ST. THOMAS - A new community group, the Save Lindbergh Bay Coalition, has formed to fight against the government's proposal to dredge St. Thomas Harbor and deposit the spoil in Lindbergh Bay.

At a Red Hook Community Alliance meeting Monday, attorney Jeff Weiss made a presentation on behalf of the new coalition, filling in the alliance members on the history of the area and seeking support to protest the most recent proposal.

The V.I. Port Authority and West Indian Co. filed a joint Coastal Zone Management application with the Department of Planning and Natural Resources in February to dredge the harbor and place the 175,000 cubic yards of dredge material in a dredge hole created in Lindbergh Bay decades ago. The dredging project is estimated to cost $9 million.

In 1935, sand was removed from Lindbergh Bay to create the land base for King Airport. The dredging left a 33-acre, 35-foot-deep hole in the northern portion of the bay. Weiss said there have been several attempts to fill the hole with dredge spoils, but previous studies have shown that the material from the bottom of the harbor is filled with toxins.

"The harbor bottom is not something any of us want to go mucking around in," Weiss said.

He said all kinds of items and materials have been dumped there for centuries.

Weiss said the newly formed coalition is worried about what the dredge spoil could do to the bay's ecosystem. He said there are sea grass beds where endangered green and hawksbill sea turtles feed as well as corals and healthy conch and whelk populations along the fringes of the bay.

He said the coalition is having the University of the Virgin Islands do a complete underwater study, which will be finished in time for the CZM public hearing next week.Β 

"We also have a guy in Miami doing a wave and current study, because nobody's ever done one," Weiss said.

He said the group is not opposed to the harbor dredging, they simply want the dredge material to be disposed of properly.

"We're hoping to stop them at the CZM level," Weiss said.

He said there are other alternatives that the Port Authority and WICO have not fully explored. Dumping the material in one of Puerto Rico's designated dredge material dumping areas or continuing a process that was started but never finished to create the Virgin Islands' own offshore dumping site are possibilities, he said.

The V.I. government plans to dredge the Charlotte Amalie harbor and channel to make room for the world's largest cruise ship - Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas - which will begin making port calls to St. Thomas in December.

The proposal calls for three areas to be dredged: the channel, the turning basin in the harbor and the area around at the WICO dock.

The channel will be leveled out so the entire pathway has 39 feet of clearance. The CZM application allows for the dredging to go down to a maximum of 40 feet. The area in front of the WICO dock must go from the current 34 feet to 37 feet of clearance. The turning basin must also be 37 feet.

The project ultimately will be funded through a temporary increase in the per passenger "head tax" that is collected from each cruise passenger who arrives in the harbor. Until the extra fee is calculated and begins to be collected, the Port Authority, WICO and Royal Caribbean will front the $9 million for the project.

The next meeting of the Save Lindbergh Bay Coalition will be at Walker's by the Sea at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The CZM public hearing will be held April 7 at 6 p.m. in the conference room of the Port Authority administration building next to King Airport.