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Nearly three years after the government contracted the Virginia company Consutech Systems to supply parts to repair the fire-damaged incinerator in Pockwood Pond, many of the parts have not arrived and no completion date is in sight.
Now, however, government has gone back to the drawing board by involving a new supplier whose representatives conducted a site visit last week.
Andy Hooker, the president and general manager of the Pennsylvania-based Pennram Diversified Manufacturing Corporation, visited Pockwood Pond on Jan. 14 to appraise the situation before preparing a “rehabilitation plan” to chart the way forward, according to Department of Waste Management Director Marcus Solomon.
Pennram’s visit, Mr. Solomon said, was the result of a Nov. 7 request for expressions of interest that called for suppliers from the incineration industry to provide a consultation on possible next steps for the troubled Tortola facility, which has been out of commission since it was damaged by a fire in February 2022.
After choosing the company through that process, government awarded a contract for slightly less than $10,000 — about $7,000 of which covered the cost of the charter plane for Mr. Hooker and a colleague who helped with the assessment, according to the DWM director.
Years of delays
Mr. Solomon, who was appointed to his post in July 2023, said last month that the move is part of efforts to urgently address longstanding issues at Pockwood Pond, where trash buried in the mountainside dumpsite behind the defunct incinerator has often caught fire and sent noxious smoke over Tortola’s western end.
This week, Health and Social Development Minister Vincent Wheatley described the project as a high priority.
“The incinerator has been a vexing issue for many years now,” Mr. Wheatley told the Beacon on Tuesday. “Like all other longstanding issues, I will address this head-on and do all I can to get the incinerator up and running in as quick a time as possible. I must thank the residents of the First District and others for their patience and understanding with this matter.”
Mr. Wheatley joined Mr. Hooker on his visit to the facility last week, as did Mr. Solomon and HSD Ministry Permanent Secretary Tasha Bertie.
Now, Pennram’s tasks are threefold, according to Mr. Solomon.
The visit last week will inform a diagnostic report on the incinerator, to be followed by a parts logistics plan with supplier information for acquiring the needed parts, he has said.
The diagnostics report and logistics plan will then be outlined in a “rehabilitation plan,” which should include a schedule for testing and recommissioning the plant, according to the director.
Consutech
Meanwhile, the territory’s future with Consutech is unclear. Mr. Solomon told the Beacon last month that government was still in negotiations with the company.
“I don’t like to say [anything] is over,” the director said at the time. “I intend to manage the contracts [and] ensure that we get value for money and that we do get the things that we have asked for and paid for, and we implement a regimen that speaks to our appropriate administration of those contracts.”
Now that Pennram has visited the VI, however, Mr. Solomon told the Beacon Tuesday that he would prefer not to comment on the government’s relationship with Consutech going forward.
Mr. Solomon directed previous inquiries concerning the territory’s total investment with Consutech to the HSD Ministry, but as of this week the ministry was still in the process of totaling costs, Mr. Wheatley said. He added that the numbers would be available soon.
The minister also said that the total amount government has paid to Consutech will influence his decision on whether to continue negotiations with the supplier.
Missed deadlines
Since the 2022 fire knocked the incinerator offline, leaders have repeatedly pushed back target dates for recommissioning the facility amid delays apparently stemming in part from government’s deteriorating relationship with Consutech.
Weeks after the blaze, then-health and social development minister Carvin Malone said the facility would be repaired within two to four months.
Then, in May 2022, then-HSD Minister Marlon Penn said replacement parts had been ordered from Consutech and he expected them to arrive in time for repairs to be complete by the end of that year.
Many of those parts, however, still have not been delivered to the VI, according to Mr. Solomon, who said the outstanding items include a control panel, quench tank, scrubber and heat exchanger.
The delays are not Consutech’s first.
In 2015, government signed a roughly $1 million contract with the company to manufacture a pollution control scrubber, and it has already paid out at least $500,000 for that equipment, government officials have said.
But the scrubber has not yet arrived, and Mr. Solomon has told the Beacon that repairing the incinerator is currently a higher priority.
New building
In addition to recommissioning the incinerator, repairs are needed for the corrugated metal building housing the facility, according to the director.
The building repairs must take place in tandem with the incinerator’s repairs, Mr. Solomon said. As a preliminary step, the Virgin Islands Fire and Rescue Service carried out a fire risk inspection last year at the DWM’s request.
Yesterday, Chief Fire Officer Zebalon McLean said he believes the subsequent report has been submitted to the DWM.
Mr. Solomon has said the risk assessment will help inform the conditions included in a planned tender for a new building.
Consutech Systems did not respond to requests for comment.