U.S. asks court to stop V.I. from dumping sewage into sea

The Virgin Islands Daily News  ::  Aldeth Lewin

The federal government has filed a motion in District Court to stop the V.I. Waste Management Authority from dumping millions of gallons of sewage into the Caribbean Sea.

The motion, filed Thursday, asks the court to order the Virgin Islands to cease the "unlawful bypass" of raw sewage from the Figtree pump station in to Cane Garden Bay. The Figtree station is near the HOVENSA refinery on St. Croix's south shore.

According to the motion, Waste Management has dumped more than 50 million gallons of sewage into the ocean since January - averaging 300,000 to 500,000 gallons a day. Both Figtree and the LBJ pump station - which bypasses sewage over Long Reef - have had numerous breakdowns and have had to dump sewage into the ocean.

"These bypasses have been caused by the failure of VIWMA to properly operate and maintain the house pumps at Figtree and to expeditiously repair pumps when they have malfunctioned," the motion said.

The problems at the Figtree pump station began Jan. 17 when electrical problems caused a pump to fail.

Under normal operating conditions, there are three pumps at the station. Two of them broke down in December and were sent to Puerto Rico to be fixed by the manufacturer, so the pump that failed in January was the last pump working at the station.

When the last pump failed, the station's backup pumping system - run by a new diesel pump - was activated, but on Jan. 22 that system also failed.

At the time, a damaged suction line resulted in a sewage overflow, but the line was replaced and the backup system was up and running soon after. The next day, a second overflow occurred because a low pump setting was in place during a high-flow period.

The system was fixed again but quickly failed again. Repairs were made again and by March 4, the diesel pump was operational once more.

While the backup pump is running and has reduced the overflow at the station, sewage is still being dumped into the Figtree Gut.

"It can't handle the amount of flow," Waste Management spokeswoman Stella Saunders said Friday.

Saunders could not give an estimate of when the pump station would be able to stop bypassing sewage into the ocean.

"We are working feverishly to resolve the failures at the Figtree pump station," Saunders said.

During the last few months, Waste Management has been bypass pumping at LBJ to lessen the impact of the Figtree overflow. The LBJ bypass stopped Feb. 26.

The federal government said in Thursday's court filing that in addition to the problems at LBJ and Figtree, the Barren Spot pump station on St. Croix and the Cancryn pump station on St. Thomas also are in danger of failing as well.

The motion said all three house pumps at Cancryn have failed and the station is operating on an emergency diesel pump. Only one of the two pumps at Barren Spot is operational, according to the court document.

The motion asks the court to order Waste Management to immediately ensure that there are backup pumps available at both Cancryn and Barren Spot. The motion also said the U.S. government wants Waste Management to repair or replace any house pumps at any of its other pump stations, develop short and long term plans to address the matter, repair future failed pumps in a timely manner and submit regular reports to the court.

"In view of the clear threat to human health and the environment posed by ongoing discharges of raw sewage, the United States requests that the Court hear this matter on an expedited basis," the motion said.

The federal government asked the court to schedule a hearing by Tuesday or Wednesday.