Wednesday, April 22 was a long, busy day for us. I actually had to get up before 5am to bring my lovely daughter to the airport. Yup it’s that time of year again. Her annual jump out of a plane (and hopefully not go splat!).
When I got back home, my darling hubby was cooking breakfast.
(Woo hoo!!)
Shortly after we did the dishes, it was time to head out to the University of the Virgin Islands’ Great Hall for an Earth Day Conference put on by the EPA. We saw a few people that we knew, but I was disappointed that only about 1/4 of the seats were occupied.
The speakers were from Puerto Rico and our beloved territory, the USVI and they spoke about the state of the environment in the territory and world wide. We were given reusable shopping bags containing compact fluorescent light bulbs, pens, and lots of brochures and reading material (too much paper wasted on people who are interested in conserving) . However, there was only one other person in attendance (besides us) who brought her own beverage cup. The rest of the presenters and listeners drank coffee or tea out of the styrofoam cups stacked up by these beverage dispensers.
There were also individual plastic cups of juice, which many of the presenters took, (and can I say disgusted us!) along with an EXTRA plastic drinking cup to pour the juice into !!!.
Did I want to scream or what?! It was friggin’ EARTH DAY for crissake!!! And our (the USVI) UNIVERSITY prepares a spread of food and drinks with NOTHING environmentally sensitive to serve them in or on!!!
I start to lose hope often these days. This type of thing does not help me.
The presenters were mostly very self congratulatory and politically correct, but much of what they were saying was, “Hooray for us, we have amazing potential, but we are just barely fulfilling our requirements to preserve the environment for our children”.
As we’ve seen here on St. Croix, despite the fact that Paul Golden has received certain permits through convoluted channels, [he has been allowed to erect a huge sign well outside of acceptable parameters (with no specific permit), build a huge fence with an immense gate denying people access to the beaches (this is against VI code - T.12, § 403) and dig up the Great Pond Area, because he has received other questionable permits and the people at CZM and DEP continue to say "He has permits", declining to specify WHICH permits he has)] our Department of Planning and Natural Resources and Coastal Zone Management Departments fall very short of doing the job they are paid to do, which is, according to Dr. Nadine Noorhasan, Director of the Division of Environmental Protection, “We gotta protect our land!”
Actually though, Carl Soderberg, from PR spoke about population growth being a major stressor on the environment. We rarely hear that from Caribbean people, and I was impressed. It seems that most island folks just love to see everybody having more and more babies. Mr. Soderberg showed us lots of tables and numbers, but there was a lot of information which wasn’t really explained, because there wasn’t enough time.
Hugo Hodge, Executive Director of WAPA spoke, as well, and when Michael asked questions about the “net metering” program, Mr. Hodge used examples of windmills generating power at night when WAPA doesn’t need it, when in actuality, our solar panels generate excess electricity during the day (peak hours), when WAPA needs it most. Mr. Hodge also stated, when asked about net metering customers getting cash back at the end of the year rather than losing all of the credit they’ve accumulated over twelve months (our meter is spinning backward right now, even on an overcast day on St. Croix because we are producing more power than we need – we have been for many months - and are selling it back to the utility) that individual consumers/producers will not have credit at the end of the year! That’s total baloney!
Hodge was funny, though, when asked about the RFP that WAPA has had out for alternative energy production. He justifies the foot-dragging that’s been going on by saying that it’ll actually be better to deal with a company that can make it through the current economic climate because it’ll be a more stable company to deal with. So WAPA just keeps burning that oil……Aaaargh!!
Don Buchanan and Bevan Smith of the Virgin Islands Energy Office were honest about their accomplishments (in the face of extreme ignorance and adversity, I might add) and I felt they were the only two scheduled speakers from the VI who weren’t in denial about our problems. Don started his presentation with a great quote about how the war in Iraq will cease, but the war on nature cannot because money talks, and it does not speak for the environment. I don’t remember who he said said this, because he was saying so much and I couldn’t write everything down and listen at the same time. Buchanan spoke very bluntly and quickly about there being perhaps a “glimmer of hope” for us with the Obama administration. He spoke about Thomas Friedman’s books, including his newest called, Hot, Flat and Crowded, and also Glenn Beck’s, An Inconvenient Book. Whew!
A couple of our senators made perfunctory appearances. Better than nothing I guess.
We learned about our groundwater situation here in the USVI (not great) from Sigredo Torres-Gonzales, Groundwater specialist from the Us Geological Survey. With the rising of sea levels caused by climate change, our fresh ground water will become more brackish in the coming years.
Paige Rothenberger was supposed to talk about the coral reef situation here, but she did not show up, so Dr. William Coles, endangered species specialist, filled in for her. He was actually quite brief and to the point for the most part about the stresses on the fragile reef systems around our island. He spoke of sediment run-off, improper boat anchoring and boats hitting the reefs, garbage getting caught on corals and choking them, and the latest threat from lionfish among other things.
With all of the problems our reefs are already facing, it makes me crazy to see more huge developments being planned for our island which has some of the few remaining coral reefs in America. We can barely handle the environmental challenges we already have, yet people think nothing of creating more and more.
I wish that the people in DPNR and DEP would be allowed by the governor to do their own jobs instead of ignoring the serious issues in the name of “jobs for the people” in the cases of allowing developments in very environmentally sensitive areas. I wish there would be common sense in government instead of the usual politics and “politricks”.
The last speaker we got to hear was Sindulfo Castillo of the US Army Corps of Engineers. He had some great information and I wish we’d have had time to speak to him afterwards, but we had to get home to feed the kids before returning to tat part of the island for the CZM hearing for the Robin Bay development.
This was the “first annual” US.EPA Earth Day Conference. I don’t know if I’ll go again next year. All of the speakers were informative and did a good job of presenting, but I’m more about action than talk. And in my opinion much of this was just giving lip service to the environment.