Timothy Hodge, president of Sanitas Partners, said Wednesday morning that progress had been made in talks with the V.I. Waste Management Authority and maybe his 21 employees would be back at work at the St. Croix Transfer Station in a matter of days. Sanitas employees sort through all the garbage on St. Croix, removing metals and hazardous material, and bale the waste.
Speaking at the gate of the closed transfer station on Airport Road, Hodge said the work stoppage was precipitated when his company could not make payroll for its employees. This was because the VIWMA has not paid for the work that Sanitas has done since February, he said.
Hodge said there was a work stoppage in September and VIWMA made intermediate funds available. He said his company bills every month and the payments have been partial, adding that Sanitas has been able to make payroll up until Friday.
“There’s critical environmental work done here,” Hodge said. “We do recognize there are funding issues in Waste Management Authority. It’s a tough situation without its own funding source. Waste Management works very hard but a lot of things are out of their hands.”
A Sanitas employee who wished to remain anonymous wanted to make it clear the workers were not on strike for better wages or working hours, just trying to get paid for the work they’ve done. “We’re willing to work, no problem,” he said. “We gotta pay our bills too.”
Hodge said his understanding is that Senate has been working diligently to approve funding for VIWMA. He said Sen. Kurt Vialet has been very responsive and helpful in the situation.
Although the VIWMA sent out a press release advising solid waste haulers and residents that the transfer station would be closed on Wednesday, some trucks were going through the gate. Hodge said that was because VIWMA was allowing emergency dumping and this would lead to a bigger backlog of waste at the facility for his employees to go through when the matter was settled.
The situation was having a ripple effect as the VIWMA’s Convenience Center in Peter’s Rest Wednesday was accepting only household garbage because all other bins were filled and could not be hauled. Hodge said it isn’t ideal that there will be a couple of days they will be backed up with trash but it is manageable.
The VIWMA press release said that, as a result of the walk out on Tuesday, “the authority was unable to process, bale and wrap all incoming waste at the facility.”
Residents were asked to use existing bin sites for waste disposal.
