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Metal Scrap Dump Beside Anguilla Landfill Will Be Cleaned Up

Release Date: 10/26/2005
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FOR RELEASE: Wednesday, October 26, 2005

(#05121) NEW YORK -- An agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) and the VI Waste Management Authority will improve conditions at a 13-acre metal scrap open dump alongside the Anguilla Municipal Solid Waste Landfill in St. Croix. The agreement, in the form of an Administrative Order on Consent, was finalized after a public meeting in Kingshill, St. Croix and a comment period on the proposal that ended on September 15, 2005. EPA received no comments. The agreement sets strict deadlines for the Virgin Islands government to remove the estimated 100,000 cubic yards of scrap metal and other waste materials at the site, clean up any contaminated soil that may be discovered there and help to restore the area.

"The pollution from this open dump has been impacting the sea around it and the soil below it since the 1990s," EPA Regional Administrator Alan J. Steinberg said. "Now, the scrap metal will be collected and recycled and the dump will be cleaned up under EPA oversight."

Under the agreement, the USVI government must submit a site cleanup plan and a territory-wide plan for the future management of scrap metal and other waste materials to EPA by April 2006. The scrap management plan has to include an alternate means of handling scrap material before disposal at the dump ceases permanently in October 2007. The territory must begin to remove all waste materials no later than April 2007 and be finished by April 2009. The USVI must begin to restore the site following the removal of all scrap material. If the USVI government fails to carry out the requirements of the final agreement on schedule, it will be liable for penalties that start at $100 per day for delays up to one month and escalate to $500 per day.