The V.I. Water and Power Authority governing board approved a series of cost and time increases for critical power projects, including a quarter-million-dollar extension for the consultant hired to help troubleshoot four newer generators on St. Thomas.
After sitting idle for several years, the four Wartsila generators were commissioned with much fanfare in January and were meant to bring redundancy and cost savings to the island by running either on liquid petroleum gas or diesel fuel, but the units have struggled to operate with LPG. The authority hired West Peak Energy in 2022 to help bring the units online and extended that contract at least once — for a total of $4.72 million — in March. The company was also hired to help clean up a diesel spill at the St. Thomas power plant in 2023.
WAPA Project Management Director Maxwell George asked board members Thursday to extend that contract again until April 30 for $245,000 because the utility is at a “critical juncture” of testing the Wartsilas on LPG again.
The utility’s Chief Executive Karl Knight did not say whether the cost could be recouped through WAPA’s agreement with Wartsila, but called the extension “in many ways a discretionary expenditure.”
“We have the ability to continue to retain the services of a consultant that we think would be beneficial to our ongoing discussions on this project, and so we have opted to retain the services of that consultant,” he said.
Board Chair Maurice Muia asked George if he was confident that this extension “will be the last extension.”
“If we are successful with getting through each phase on these last challenging times with Wartsila, then yes,” George said. “But if there’s a need for me to come back to the board in March or April because we’re still, you know, moving forward, then I will.”
George said he was “pretty confident” that the work would be completed by April.
“If we keep this current momentum, then I think this will be — this is adequate,” he said.
That extension paled in comparison to a $10 million increase for the contractor tapped to replace thousands of wooden utility poles with ones made out of a more durable composite material. George said the contractor, Haugland VI, needed the additional funds to dispose of the old poles because they contain arsenic, so they can’t be taken to a regular landfill.
“In order to be shipped to the United States to be disposed of, they would have to be heat treated prior to entering the United States,” he said, “and there are no heat treatment facilities in this area. So therefore those poles are now discarded overseas in Dubai.”
The extension brought the total contract to nearly $74 million.
Knight said Virgin Islanders can still expect to see a number of wooden utility poles on “secondary systems” and in areas slated for electric undergrounding.
“I don’t think we were so ambitious to try and replace every single wooden pole in the system with composite, so you will see wooden poles,” he said. “But as part of this federally-funded project, there’s an understanding that we can get federal reimbursement — when we take down a wood pole to put up a composite pole, as a hazard mitigation measure — that the proper disposal of that pole is to be funded by the federal government. So we’re taking advantage of that opportunity.”
The board also selected Haugland to complete undergrounding on St. Thomas for Feeder 9A — which runs along Sub Base Road, Crown Bay Road and Charles Harwood Highway up to Kronprindsens Gade — for $12.89 million.
The third extension approved by the board was a half-million-dollar increase to the utility’s contract with American Wire Group for work related to WAPA’s advanced metering infrastructure replacement.