After falling short of the supermajority needed last week under streamlined rules for noncontroversial bills, Delegate Donna Christensen’s bill to make St. Croix’s Estate Castle Nugent a National Historic Site passed the House of Representatives Wednesday, and will be heading on to the Senate.
Zero Republicans supported the bill both times. Five Democrats voted no initially and four voted no on the second vote. The final vote was 240-yes to 175-no.
Republicans cast the Castle Nugent measure as an example of unnecessary spending in light of the current economic conditions in the country, saying the bill would cost $40-$50 million.
"There is $9 billion worth of needed repairs and maintenance on existing park lands," Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) said during floor debate. "If we aren’t caring for what we already have, then Congress shouldn’t be making the problem worse."
Democrats responded the $9 billion dollar backlog was due to Republican underfunding during the 2000-2006 period in which Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency. Also, in debate on the floor, Christensen and Democrats such as Nick Rahall, (D-WV) said the Castle Nugent bill included no direct spending nor land acquisition that would be subject to appropriations.
In a sense, both sides are correct about the costs. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates implementing the act would cost $26 million over the next five years. But its estimate assumes "appropriation of the necessary amounts," in separate spending bills, mostly to acquire about half of the total acreage. So the bill spends no money, but actually implementing the bill will cost money.
Based on Park Service estimates, CBO figures the entire 2,900 acres of non-submerged land addressed by the bill has a value of about $45 million and would take 10 years to acquire. The submerged land belongs to the V.I. Government and would be donated or traded, perhaps for land within the V.I. National Park on St. John.
In addition, CBO estimates a cost of $1 million to develop a general management plan and $1 million a year to manage the new park.
Hastings and other Republicans also argued the National Park Service should have completed its feasibility study before the bill is considered. The Park Service performed a feasibility study in 2009, and the results of that study are not yet complete. But National Park Service officials testified in committee hearings that Castle Nugent meets the criteria to determine national significance, suitability and feasibility.
“The Republicans were trying to make a point in advance of the President’s State of the Union address, and tried to make our bill a poster child for too much spending,” Christensen said in a statement from her office after the vote. “With the help of Chairman Nick Rahall, who has always been supportive of our requests, we got the votes we needed to pass the bill and move the process on to the U.S. Senate,” she said.
The bill, HR 3726, introduced by Christensen, would preserve 2,900 acres of Caribbean dry forest, extensive coral reef and substantial black mangrove. It also preserves the archaeological remains of indigenous Taino inhabitants and the Danish colonial era to include an estate house which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Christensen first submitted legislation for a feasibility study — a prerequisite for becoming a park — back in 2006. But the Gasperi family; one of the main landowners in the area, first broached the idea at least as far back as 2003.
The proposed park site abuts the parcel by Great Pond slated for the Golden Gaming casino development and is roughly bordered by the Howard M. Wall Boy Scout Camp, Estate Fareham and Manchenil Bay, just west of Ha’Penny Beach. Inland, it runs as far as Lowrys Hill and Laprey Valley. The bill says it will include associated submerged lands out to the three-mile territorial limit. The associated submerged land is the largest coastal fringe reef in the territory.
The Castle Nugent property has a long agricultural history dating back to the 1730s, when the Danish estate house, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was constructed.
Should there be a park, it will be a unit of the National Park System and managed by the Park System’s existing St. Croix offices, according to the bill.
