Debris Burning On St. Croix Will Not Start This Week

ST. CROIX — Governor Kenneth Mapp on Monday said that debris burning would commence on St. Croix this week, an announcement that placed the governor in a stronger position than lawmakers who recently passed a bill banning debris burning in the territory. The measure was sitting on the governor’s desk waiting for an action to be taken, but Mr. Mapp let the days to wane, allowing more time for burning to begin before he could veto the measure and send it back to the Senate, where an override is planned.

But there will not be any air curtain incineration of debris today or anytime this week for that matter, according George Stringham, Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) USVI Recovery Field Office public affairs chief. Mr. Stringham told The Consortium on Wednesday that the Waste Management Authority had not yet started clearing the site for incineration, and therefore the contractor hired to do the job could not make the necessary preparations. Furthermore, USACE has not received the permits, he said. Governor Mapp said on Monday that the burn permits had been issued and incineration would commence this week.

Mr. Stringham said even if the permits were to be issued today, incineration would not start until next week because of the necessary preparations that must take place. “Site preparations is usually five to seven days, roughly a week to get the site prepared to start operations. It’s not like you turn a switch on overnight type of thing,” he said.

Mr. Stringham said several permit requests are in the pipeline, but Waste Management will not clear the burning sites until USACE receives the permits. “Once we receive them, then the Waste Management Authority goes ahead and start clearing an extra brush that will make room for the trenches to be dug for the air curtain incineration. And until they clear that, our contractor won’t be able to get in there and start the preparation.”

While he could not give a timeline as to when he expected USACE to receive the permits, Mr. Stringham said, “All the necessary parties are taking. Our folks, the territory, D.P.N.R. and our spokesman are hashing out the details… They may come later today, they may come Friday — at this point its speculation as far as when we’d actually get them.”