EPA Seeks Input About Refinery Cleanup, Community Engagement

Amid ongoing discussions about a potential restart of the St. Croix refinery, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency solicited input from the St. Croix community on Tuesday night regarding the decades-long effort to clean up contamination under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA.

During a community workshop held at the University of the Virgin Islands Great Hall on St. Croix, EPA Project Manager Ricardito Vargas acknowledged public anxieties and concerns about a potential restart, which he said the EPA is addressing. “But also there is the legacy work that has existed for decades, and there’s been a lot of effort at cleaning up what is legacy contamination at the former Hovensa site,” he said, adding that sometimes the initiative got “lost in translation.”

The EPA issued Hovensa an RCRA operating permit in 1999 that required the former refinery owner to investigate and clean up contamination. Environmental contamination that occurred before 1999 also falls under the purview of RCRA, and Hovensa was required to assess and investigate any preexisting contamination as part of its permitting process.

The original investigation found 29 solid waste management units and three areas of concern as potential sources of releases to soil and groundwater, according to the EPA’s presentation on Tuesday. Because of leaks in process and storage areas and an “oily-water” underground sewage system, “extensive phase separated petroleum hydrocarbon (PSPH or ‘oil’) plumes are floating on top of groundwater and dissolved phase hydrocarbon constituent plumes are present within the groundwater itself.”