a.m. to midnight Monday through Friday.
Barot had been the only clinic physician available to St. Johnians and their visitors since June. "It's nice to have a day off," she said.
But Barot said her relief is temporary, because Straub has come to St. John as a "visiting physician" on leave from his regular duties and is scheduled to remain on duty only until March. After that, she said, unless a replacement has been found, the clinic will go back to having just one doctor on staff, and its hours will probably revert to 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., with patients being seen at other times on an "on-call" basis.
Dr. Judith Watson, medical director for both the Roy L. Schneider Hospital on St. Thomas and the Keating Clinic on St. John, said hospital officials are continuing to seek the right doctor for a permanent appointment. "We have some candidates we're looking at," she said.
Meanwhile, Watson said, other short-term arrangements are being considered. "We may hire another doctor on a temporary basis so Dr. Barot doesn't have to be alone," she said.
In addition to securing the services of Straub, Watson said, hospital officials recently added an emergency room physician to the Schneider Hospital staff, and a urology specialist is expected to join the St. Thomas staff next month.

In her annual address Tuesday, Delegate Donna Christian Christensen reviewed her 1999 accomplishments, outlined an ambitious agenda for the new year and threw her hat into the ring for a third term.
"Yes, I am running for another term," Christensen said after outlining a range of initiatives aimed at bringing more than $500 million in federal funding into the territory over the next five years.
"By our calculation — and we are still counting, in fiscal year 1999 more than $150 million came to the territory," she said. "The package for fiscal year 2001 and beyond which we propose would add up to $500 million or more, hopefully over a period not to exceed five years."
Regardless of who may run against her for delegate, Christensen said, the fate of her funding proposals will likely hinge on who wins the presidency in November. A supporter of Vice President Al Gore, she said that a Democratic victory will help her efforts, while a Republican win wouldn’t bode well for the territory.
The track record of Republican administrations suggest a GOP win "wouldn’t be the best for the territory," she said. "Either Democrat (Gore or Sen. Bill Bradley) would be okay."
As her own main goals for the coming year, she cited, among others:
– Assisting Gov. Charles Turnbull’s efforts to have the Federal Emergency Management Agency forgive the territory’s $200 million debt.
– Requesting a reimbursement from the federal government on the $12 million the territory pays out each year for the Earned Income Tax Credit.
– Continuing work to have the federal government extend empowerment zone-economic community designation to the territory.
– Working with the Gasoline Excise Tax Commission to seek the return of taxes that may be due the territory.
– Seeking a special appropriation for money owed to territorial hospitals by Medicaid.
– Assisting the V.I. Port Authority in securing funds to complete the St. Croix airport runway extension and the Enighed Pond project on St. John.
Reviewing 1999, Christensen pointed to success in having the excise tax cap on V.I. rum lifted. The move, retroactive to July 1999, extends to December 2001 and will bring in an additional $30 million to $34 million to the territory, she said.
"While it is still not all we asked for, it does give us additional time to work toward having the entire cap lifted permanently," she said.
She also cited the expanding of duty-free benefits to manufacturers of jewelry, primarily on St. Croix. She said three new watch and jewelry manufacturing operations are to open on the Big Island.
In the territory's watch industry heyday a decade ago, she said, 1,000 to 1,200 people were employed in the field locally. That number is down to 200 to 300, she said, but this could double, once the new companies start up.
Finally, Christensen, a physician and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus’s Health Braintrust, noted her efforts to combat HIV/AIDS in the territory and win funding for the Children’s Health Insurance program. Beginning last October until 2002, the Virgin Islands will receive $900,000 a year to cover the needs of children whose parents cannot afford private health insurance but earn too much to qualify for Medicaid.

Resident and visiting shoppers stood shoulder to shoulder at the Pusser's fire sale in Cruz Bay Tuesday.
Laid out on long tables bordering a restored stone house were piles of merchandise salvaged from the Dec. 28 fire at the Pusser's Company Store in Wharfside Village. Traces and smells of smoke were still evident on the terrycloth crew shirts and a flowered dress hanging from a corner hat rack.
The blaze destroyed the Pusser's Restaurant office on the second floor of the shopping center; the nearby Company Store suffered extensive smoke and water damage.
Store manager Ruth Lettsome said sales have been brisk since the "fire sale" signs were first put up three days ago. "We've been getting a lot of business from the road," she said as passersby stopped, looked and stepped up to shop.
Lettsome said she and her workers began salvaging efforts as soon as they could get to the goods. In the days after the fire, clothing items from the store could be seen hanging from Wharfside's second-floor railing. "They've been washing well," she said.
For those willing to do their own washing and take a chance on the outcome, bargains were abundant. Dresses once tagged $80 were marked down to $19.99. Shirts formerly $50 bore similar price chops. Fast sellers included underwear, spices and Pusser's old-fashioned, oversized enamel mugs. Most of the merchandise bore the familiar Pusser's coat of arms emblem.
Kathy Ireton, a snowbird from Cincinnati, stopped to admire the stone jugs and scrimshaw on a table. "I had originally come out to buy a raincoat," she said. "They have some very nice bottles and boxes and some great shirts."
Lettsome said most of the merchandise that doesn't sell will be sent to Pusser's discount outlet on St. Thomas.