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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesSite Cleanup Continues on Salt River Bay’s East Side

Site Cleanup Continues on Salt River Bay’s East Side

The National Park Service (NPS) and the Department of Planning and Natural Resources (DPNR), with funding from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, will finalize the cleanup of the demolished hotel on the south side of the Hemers Peninsula side of the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve. This project has been on hold since August 2011. During the first weeks of January 2015, machinery will be placed on site to sort the rubble and remove debris from the site. Access to and from the site will use the Haul Road from the Route 79—Benny Benjamin Road.
In November, the NPS completed its Phase I Archaeological Survey. This work determined that none of the cultural sites known before the hotel project began survived the hotel construction project. The park was established in 1992, well after the hotel developers stopped working at the site.
Contractors will sort the debris and recycle materials where possible. Already, some 100 prefabricated concrete slabs have been recycled and hundreds of tons of steel have been shipped off island. While the contractors are working on the site, access to the Hemers Peninsula side of the park will be restricted to areas outside of the green cyclone fence on the south side of the peninsula.
This project is part of the planned construction of a Coastal Studies Outpost on top of the 1100 square foot hotel foundation slab. The planned completion of the cleanup is March 2015.

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