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January 16, 2004
Sewage in St. Croix harbor causes cruise ship diversion to British Virgin Islands
By the AP
Friday, January 16, 2004
By Associated Press
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands — A cruise company canceled plans to dock in St. Croix this weekend, saying that raw sewage pouring into the island's harbor meant poor water quality and health hazards to its passengers.
The 350-passenger Radisson Diamond will instead stop in Virgin Gorda in the neighboring British Virgin Islands on Saturday, said Radisson Seven Seas Cruises spokesman Andrew Poulton.
The cancelation comes at a time when St. Croix, the largest of U.S. Caribbean territory's three islands, has seen many other cruise ships cancel calls due to concerns about rising crime.
The U.S. Virgin Islands has been struggling with its public waste management for more than a decade, with repeated mandates from the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. District Court ordering repairs be undertaken.
Contamination has forced beaches to close, and sewage sometimes seeps through manholes in the island's main towns of Christiansted and Frederikstad.
In December, the territory's Waste Management Coordinator Stella Saunders said that untreated sewage was spilling into the ocean for five hours each day because two of three sewage pumps at one of the island's sewage station's were not functional.
In August the territory missed an EPA deadline to secure a contract for upgrading sewage systems to comply with the 1972 Federal Clean Water Act.
The government had declared a state of emergency and awarded a contract last year but canceled it amid criticism it had bypassed public bidding.
Posted by afinta at January 16, 2004 02:45 PM
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