Virgin Islanders are accustomed to hearing that their government can't provide the services it is supposed to provide because it has no money. Individuals attending a National Park Service "open house" Saturday heard V.I. National Park Supt. Russell Berry Jr. say the same thing.
Responding to concerns expressed about the discharge of sewage by boaters into local waters, Berry said there are rules against such discharge, but nothing can be done to enforce them without adequate resources, both human and material. And he doesn't expect the resources to be forthcoming anytime soon, he added, because "the park is broke."
Meager funding and personnel shortages have led to "serious problems" in some of the St. John bays that are National Park waters, Berry added.
He made the comment at the fourth and last of a series of public hearings held to seek public input into the formulation of long-range marine and commercial use management plans for the park. Nearly a dozen people attended the hearing Saturday morning at the Westin Resort.
There is little quesion that the public use of park waters is going to increase, Berry said. NPS engineers recently installed 181 moorings for use by visiting boaters, increasing the number of moorings in the park from just 27 to 208 — the largest such installation in the world, Berry said. The moorings are in 10 different sites, but there are only three rangers to enforce federal and local clean-water rules, he said, and there's no way they can do the job adequately.
He also said that part of the problem with sewage discharge into waters is that "neither we nor the Virgin Islands government are giving boaters a choice," because neither provides any sewage pump-out stations for boaters' use.
Of the 15 issues park officials had proposed for examination at the open house, the need for sewage pump-out stations for boaters was the one that prompted the most discussion.
Aase Petersen, co-president of the St. John Action Committee, expressed dismay about pollution at the Francis Bay beach, a lush and secluded beach within the park that is a favorite among local bathers. "There’s feces floating all about," she said. "Apparently, these people are just letting everything out right there. They’re ruining our waters."
Louis Wesselhoft, chief ranger of the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., was at the meeting. He recalled that he had spent the early days of his park service career at home working on St. John. In those days, he said, NPS personnel actively enforced rules against the discharge of sewage into park waters. "Things have gotten worse," he said. "We’ve grown, and we have not been diligent in our efforts."
The mooring expansion was envisioned as a means of reducing anchor damage to the park’s coral reefs. The park encompasses 5,000 acres of shorelines and waterways utilized by boaters, swimmers, watersports fans and day-trip concessionaires.
Berry said discharge from boat holding tanks in park waters currently accounts for about 5 percent of the pollution in waters surrounding the Virgin Islands. Much larger causes, he said, are the unregulated discharge of waste by the Public Works Department, silt run-off from roads and housing construction sites, and damage caused by anchors.
Ron Hale of Heritage Boats Inc. of St. Thomas, who attended the meeting, said afterward that studies have shown that exposure to sewage in swimming areas was relatively harmless. He also cited the findings of an effluent management study by Steve Prosterman of the University of the Virgin Islands indicating that the cost of providing pumping facilities for boaters could cost $60 per visit. Effluent is the term used by waste managers to describe human waste. "Enforcing effluent regulations would kill the boating industry," Hale said.
Through the series of open house "scoping" meetings, park officials have solicited public opinion on nine issues relating to boating regulations and six having to do with commercial operations within the park. Park survey questionnaires being circulated locally also seek input in these two areas. The questionnaires also ask how good a job the park is doing of managing its waters now, whether the existing mooring plan should be changed, and whether additional mooring fields should be instituted.
The surveys also seek public feedback on whether "carrying capacities" should be implemented in certain sections of the park. Berry explained that a carrying capacity would be a limit on the number of persons permitted to use a particular beach, trail, or other attraction at a given time.
Residents who have not yet filled out questionnaires may pick up the forms at the V.I. National Park visitor center in Cruz Bay or access them electronically under the "National Park" section of St. John Source. The completed forms may be submitted in person, by mail or by fax.
At a press briefing on Dec. 12, Berry and park consultant Jim Owens said recent changes in local charter boat regulations and initiatives to revive the V.I. chartering industry were factors in the decision to adopt a marine use management plan for the park by mid-2000. They said the plan would encompass enforcement of federal laws and regulations including the Clean Water Act.
