virgin islands

Who knows when the island's million dollar under-construction parking lot at Enighed Pond is available for use?  The designer says there are serious problems which need serious money to solve; the government says "soon."

On behalf of the local Chamber of Commerce chapter, Kate Norfleet contacted the designer, deJongh & Associates, to ask when the lot will be ready.  She reported to Chamber members in an e-mail, "The news was not as good as I would have liked."

She was told four items are delaying the project.  Two of them must be solved with money – more – which has not been budgeted and isn't available now.  Those include the cost of higher fencing around the barge dock area and the paving of parking spaces for the handicapped.

Other issues involve drainage at the corner across from the tennis courts, where flooding is common. Installing a pipe and some pumps would solve it but, again, there's no money. (Photo courtesy of Tropical Focus Photography.)

Finally Norfleet said, "The solar lights have been installed but don't seem to be working …"

She asked why the lot couldn't be used as is, until money is available to make the improvements.  "The response I got was that they didn't want to 'give us something and then take it away'."

"Now we have an empty lot for who knows low long – due to issues that surely should have been addressed when designing the lot," Norfleet said.  "To have spent so much time and money on a parking lot we can only stare at is absurd."

Norfleet said her complaints – and those of Chamber members – had been heard.  In an e-mail, two days later, the Public Works Department said its Commissioner, Darryl Smalls, is working "with the project manager to complete punch-list items."  He said the project is 90% complete "and the official opening of the lot will be announced as soon as these last few items have been wrapped up."

Norfleet added she was pleased by what she called the 'quick' response from Public Works and is optimistic the lot may open for use soon.

We'll see.

Phil Collins and the Temptations can sing all they want about rain, but St. John really wants more than lyrics – it wants water.

As the great Blog of Maho shows, parts of the island are brown.  Rainfall this year is only a third of normal … about two inches.

"One result of this is that we can't use the washing machines at the house we are renting," said Sunny-in-Salem. "They directed us to the laundromat, which is very nice and accommodating." 

"We had a record breaking DRY December and January," Melia4 posted on TripAdvisor. "So now with a normally dry Feb and March, we're in trouble."

"Lots of people are getting water delivered right now," said another local, StJohnJulie. "I've seen a bunch of water delivery trucks that I've never seen before, not sure where they are coming from."

 
Cities across the nation have been tapping federal stimulus funds to swap out old-style streetlights with more efficient LEDs.  And the Virgin Islands is not missing out.

The  Water and Power Authority has replaced about 90 lights in Cruz Bay with the new LED models. However about 450 of the island's other streetlights will not be replaced. Each new light costs about $750 and comes with a five year warranty.

The project, by the V.I. Energy Office and implemented by WAPA, will encompass the replacement of a total of almost 1,000 streetlights on all three islands by the end of this year.  The street lights being replaced consume 200 watts and the new ones will use only 103 watts resulting in about a 50 percent reduction in energy use.  The Energy Office was able to fund the project using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

• Read more about the project on the Web site of the Virgin Islands Energy Office.
• You can also see a five-minute video featuring WAPA executives explaining the benefits of the switch. You can see one of the new lights about four minutes into the video.

Our man behind the viewfinder, Bob Schlesinger, was at the Gifft Hill School Gala.  

A good time was obviously had by all, as shown in his some 300 photos.  You can see them on his Flickr feed here.