EPA to work with officials to end Tortola landfill woes affecting St. Johnians

Dec 20, 2023

A fire at the Tortola dump site in Pockwood Pond sends plumes of toxic smoke into the air on Oct. 21, 2021, affecting residents in West End and Carrot Cay, Tortola, as well as St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands.

ST. JOHN — For more than a decade, residents of St. John and St. Thomas as far west as Peterborg have complained of sore throats, headaches and other ailments due to smoke from burning garbage at the Tortola dump. Now, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency are vowing to work with the British Virgin Islands to put an end to the practice of burning trash. Former V.I. Attorney General Claude Walker, now EPA Senior Advisor for Virgin Islands Affairs, Region 2, said a meeting with BVI officials is scheduled for some time this month. Walker said he will raise the issue during an upcoming meeting of The Inter Virgin Islands Council, an organization formed in 2004 to facilitate partnership between the U.S. territory and neighboring British Overseas Territory. Walker previously had discussions with Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. and V.I. Delegate to Congress Stacy Plaskett on the issue of smoke from the burning garbage. “We wanted to convene and hear from you before we have this meeting sometime in August to let them know how our residents feel,” Walker said at a Saturday community meeting hosted at Our Place in conjunction with the Coral Bay Community Council and the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. “We’ll use the process of the Inter Virgin Islands Council. We do have other options, but prefer not to say what those are. We intend to put a stop to this working closely with the BVI government, but it has to stop.” Walker recalled, as then AG, making a trip to the BVI in 2009 to discuss the noxious smoke, “and we’re still here talking about this issue,” he said. He noted that the effort must be collaborative, as the EPA cannot direct the BVI government to take appropriate action. “We can work with them and cooperate with them, and at some point there may be an opportunity to inject some dollars, and that’s part of what we’re looking at to assist them,” said Walker. “We can’t force them.” Residents in the Mamey Peak and Bordeaux areas of St. John said the smell has woken them up in the night. “I can recognize burning rubber burning my eyes,” said Karen Granitz, a 17-year resident of Coral Bay. “Are they being amicable?” Austin Callwood, director of Environmental Protection at the Department of Planning and Natural Resources, said BVI officials are open to receiving help for the issue. “It’s not that they aren’t being amicable; they don’t have the capacity,” said Callwood. “In 2009, they were seeking help from us. Now they have a larger community to process waste for.” Jim Casey, EPA’s USVI Sustainability Advisor, said attempts by the EPA in previous years to measure air quality in areas affected by the smoke have not generated impactful results. “We had a monitoring system running for weeks but the data was not substantiating the impacts in terms of measuring the contaminants you would expect,” said Casey. Callwood said DPNR has been working with the University of the Virgin Islands to purchase a set of instruments to measure air quality for extended periods of time. “The instruments we used previously didn’t recognize what you are smelling and seeing, but I don’t want to minimize the impact it has on you, because your sensor is just as important as the actual physical sensors we use,” said Callwood. Bordeaux resident David Silverman said the duration of the smoke and its impacts is generally about one to two hours. “I’m concerned about the effect on endangered species,” said Silverman. “It’s toxic material that gets caught in storm water and runs off into the reef and the ocean. I wonder where it goes and what effect it has.” Marlon Hibbert, director of DPNR’s Division of Coastal Zone Management, urged the public to use the DPNR-USVI Hotline app to report incidents of the Tortola dump smoke impacting USVI residents. “This is not a fruitless thing,” Walker said at the community meeting. “We definitely will talk among ourselves and there’s an action plan to engage the Inter Virgin Islands Council, but we’ll make it clear that this has to stop. It’s been going on for too long and no one should live like this. This is not neighborly. It’s not something you do to your neighbor.”

For more than a decade, residents of St. John and St. Thomas as far west as Peterborg have complained of sore throats, headaches, and other ailments due to smoke from burning garbage at the Tortola dump. Now, officials with the Environmental Protection Agency are vowing to work with the British Virgin Islands to put an end to the practice of burning trash. EPA Senior Adviser for V.I. Affairs, Region 2 Claude Walker said a meeting with BVI officials is scheduled for some time this month.

Walker said he will raise the issue during an upcoming meeting of The Inter Virgin Islands Council, an organization formed in 2004 to facilitate partnership between the U.S. territory and neighboring British Overseas Territory. Walker previously had discussions with Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. and Delegate to Congress Stacy Plaskett on the issue of smoke from the burning garbage.

“We wanted to convene and hear from you before we have this meeting sometime in August to let them know how our residents feel,” Walker said at a Saturday community meeting hosted at Our Place in conjunction with the Coral Bay Community Council and the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. “We’ll use the process of the Inter Virgin Islands Council. We do have other options, but prefer not to say what those are. We intend to put a stop to this working closely with the BVI government, but it has to stop.”

Walker recalled making a trip to the BVI in 2009 to discuss the noxious smoke, “and we’re still here talking about this issue,” he said. Walker noted that the effort must be collaborative, and said the EPA cannot direct the BVI government to take appropriate action.

“We can work with them and cooperate with them, and at some point there may be an opportunity to inject some dollars, and that’s part of what we’re looking at to assist them,” said Walker. “We can’t force them.”

Residents in the Mamey Peak and Bordeaux areas of St. John said the smell has woken them up in the night.

“I can recognize burning rubber burning my eyes,” said Karen Granitz, a 17-year resident of Coral Bay. “Are they being amicable?”

Department of Planning and Natural Resources Director of Environmental Protection Austin Callwood said BVI officials were open to receiving help for the issue.

“It’s not that they aren’t being amicable; they don’t have the capacity,” said Callwood. “In 2009, they were seeking help from us. Now they have a larger community to process waste for.”

EPA Senior Environmental Engineer Jim Casey said attempts by the EPA in previous years to measure air quality in areas affected by the smoke have not generated impactful results.

“We had a monitoring system running for weeks but the data was not substantiating the impacts in terms of measuring the contaminants you would expect,” said Casey.

Callwood said DPNR has been working with the University of the Virgin Islands to purchase a set of instruments to measure air quality for extended periods of time.

“The instruments we used previously didn’t recognize what you are smelling and seeing, but I don’t want to minimize the impact it has on you, because your sensor is just as important as the actual physical sensors we use,” said Callwood.

Bordeaux resident David Silverman said the duration of the smoke and its impacts is generally about one to two hours.

“I’m concerned about the effect on endangered species,” said Silverman. “It’s toxic material that gets caught in stormwater and runs off into the reef and the ocean. I wonder where it goes and what effect it has.”

Marlon Hibbert, director of DPNR’s Division of Coastal Zone Management, urged the public to use the DPNR USVI Hotline app to report incidents of the Tortola dump smoke impacting USVI residents.

“This is not a fruitless thing,” Walker said at the community meeting. “We definitely will talk among ourselves and there’s an action plan to engage the Inter Virgin Islands Council, but we’ll make it clear that this has to stop. It’s been going on for too long and no one should live like this. This is not neighborly. It’s not something you do to your neighbor.”