Infrastructure on STJ

Travel discussion for St. John
User avatar
stjohnjulie
Posts: 570
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:34 am
Location: St. John VI

Post by stjohnjulie »

I read this post first thing in the morning and wanted to respond with "bravo!!!", but said, shut up for a minute Julie and see what happens with this thread. You pose some very interesting questions that one who has grown up, or who lives in the states, rarely has to ask themselves. St. John is in a unique position because it is not that uncommon to have most of our islands occupants comprised of tourists. We are a tiny island, most of it National Park, and only 5K full time residents. So many of our visitors do not understand, or even think to ask themselves these questions. I applaud you for posting.

Where does our trash go? Mostly STT, some here on island. Why don't we recycle? Because it is too cost prohibitive. Why do so many restaurants/bars use disposable table/drink ware? Because water is expensive. We have two public desalination plants that can be used for filling dry cisterns here, but it is costly. What it boils down to, the all mighty dollar. As sad as it is. If you live here, you know that fresh water is precious, and you conserve it. I cannot tell you how much my habits have changed since I have been here when it comes to water. My family of 3 uses 1200 gallons of water every 6 to 8 weeks, including laundry. That is such a tiny fraction of what I used, BY MYSELF, when I lived in the states.

Sheesh! I see how this thread could easily be hijacked by transplant locals! But, on the other hand, this island has forced me to live a more simple, and ultimately, more happy life. I will not complain, I am thankful that my eyes wide open now.
benchill
Posts: 264
Joined: Mon Sep 25, 2006 6:28 pm
Location: Southeast TN

Post by benchill »

Currently, there is water rationing in effect. There is a 3 to 5 day wait for truckloads from the desal plant in town. Caneel, which also sells water, is limited to 10 loads a day.

The message here is that just because you paid top dollar for your villa, please don't think you can take 20 minute showers and rinse every dish before you put it in the dishwasher. Heck, that's what dishwashers do, wash dishes efficiently.

No matter how entitled you feel to use the water freely, you might still be waterless for days because of it. Hopefully, the guests before you were considerate and didn't abuse the cistern and left you with enough.
Ben and Lynn
User avatar
chicagoans
Posts: 1586
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:51 pm
Location: IL

Post by chicagoans »

Exit, Hugo, Julie and other STJ residents: it is so valuable to hear your insights. I appreciate the signs in the villas I have stayed in, "Water is the gold of the Caribbean". Many of us tourists do need to be educated and reminded about these things and our impact on the island we love.

I for one would be willing to:
- Be charged $1 extra for every bag of groceries if I don't bring a reusable bag. Make me buy the bag for $1 and I'll use it next time!
- Put up with lights on timers (I turn them off when I leave anyway, but if other guests forget, I'll gladly live with the timers)
- Put up with timers on the showers, if there's a way to do that! Maybe one of those pull chains like the showers at our local pool that give you about a minute of water per pull. After a few times, I'd get tired of pulling it. Or if the bathroom light is on a 10 minute timer, that would get me out of there too.
- Have only eco-friendly sunblock available for sale on island, even if it costs more.
- Put organic/decomposable kitchen waste into a composter if it were a short walk from the villa.

Other ideas for minimizing our impact? I'd like to know!

Some high-maintenance tourists wouldn't like this, but I don't think readers of this forum fall into that category. (And we wouldn't mind if the high-maint folks picked another island!)
Image
User avatar
chicagoans
Posts: 1586
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:51 pm
Location: IL

Post by chicagoans »

Having just posted the above, I do feel like a bit of a hypocrite because one of my favorite days was when we rented a dinghy. hmmm... I'm sure those aren't so good for the water.

But I'd rather rent a kayak or sailboat and save the coral if that's what it comes down to.
Image
User avatar
stjohnjulie
Posts: 570
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:34 am
Location: St. John VI

Post by stjohnjulie »

Oh poop! I am so sorry that I got too caught up in myself to say thank you to everyone who has posted. I really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to consider, or consider when questioned, what it is like to actually live here. You all have been so considerate to the questions posed. I am in the middle of another situation that is eating up so much of my patience that I forgot to mind my manners and say thank you. So... Thank you!
jimg20
Posts: 1840
Joined: Mon May 28, 2007 11:43 am
Location: Fayetteville, AR

Post by jimg20 »

"Oh poop!" Very funny Julie whether you intended to or not. :lol:

In the real world, I have to think about those kinds of issues for my clients. That's how I pay for our trips to Paradise. I have thought about these things for both the US and STJ. When we first came to STJ we learned about the limited water supply and how to conserve it. We apply those same principles at home that we learned to use on STJ. We do rinse the dishes a little more than some of you might want to see, but there is a good reason. The two of us require several meals to generate enough dishes to make a full load for the machine. If we let them sit for 36 hours before running the dish washer, they will never come clean. It's a trade off.

We do recycle aluminum and plastics. We compost in our yard. I know that recycling programs are expensive. In the US, many programs are subsidised. Without that help, they would operate in the red and get closed down. When you add that to the cost of transfering the recycled products to STT or STX it becomes even more expensive.

These issues are but a few examples of why things are more expensive there than we are accustomed to paying at home. They use the same things we do and they have to pay to get it to the island and then back off the island. Gee, that sounds like planning one of our trips. The transportation cost always makes this a more expensive vacation than we would find in the States.

It is good that all of us think about it and consider how we contribute to the load facing STJ. It is also good that we each consider what we can do to limit our impact. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

JIM
Man it's like some dream we live down here....

Image
Exit Zero
Posts: 1451
Joined: Mon Mar 10, 2008 4:50 pm
Location: virgin islands

Post by Exit Zero »

I only hope that this thread has given some people pause and that they consider the fragile nature of the infrastructure and tenuous grasp STJ has on its ability to provide more and more of the conveniences that so many visiting people expect or even worse, demand.
Understand that the reality of STJ power is totally dependent on the Krum Bay power plant in STT and its literal extension cord, underwater to STJ - that the water supply is absolutely over extended, mainly by the inconsiderate design of the many villas, with multiple bathrooms,showers,swimming pools and fountains that waste precious fresh water - and that the sewage generated by almost every toilet on STJ leaches into the soil and percolates into the sea.
St John is a virtual microcosm of what is happening world wide ---- but its survival is controllable if we dare or care.
Thank You everyone who has read or responded, especially for the many PM's.
Joppa
Posts: 433
Joined: Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:07 pm
Location: NH

Post by Joppa »

I have thought about some of these things. I grew up in a city that had an island too. Water sewer and electricity were always an issue out there.People had wells but didn't drink the water. In the summer you could fill water jugs on the road right as you cross off the island. There was some type of fixture on a fire hydrant for this. In the winter you had to go all the way into town and go to the police station. Today they have town water and sewer at a great expense. This entire island and it's new systems are in serious danger from erosion.

We stayed at Concordia last year on our first trip. They had some material in our tent that was very informative mostly about the water issues on the island. It also told about the islands lack of recycling. It would be a great idea if the people who have rental properties on the island could put together some type of informational booklet, or maybe just a copy of this thread, to have at their properties to educate guests. I like to believe that the majority of people if educated on just how fragile St.John is would treat it with a little more respect.

We stayed at Cinnamon for part of our stay this year. I was very surprised by the lack of any type of mention of water conservation. There was nothing and that just seemed weird to me as this Is a National Park.
User avatar
pipanale
Posts: 1335
Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:06 am
Location: Raleigh, NC

Post by pipanale »

These are all the kinds of things I'd like to teach the 8-year old when she visits for the first time in July. Explain how the water works, the power, etc.

My gang is excited to have a villa with central air. I argue that it doesn't mean we should leave it on all day set to 68 just because we can. It will be nice to have, but we on;y need to run it if we "need it".

All good points to keep i mind though. StJ is not self-sustainable and that needs to be kept in mind when visiting.
User avatar
augie
Posts: 2376
Joined: Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:26 am
Location: Where the weather suits my clothes

Post by augie »

The biggest concern that I can see is that now that some of the issues that might have once been deemed as alarmist propaganda (such as the the water, electricity, and waste issues detailed in this thread) coming from those who would oppose "progress", have been demonstrated to be real, there does not seem to be any coordinated efforts to develop a plan to manage the runaway growth that exacerbates these problems.

A lot of the coastal areas in my home state aren't nearly as appealing as they once were simply due to the fact that short sighted local governments couldn't, or wouldn't look past the revenue that could be generated from all of the high rise condos on the beach. Now they wonder why the tourists don't flock to our beaches the way that they use to...
Come see us!
PA Girl
Posts: 4485
Joined: Tue Aug 29, 2006 11:55 am

Post by PA Girl »

Exit Zero wrote:- that the water supply is absolutely over extended, mainly by the inconsiderate design of the many villas, with multiple bathrooms,showers,swimming pools and fountains that waste precious fresh water - and that the sewage generated by almost every toilet on STJ leaches into the soil and percolates into the sea.
St John is a virtual microcosm of what is happening world wide ----
This makes me wonder who was in charge during the development boom and how and why did they allow this type of construction to occur? By this I mean unchecked development that taxes (over-taxes) the existing infrastructure.

Was it a case of enjoying the booming construction economy now and let us worry about the infrastructure later?
User avatar
toes in the sand
Posts: 994
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:21 pm

Post by toes in the sand »

We were pleased to see the beginings of a re-cycle program during our last visit. It was nice to see the re-cycle dumpster in Coral Bay was being used but there were still two full dumpsters of trash next to it. While I was tossing our cans, glass and paper into the re-cycle I couldn't help but hope that soon there would be two re-cycle dumpsters and only one empty trash dumpster.
"got a drink in my hand and my toes in the sand"
Cid
Posts: 577
Joined: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:18 am
Location: Barre, VT

Post by Cid »

I was reading somewhere that they had just hired a new "planner" for the island. Do any of the locals feel like this may help fix some of the issues the community faces or does it seem like it may be just another layer of "more of the same"? My take from reading and talking to people is that there isn't a whole lot of faith that the government can/will do much to fix some obvious problems. Look how long the tax issue has been going on. You would think that this would have been resolved quite a long time ago.
Still waiting to return to St. John!
http://facebook.com/cidsinclair
Image
[/url]
User avatar
StJohnRuth
Posts: 1989
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 8:42 pm
Location: St. John, VI

Post by StJohnRuth »

All construction in the Virgin Islands requires water storage. For residential construction a multiplier of 10 times the roof area for a one story building and 15 for a two story building is used. (i.e. 1000 square feet of roof on a one story building X 10 = 10,000 gallons cistern storage
1000 square feet of roof on a two story building X 15 = 15000 gallons cistern storage)

All septic systems leach into the soil and eventually end up in the surrounding waters. In all coastal zone areas in the U.S. and its territories, waste treatment systems are now required for new construction instead of septic systems. Waste treatment systems are also required when replacing old septic systems that have gone bad. This building code requirement has been in effect for about three years now in the Virgin Islands, but these systems were available and used by choice here prior to becoming a matter of law. The treatment system breaks down and eliminates 95% of the effluent and produces gray water which can be used in a sprinkler irrigation system for vegetation. The size of the treatment system required is based on a calculation of 150 gallons per bedroom.

The initial cost of a waste treatment plant is very similar to the cost of a septic system installation. There are electrical costs to operate the treatment systems and some use more electricity then others. Over time, the water savings of a treatment system can offset the operating cost when it is used effectively for irrigation via the grey water tank.

I can not say what happens when additions or improvements are made to existing commercial or residential structures without obtaining the lawful permits, but since we are building a house here, I can verify that these codes are enforced in new construction via the issuance of approved building plans and follow-up inspections.

We are installing a treatment system called AquaKlear which we obtained through Michael Kaye of AquaKlear Caribbean. Email: mlkdesign@yahoo.com
Here is the web site for this system if anyone is interested in learning more about it.
http://www.aquaklear.net/

- Ruth
User avatar
toes in the sand
Posts: 994
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:21 pm

Post by toes in the sand »

Thanks Ruth for the clarification. :wink: It's good to know that measures are being put into place AND being followed to help minimize our impact on the island we love to visit. It's also good to hear that the requirements are not an additional burden on the builder as the initial added costs are outweighed by future benefits.
"got a drink in my hand and my toes in the sand"
Post Reply