Green Antilles

The controversy-plagued HOVENSA oil refinery, located in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands is going to be shut down. Less than a year has passed since the refinery was hit with a fine of over US$5 million for air pollution infractions. It was also required to implement $700 million worth of pollution control measures and to set up a $4.875 million environmental project fund to benefit the Virgin Islands environment.

According to the Caribbean Journal, HOVENSA’s parent company says that the shutdown is the result of a downturn in the global petroleum market:

The HOVENSA oil refinery in St Croix, US Virgin Islands, will be shut down, the company announced today.

The refinery, which is one of the 10 largest in the world and the largest in the Caribbean, is a joint venture between the Hess Corporation and Petroleos de Venezuela SA.

Hess cited weakness in demand for petroleum products due to the global economic slowdown and the addition of new refining capacity in emerging markets as factors leading to the shutdown.

It also said the low price of natural gas in the United States had place HOVENSA at a “competitive disadvantage.”

The company said it had explored other options to keep the refinery operating, but financial losses “left it with no other choice.”

The US government has previously found the refinery to be in violation of its federal Clean Air Act, saying in August that there had been “too many chemical releases and other potentially dangerous incidents at the HOVENSA facility in recent years, including three in January 2011 alone,” according to EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck.

It is not clear whether that played a role in the shutdown.

See the original article at the Caribbean Journal website.

Also of interest, previous Green Antilles posts about environmental problems at the HOVENSA refinery: U.S. EPA to begin air quality monitoring at HOVENSA refinery in St. Croix, After being fined, oil refinery in St. Croix will spend over US$700 million on anti-pollution upgrades, HOVENSA fined millions for pollution from St. Croix oil refinery, and Oil refinery accidents contaminate crucian domestic water supplies.

The Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands has announced a major new energy goal for the territory:

Like many islands on earth, the USVI are almost 100 percent dependent on imported oil for electricity. Residents pay about 47 cents per kilowatt hour to light their homes and run their appliances. Imported oil is even used to desalinate the water because there is so little fresh water available other than what residences catch on their roof in the form of rain water.

But USVI Gov. John P. de Jongh Jr., working with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the U.S. Department of Interior, has vowed to transform energy use dramatically. In January, at his State of the Territory address, he announced the goal of reducing use of fossil fuels by 60 percent in the next 15 years.

That’s huge, and a great challenge, and just possibly a blueprint for how to achieve those similar reductions on the mainland.

“What we’re attempting to do is integrate every large portion of renewable energy into our system,” said Karl Knight, the director of USVI’s energy office, who also is a board member of the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority. Think of it as a pilot for how to integrate renewables as a large proportion of the grid.”

To get there, a half dozen different technologies need to be implemented, and energy efficiency will have to become a rallying cry.

…

The recipe to achieve a 60 percent reduction:
2 percent biomass
3 percent landfill gas
3 percent solar
6 percent wind
8 percent waste-to-energy
38 percent energy efficiency

Read more in the full article by Bill Scanlon of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Previous related posts on Green Antilles: The USVI Energy Efficiency Working Group reaches out to the public with a blog and Bringing green energy to Bonaire, Dominica, the USVI.

[Photo: Breezy Baldwin]

After six years of legal wrangling, Alcoa World Alumina and two other defendants have been assigned responsibility for remediation of a contaminated site in St. Croix:

More than six years after the V.I. Department of Planning and Natural Resources filed suit against eight industrial companies operating on the southern shore, a portion of the toxic red mud resulting from decades of alumina production will be cleaned up, officials said.

The cost of the clean-up is unknown, and the exact timeline is still unclear, subject to permitting and plan approvals. A recently lodged consent decree, however, mandates that the bill will be picked up by two of the defendants, while a third was designated as responsible for maintaining the site once work has been completed.

The clean-up will come at no cost to the V.I. government.

Instead, the government will have $3 million set aside in an escrow account to enforce and regulate the three defendants, which are the three most recent owners of the property: St. Croix Renaissance Group; Alcoa World Alumina; and St. Croix Alumina, which is a subsidiary of Alcoa.

Two other alumina defendants, V.I. Alumina Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., have not agreed to any settlement.

The two oil refinery defendants, HOVENSA and Hess Oil, also have not reached a settlement. The plaintiffs claim the refineries contaminated the groundwater separately from the red mud contamination.

The final alumina defendant, Century Aluminum, was released from the lawsuit last month after Bartle issued a judgement in its favor. Century Aluminum only owned the alumina plant for one day “through various maneuverings” and did not process any alumina during that day and did not contribute to the red mud, said attorney John Dema, who has been one of five attorneys listed as representing the V.I. government and DPNR.

The settlement agreement between DPNR and the V.I. government and the three alumina defendants in the “Red Mud” case, which has been in U.S. District Court since May 2005, has not yet gone into effect. District Judge Harvey Bartle III will have to sign off on the agreement, Dema said.

During a press conference Friday, V.I. Attorney General Vincent Frazer said the agreement is a significant milestone.

“We are pleased to report today that we have a partial settlement with some of the parties in the case,” Frazer said. “While not complete, it represents substantial progress.”

…

The pollution of what is known as the St. Croix Southern Industrial Complex began in the 1960s, when Hess Oil and Harvey Aluminum arrived and built industrial facilities, replacing what had once been land used for sugar cane production with an oil refinery and an alumina plant. Harvey Aluminum’s plans to build on the 1,400-acre property were approved by the V.I. Legislature in 1962. By the end of the decade, Martin Marietta Alumina had purchased a controlling interest in Harvey. Martin Marietta’s successor, Lockheed Martin, owned the plant outright by 1972, according to a memorandum in support of the consent decree filed by the settling parties’ attorneys.

Up until 1972, the red mud byproduct was being disposed of in a containment lagoon, now called “Area B” in court filings. Lockheed Martin said it closed down Area B in 1972 and began to move the red mud to a different site, called “Area A” in court documents.

V.I. Aluminum bought the site in 1989 and operated the plant until 1994, when it suspended operations. It moved red mud to Area A.

In 1995, St. Croix Alumina bought the site, though it did not resume operations until 1998. St. Croix Alumina also moved red mud only to Area A until it ceased operations in 2000.

Red mud is a chemical compound with a rusty pigmentation from a high concentration of iron oxide which results from producing alumina from bauxite. It can be radioactive and maintains a high pH balance, making it highly caustic, with the potential to leave severe burns. DPNR’s lawsuit arose from concerns that red mud had leeched into the aquifer, contaminating the sea and the mangrove swamps to the south and getting picked up by the wind and swept over communities to the northwest.

Some residents in the area claim to continually be cleaning up a red dust they believe comes from the site and to which they attribute some of their health problems.

“We are very glad to be able to bring some relief to the surrounding residents,” Barnes said Friday.

For more information, see the full article from the Virgin Islands Daily News.

[Photo: via virginislandsdailynews.com]

The Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute (VISFI) in St. Croix will be running a number of sustainable farming courses throughout 2012:

Imagine what you want your home community will look like 5, 10, 50, or 100 years from now. Do you see a vibrant local food culture? Clean water for families & wildlife? An environment marked by safety and peace? Opportunities to make a living in ways that are in line with ethics of fairness, justice, and peace? If so, now is the time to return to learning basic human skills that can lead us through the future. Take the Ridge to Reef Challenge: Start small, in a single watershed, and work outward from there. If you can save your watershed, together we can improve the quality of life on Earth. Join us this year in the Caledonia Watershed at Ridge to Reef Farm for 1 or all 4 seasonal Pathways to create a sustainable future.

Ridge to Reef Sustainable Farming Pathways is an experiential education series for aspiring organic growers, naturalists, community mentors, slow foodies, holistic living system designers, and all those interested in sustainable living. This course is centered around food production but is about much more in the total picture of sustainable living. Become an integral part of St. Croix’s small island food system and learn how to take it home with you. Develop a practical skill set out of inspiring action projects. Experience living systems centered around growing and sharing food with care.

The Empowering Community Pathway runs from January 22 to February 25, 2012; the Organic Agroforestry Intensive Pathway runs from May 12 to 26; and the Path of the Natural Mentor Pathway runs from June 16 to August 5.

Visit the VISFI website to find out more about the courses and how to register.

Previously on Green Antilles: Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute.

A major electricity supplier in the U.S. Virgin Islands is looking to introduce solar-generated power into the national grid:

More than two-dozen companies responded to a request for proposals (RFP) by the V.I. Water and Power Authority to purchase solar photovoltaic generation from independent power producers, the utility announced.

WAPA’s bid process for the project closed [in September], and Executive Director Hugo Hodge Jr. said the utility received 27 bids.

“We are excited about the large number of respondents who have made submissions and are looking forward to diversifying our generating portfolio by adding renewables to the mix,” he said.

The authority is seeking photovoltaic generation to lower the cost of power production in the territory. The RFP said the utility will sign a 20-year power purchase agreement to procure electricity generated from solar energy from one or more selected companies with an option to renew for another five years. Winning bidders will be responsible for constructing, operating, and maintaining the projects.

WAPA is seeking a maximum of 10 megawatts of electrical capacity, allocating approximately five each to its generation facilities on St. Thomas and St. Croix.

Read more in the full article from the St. Croix Source. See also the WAPA website.

The U.S. Virgin Island’s Department of Forestry is providing grants to support community-based forestry projects. The St. Thomas source reports:

Twice each year in May and November, the U&CF Program accepts proposals for forestry projects that encourage citizen involvement territory-wide. Over the years, the grant-awarded projects have provided educational as well as data-driven management recommendations, enabling greater stewardship of the territory’s forests in both urban and residential areas. I am pleased to announce this request for proposals and especially encourage new applicants or new community-based groups and organizations to apply,” Agriculture Commissioner Louis E. Petersen Jr. said.

Grant awards will be made on a competitive basis, and require a 1-to-1 match to the amount requested; matches may be met through in-kind donations and volunteer time. The deadline for proposal submissions for this grant cycle is Monday, Nov. 7.

The program seeks proposals for project funding from local government, nonprofit organizations, civic and/or educational organizations, including but not limited to schools, homeowners’ associations, service clubs and environmental organizations. The U&CF Program does not fund strictly agricultural projects. Projects must have a forestry component to be eligible for funding.

Proposals are requested in the following areas: education and public outreach on urban forestry; protecting and publicizing heritage and remarkable big trees; reducing forest health risks due to invasive species; identifying and managing hazardous trees; collecting data on wildlife use of urban forests; planning for and planting urban trees; training to become arborists; developing and implementing forest management plans for developed areas with urban forests; and writing tree guidelines for communities.

Find out more from the U.S.V.I Department of Forestry website.

[Image : Kyle Rokos]