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Reaffirms Territory's Waste Management Authority
Jan. 29, 2004 – Senator Louis Patrick Hill, Chairman of the 25th Legislature's Committee on Planning and Environmental Protection, said the EPA's probe of the Virgin Islands abandoned car program demonstrates the importance of establishing the Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority to develop and implement a comprehensive waste disposal plan and program.
He commended St. Thomas/Water Island Administrator James O'Bryan for continuing the program which Senator Hill conceived and began when Administrator, to remove the unsightly hazards from neighborhoods and roadsides. Senator Hill said, however, that the Administration along with a majority of Senators supported the Waste Management Authority legislation because they recognized that the Territory's waste management challenges can no longer be addressed in an ad hoc manner. A modern day knowledge of environmental law, the complicated system of statues, regulations, and guidelines, both federal and territorial, must guide our every step in dealing with our management of waste, and in particular, hazardous contaminants.
He emphasized that waste management is now much more than aggressively moving garbage from our homes and roadsides to the dump. The various federal and local environmental protection laws and regulations have made waste management a very complicated business that requires very coordinated efforts of trained, professional people.
Senator Hill is confident that Mr. O'Bryan and the administration will be able to resolve the concerns EPA raised. The Virgin Islands will soon benefit from an entity that has the authority, the resources, the expertise and the mandate to resolve the many solid-waste and wastewater issues that daily challenge our health, our safety, and future development.
