VI UPDATE
U.S. Virgin Islands Public Records
TRANSCRIPT OF PUBLIC PROCEEDINGS
Committee of the Whole
Legislature USVI
April 9, 2026 · 3.2 hours · gov
Source recording
https://youtu.be/qK6EEDjzL4M
Status
This is a working transcript produced by machine from a recording of a public proceeding. It is a finding aid, not an
official record of the Legislature.
Transcribed by
VI Update, using OpenAI Whisper large-v3-turbo, run locally. Not reviewed by a person.
Reliability
Automatic transcription, UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording before relying on it. Speech
recognition splits spoken digits and wraps figures mid-number, so a dollar amount, a vote count or a bill number
can be wrong in a way that reads as correct. Speakers are not identified: automatic speaker labelling was
measured unusable and removed.
Public record
The underlying proceeding is a public record of the Legislature of the Virgin Islands. 3 V.I.C. § 881(a) defines public
records to include all records and documents of or belonging to this Territory or any branch of government, or any
"department, board, council or committee of any branch of government" · which names legislative committees by
category. § 881(b) gives every citizen the right to examine and copy such records, and the news media the right to
publish them. (The open-meetings chapter, 1 V.I.C. § 254, does NOT reach the Legislature: § 253(b) expressly
excludes it and its Standing and Special Committees. § 881 does, and it is § 881 that confers the right to copy and
publish.) The Legislature broadcast this proceeding publicly itself. The source recording is not ours, is not hosted
here, and remains with its publisher at the link above.
Rights
To what we added · the transcription, its arrangement and its description · we assert nothing. A verbatim transcript is
mechanical rather than authored, so there is likely nothing in it to own; to the extent any copyright is nonetheless
found to subsist, it is dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Please copy it, quote it, index it, train on it,
republish it, mirror it, sell it. Redistribution is the point: a public record with one copy is one fire from gone. No
permission is needed, and none is ours to grant or withhold.
Including St. John, we're trying to fast track some smaller generators that we can get in a little bit more quickly and get
permitted as emergency standby. That's the difference between the smaller units we're trying to acquire and the temporary
generation that ultimately has a permitting process to go through. And how long will it take? Let me ask Mr. Harrigan
this question because I want to understand Mr. Harrigan and I appreciate you. your local and everything. Tell me, do you
see that the seven Wattcillas that we purchased with monies from the federal government actually performing what they
were projected to perform?
0:00:00
Well, we initially went through a very trying time with the operation and even some of the maintenance that we had. Mr.
Chairman, may I? Sorry, you may wrap up. Initially we went through a very challenging time early on in the
commissioning and after commissioning with the operation of the engines. But now after resolving quite a few of those
bugs, we've noticed an improvement in the operation and being able to dispatch them. As Mr. Knight has mentioned, over
the last month or so we've been consistently having units in operation and dispatch.
0:00:43
So yes, they are a bit more difficult for us to dispatch on the grid, but more recently a lot of those challenges we have
been able to overcome. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I know you said I could wrap up, but I do have a wrap-up question. And we
are going to have another round, you know. I understand that. I understand. Briefly proceed. Thank you so kindly. I
wanted to ask Ms. Kelly, relative to where we are with accounts receivable, you talked about the payable, right?
0:01:24
Where are we with that? How much are we bringing in? In terms of comparing receivables to payables? Yes. We
currently have payables of approximately $113 million, 1-1-3, and that's the per month or overall? No, that's the current
total amount. And I want to be very, very clear here. If the revenues per month are approximately $23 to $24.5 million
per month, but I do want to be very, very clear. There is one simple element here and the criteria of when we started our
year for a budget, we expected to be able to get the streetlight funding and we have had zero for that. If we had been paid
the costs that we have incurred, that we have billed the GVI for the streetlights, which is currently 11.5 million dollars,
0:02:05
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
1 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
we would have been able to do these repairs, we would have been able to do all the things that we're talking about.
I understand. I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Kelly. I just asked you a quick, a simple, just tell me how much you'd bring
in monthly. That's all I want to know. Please. Between approximately 23 to 24 and a half million a month. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Carla Joseph. I wanted to ask
you, Ms. Knight, Executive Director Satori in a testimony said that the The only existing short-term projects which offer
relief are the solar projects at Fortuna and Bovoni, particularly the Fortuna project. And if you look, just flying into this
territory, you know, I make it a point, and I had a conversation with someone yesterday about that, I make it a point to
look to the left when I'm coming in just to see if I see any movement, anything happening at all on that property where
we approved the permitting for the solar farm in Fortuna I just see nothing it's the same whether this looks it looks today
the same way that it looked five months ago when we approved it exactly what is happening with regards to that project
to your knowledge I actually have a recent image of the racking going in in Fortuna so I don't know if you've seen that
but my eyes probably aren't as I can share that image with you, but the racks are starting to go in now.
0:03:14
I'm still forecasting, so there's a portion of that project that goes directly into the distribution system, about five
megawatts of that project. It doesn't have to go through the transmission system, and I'm still forecasting that sometime
by the end of the summer, we should be able to get that five megawatts from that project. So Ms. Satori is right, it's not
the only short-term relief. We have other chicks up our sleeve, and I've laid them out in our testimony. But that project, at
least five megawatts out of the 25, should be available in a relatively short timeframe. MR. Okay. Excellent. Thank you
for that.
0:04:42
Senator Nouvelle-Francis. Senator Francis, you're up next for your seven minutes. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN. SEN.
SEN. Thank you. CEO Carl Knight, thank you for your testimony as well as to Public Service Commission and the ODR.
CFO Kelly, I take serious offense to your narrative about the central government.
0:05:19
110 million dollars, 77 million dollars, 33 million dollars, 15.5 million dollars in CARES fund under the YES program.
Over 220, 235.5 million dollars have gone into WAPA. We declared a state of emergency again to ensure that we
continue to support WAPA. we during the budget process ensure that we made sure that the funding was made possible
true the single players utility even under the semi-autonomous agencies to make sure that our funding continue to support
WAPA I take great offense to the fact that you will sit here and continue to want to throw the central government under
the bus because of our 18 million dollar payment you know because of a 30-day delay when there's consequences as a
result of the monies have gone to WAPA that could have been available to the University of the Virgin Islands right now
that's calling on us to waste management that's calling upon us to the hospitals that's calling upon us come on let's be fair
I don't want to be rage bait here but I cannot allow for you to put that narrative on the record and it just sit there because
we have worked previously to make sure that we're supporting WAPA in this endeavor so please stop the negative
narrative when it comes to that it's unfair I'll move on from there I'm CEO Carl Knight in respect to the situation over in
St. John is there any feasibility any short-term fix you believe in terms of utilizing the battery energy storage system to be
able to until such time as you could get a solar farm in place to be able to support St. John is that a an immediate fix or
something you believe that could be done so I don't think it's an
0:05:54
immediate fix but I put it in stages I think we can immediately put approximately nine megawatts of standby generation
in St. John and we we believe we can find a way to do that relatively quickly I think the next step after that would be the
battery storage system that's going to take us a little bit longer to procure and go through the procurement process and
then after that of course would come to solar farm which would probably take a little bit longer for completion but I do
think we can get some generation in quickly a few months after that hopefully we have the battery system ready to go and
the developer you know probably more than a year out as far as solar farm development in St. John.
0:08:00
Okay and we have communicated with I spoke with the police commissioner as well as the assistant commissioner in
respect to your um the complaint that has been lodged and in fact you know there is some collaboration that's being done
with the federal government um with the FBI um even though they're thinking it's a little bit more of vandalism more so
than any type of domestic terrorism any any such situation in regards to that investigation um however you know they
continue to work that angle to to be able to bring some relief there um have there been any requests for tech support or do
you believe that there is certainly um in-house expertise to be able to handle you know some of the matters that has been
plaguing the authority of recent we we um we have numerous consultants that we work with but more specifically we
brought in tech support to help us with um troubleshooting unit 15 when we realized we we just wasn't figuring out that
unit we also brought in tech support to help us with the expediting the repairs to unit 27 so most recently in the plan
we've had two um uh engineers power engineers that have supported us and we continue to have various consultants uh
sergeant lundie west peak energy various consultants to support us on a regular basis is the lack of fuel um would be it
number two diesel or lpg the reason for any of the shortcomings that you have seen of recent no we have not had any
0:08:42
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
2 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
issues related to the lack of fuel since late 2024 for the past year and a half we have not had any issues related to any
generation shortfalls related to the lack of fuel and in respect to the and i know that we try to be as careful as possible in
terms of operation security but is there everything being done to harden on the that situation that we experienced on St.
John with the that wire or a
situation out of the cabling yeah we are we are doing what we can and to the extent that we need additional resources we
will be reaching out for that I want to put things in perspective these locations these cables across all three islands have
been in their locations and been in their you know they've been like that for since the inception of of wapa right so um the
this is a a new age to kind of assess and we've started that assessment as to the vulnerability of not just that location but
other locations and um it is a wake-up call that um our community is is maybe changing and we need to be more um
mindful of of of of that so we are doing an overall we've already done the security mapping of that location and we're
also going to be looking at other locations that may be similarly situated okay in the in your what is your current
maintenance plan for um the randolph holly plant at this time in terms of what senator um in terms of ensuring that there
is some downtime ensuring that there is a proper maintenance plan i think that i've heard um during testimony and several
cases where the lack of consistent and constant maintenance may have caused or created some of the problems that we're
experiencing now.
0:10:56
Maybe, Hargan, you can speak to maintenance intervals on the GTs. Good afternoon, Senator. So, as mentioned earlier
during Mr. Knight's testimony, we We do have several units that are past major maintenance where those intervals to, or
those maintenance times are very long times to inspect the units, however, we do currently execute a short term
maintenance plan, namely, especially overnight during low demand periods, so that's usually ongoing and we also have
scheduled three major overhauls for the Watsila engines which are expected to run concurrently and last 30 days per
engine. Very well thank you for your response Mr. Chair I heard my time call I just have one just one final follow-up.
You may wrap up with your follow-up Senator.
0:12:20
Thank you, Mr. Chair. CEO Knight, have there been any discussion on any possibility, feasibility of the Energy Office
supporting some of the funding initiatives that could get us a better footing in some of your requirements as it stands right
now as it pertains to funding support? We've worked with the Energy Office. We continue to collaborate. The Director of
Energy Office sits on our governing board. There is a project, I don't want to get ahead of him, but he has been working
on a battery storage project that we actually think has a nexus to supporting some of our capacity issues at the utility. So
we've looked for opportunities where we can support the work they're doing and where they can support our needs at
WAPA. So that's an ongoing relationship. Yes, sir.
0:13:20
Okay. And what is your reason for pause at this time? I mean, you're sitting here now you talk about getting unit 27 back
in line what is really your strain your pause at this time um in respect to the path forward the um we have a clear plan that
we're executing and i don't have any reasons to um to doubt that we can execute on that plan the one externality that is a
rising concern is the continued increase in the cost of fuel, particularly on the diesel side. LPG is rising, just not as fast.
And the increase in diesel fuel threatens to kind of blow all the budgets and everything, all the careful planning out of the
water if we remain too dependent on diesel, and if ultimately that price just continues to move in that direction. The
reason why WAPA is in the predicament that it's in, if the PSC recalls, is when oil was over $150 a barrel. That's what
drove the quick need to put in the propane terminals. That crisis is really when WAPA's finances took a turn for the
worse. Up until that point, WAPA was able to float bonds by generation, float bonds, repair generators. It was essentially
autonomous and self-sufficient. It was the rising fuel in number two fuel oil costs that ultimately has saddled WAPA with
the financial woes that it has had since then.
0:14:11
Thank you very much for your responses. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you very much. Mr. Mr.
President, if I may, I just want to, to the Senator's earlier concern, And I want to make it clear that we appreciate the
support that we've gotten over the years from the central government. I think everyone in this room knows that I, of all
people, and I think Mr. Lewis tried to put me on the spot, I, of all people, was on the other side of the fence trying to
facilitate that support to WAPA. So I know full well what WAPA received in support. and my intent is never to come
with my handout. To the extent that I'm asked, how can we help? I'll certainly always volunteer how we can be helped.
We try our best to be ourselves sufficient. My mission is to make sure that we are not a burden on the central government
and to the extent that I need to lean on the central government is never a point of pride. But we certainly acknowledge the
support we've gotten in offsetting fuel costs over the years and even paying off some of our vendors that were becoming a
little bit more persistent. And I don't want that impression to be left that somehow we're not grateful for that. We do have
reoccurring costs, and we've had real conversations about how we address those areas where there's a structural deficit in
the ability of the government to pay for certain services that we provide. And so that's the only point I think the CFO, Ms.
Kelly, was trying to make. Thank you for that, Mr. Knight.
0:15:49
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
3 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
I know the way we have often characterized WAPA in this community has, it is almost as though it's, you know, WAPA
is the boogeyman. And we have to try to find a way to protect ourselves from it. But it's a skewed way of looking at it
because WAPA is us. And we all have a vested interest in ensuring that WAPA thrives, that WAPA survives. So it is
really not constructive for us to get in a drag-down death match with WAPA, because we all lose in that case.
0:17:23
And there is a level of frustration over the years. I think there is. There are things that WAPA could do better. Likewise,
there might be things that we can do better once we are aware that this is something that would improve the state of
affairs of the authority. We need to be able to work together to solve this very challenging problem that is before us. It's
not WAPA against the VI government or the people of the Virgin Islands. Certainly not. It's not.
0:18:04
I wanted to ask you a question about temporary generation. I know the ODR director stated in the testimony that
temporary generation will begin after contract execution. Why was temporary generation not secured earlier, given the
known vulnerabilities and fragility of the system? And what is the exact timeline for temporary generation to be installed
and operational?
0:18:33
So Senator Adrian Williams, October and Director, Office of Disaster Recovery. The intent was for the contractor to be
able to expedite this process of securing the temporary generation just because of how the contractual process unfolded it
puts delays in the original schedule we are there's a emergency phase there is according what wapa has put together in the
schedule you have emergency pretty much to stop the bleeding and then we're going into the temporary generation so the
emergency phase that we're working on right now that can fall within the rg contract or wapa is as soon as we have
finalized the specific engines that they prefer based on the overall capabilities of a plant then we will move forward with
that whichever is the fastest we've agreed to go in that route this temporary generation phase will be the second phase that
is required when you take down the permanent the permanent uh project the existing generators that fema has provided
funding for us to have a standby mechanism for continued power for the territory so we will utilize that process but to
stop the bleeding right now we have an emergency path forward so it's really three phases to move forward and the
contract will allow us to be in the second phase that can allow us to purchase things that can be a lot more uh efficient for
the long-term plan but the emergency plan is going to take away some of the stress that we have now on the system okay
so just just for my edification
0:19:15
i'm a non-technology power person now we know the fragility of this system we know the legacy generators we know the
unit 15s and you know we know that they're holding on you know they've been holding on by you know duct tape and
rubber band they've been aging system they're aging systems everybody in the virgin island knows that and i think we've
known it for a long time shouldn't we have pursued temporary generation like a long time ago wouldn't so we it isn't that
we hadn't started the process has been started um and i and i think when we when we listen to what wapa is saying the the
wapzilla generators that were coming online that at that point was the first step in improving the reliability in the territory
so it wasn't like we didn't i know you started and only to cut you off you started that's no question i'm not saying that
shouldn't we have started a long time ago that so from from the overall plan that was starting it bringing those watsillas
online was the first step you know when we the full push behind the recovery was getting these watsilla started getting
the watsilla closing that out that was the focus because it was going to provide reliability to the the territory so when you
When you say we didn't start it, that was the start. So these are other, as we move along in the process, then of course
there are other things that need to come online. At the schedule we expected it to come online, but because of unforeseen
circumstances, that's where we are, where we are right now.
0:21:01
So we started as soon as we could have possibly started? Yes, and again, we believe we have started with the purchase of
closing out of those generators. Okay. The PSC mentioned, and I'm going to just wrap up here, we cannot overstate, you
know, this was a moving statement to me. We cannot overstate this key fact. These outages were entirely foreseeable and
preventable. They were entirely foreseeable and preventable. However, there is no instant cure now that we have arrived
at this difficult situation.
0:22:44
The return to service of Unit 27 is a great relief, but it is only a temporary relief with additional capacity. Unit 27 will
allow WAPA to meet demand but not provide backup or spare generation for service or maintenance. I was telling the
chairman yesterday that my brother, I have a brother who had a 1966 Mustang convertible, in the auto world that's like a
classic. And my debate with him was, you know, you can't have a classic aging car as your main car. a nice thing you put
in your garage and you know you look at it maybe you drive it on the weekends but when that 66 mustang is your main
car and today you fix the transmission and you're happy but then tomorrow's the fuel pump is a trap and i kept saying
look sell this car while you could get some money for it but he was just he held on to it that was his baby so isn't that
where we are now because unit 27 is going to fail at some point it's still aging i'm looking at you maybe i should be
looking at the executive director ceo but isn't that where we are we're using this is our the 66 mustang is the car that we're
driving up and down the place as our main vehicle and And it's dangerous, it's risky, because tomorrow there's something
0:23:25
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
4 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
that can go wrong with this car, and we might find ourselves, you know? Because we're happy when it's fixed, and you're
proud, and you're driving around to your friends.
But then next week, fuel pump gone, radiator gone. But I'll let you respond. So the utility business, unit 15 is 46 years
old. It's almost your 1966 classic, right? It's lasted as long as it has lasted because we've maintained it. For most of its life,
it's been properly maintained. I could buy a new unit, but if I run it into the ground tomorrow, I'm going to end up in the
same predicament. Unit 27 is a fairly new unit. The key is we have to right-size the operation so that we have the
revenues that we need to keep up with the maintenance requirements of our equipment. If you buy a new car and you
don't change the oil and you don't do the maintenance in our car periodically, that new car won't last as long as it should
last. So the key is making sure that as things need to be maintained, we can take them down, maintain them, and put them
back up. If we do that, then, you know, Unit 15 lasted 46 years. We've had units last even longer than that.
0:25:16
And, yeah, we'll have a unit that lasts 50 years, but we've got to be able to keep up with the maintenance requirements of
that unit. The forward maintenance, which you're forced to do, based on testimony. That period of financial hardship in
which we started really not, we started falling behind in the maintenance, yeah, eventually you pay a price. What is
foreseeable? I never foresee, no one foresaw that on March 19th, Unit 15 was going to fail. or that we were going to have
the challenges we did in getting it back online. But we do know that eventually if we don't get to that next step, which is
these additional generation for Harley, we don't get to take down the units that are running consistently and we don't get
to keep up with their maintenance, not even because of financial hardship, just because we can't afford to have them
offline long enough to do all the repairs we need to do to them. That's a problem as well. Okay.
0:26:29
I'm going to give Executive Director Satori an opportunity to elaborate on your statement that you made that we cannot
overstate this fact that these outages were entirely foreseeable and preventable. Right, because over the years the records
would show and our testimonies would show. We've been here, you know, for many years, several times a year,
indicating exactly what the issues were with the units, what the potential was within units, and seeking ways in which to
enforce the orders that were submitted and released to, in this case, the Water and Power Authority. And it's come to
fruition, basically, and again, the record would show that. The testimonies would show that, and that's why we continue
to insist for this body to allow the Public Services Commission to do its mandated job and our responsibilities effectively.
0:27:24
We'll be happy, as we move forward, to continue to provide information and data to this body. But again, we need that
support. One of the questions that Senator Frederick asked about was the relationship between the Water and Power
Authority or any of the utilities that we regulate. We have a very healthy relationship. That doesn't mean that we agree all
the time. We seldom agree.
0:28:46
Nobody likes to hear a lot of times the truth, you know, about the facilities that you oversee, et cetera. And you do have
different roles. Exactly. You have very, very distinct and different roles. Sure. And, you know, we're willing, again, we
come forward with our findings. We put the findings on the record, on the table, and we ask for that support to continue
doing exactly what it is that we need to do. And we're not at odds, you know, with the utility. The utility knows exactly
what they're supposed to do as well.
0:29:28
We have different viewpoints about how to get there. Got you. Got you. Thank you very much for your response,
Executive Director Satori. Point of information. Senator, can I get you recognized for your point of information? Thank
you, Mr. Chair. Is legal counsel on the floor? I'm going to need them to review Act 7562, and I will have a question at the
appropriate time for them. But can you please put legal counsel on notice? We will do that. They're not on the floor now.
Once they arrive here, we will entertain your question.
0:30:13
Senator Clifford A. Joseph, you're recognized for your seven minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to the
listening public and good afternoon to the folks in the chambers. Good afternoon to the testifiers. Good afternoon. This
first question is for the Executive Director Knight. listening to you saying that WAPA do have a maintenance plan yes
the short answer is yes okay can you provide true to cheer a copy of this plan for the for I know that EIHFA is not here
today, but is there anything we could do to expedite the monies that you're waiting on or anything that you can do to
expedite the money that you're waiting on from?
0:30:59
I think the benefit of this crisis is I think everyone is looking at how they can expedite their roles to the greatest extent
possible. So I trust that all parties are doing their very best at this time to make sure that they can expedite putting the
necessary funds in WAPA's hands so we can do the things we need to do. So you do have a working relationship with
them then?
0:32:07
We've always had a relationship. As governmental entities, we've always had a relationship, but I think there's an extra
effort now that I think we've been ringing the alarm with this crisis. I think there's an extra effort to support the authority
in getting some of these funds out of the plans and into fruition. And in a perfect world, if we had a perfect circumstance
0:32:37
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
5 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
as a government today, how much money do you think WAPA would need to operate or maintain WAPA on an annual
basis?
In a perfect world, I need zero central government dollars. We would be self-sustaining. As we had been up until, I would
say, when I left the board in December of 2014, we were still a self-sustaining entity. So in a perfect world, WAPA
wouldn't require any subsidy from the central government. All we would require is that the central government, that the
government pays its bills. That's the model that WAPA is set up for, and that has been our reality for most of the
60-something years of our existence.
0:33:23
Well, then, I mean, I asked you a question on Dallas, so since you said that, then how would we get back to that? How
would you get back to it? We are in a · so that is the equation that I said is very difficult. We have to find a way to
right-size our operating expenses, to fit within the current rates. There have been points over those years where the rates
are higher than they are now. And I think it was mentioned in the PSC's testimony that sometimes when rates get too high
it has a negative impact on the economy, it has a negative impact on our customers and our ability to collect. So I think
we are at the tipping point when it comes to rates. I don't think we can afford to raise rates beyond the levels, not too far
anyway, beyond the levels of where we are. So the real challenge is how do we cut operating expenses? And some of that
requires grant funding from our funding partners, some of that provides maybe strategic support from this body at times
when we just don't have the resources. And so some combination of that and some good fortune and things like fuel
pricing over the next few years, those things help us get back to where we need to be. We're very close to closing our
structural deficit, we're very close to breaking even.
0:34:02
The escalation of fuel cost is probably moving us a little further away from where we thought we'd be right now. But we
have done quite a bit to lower operating expenses within the company and there's still some additional things we can do
that we will be doing to continue to lower operating expenses. That's the only path forward. Okay, and when WAPA
submits an application for rate review, what's the process in the changes? Go ahead Kelly.
0:35:21
Excuse me, in terms of the quarterly rate review for a change in rates to the PSC? If you submit for oil, for instance, if the
cost of oil went up, what's in the process when you have to wait a period of waiting? So me and my good friends and
colleagues from the Public Services Commission, this is one of those areas where we don't always see eye to eye. We
have come up with a mechanism in which we have provided actual contracts, actual price, actual purchases, quantities,
what was delivered to our plant, what was used. Our understanding is that is the fuel expense, and typically we will
present that. And what we don't collect in rates, I think we have an understanding it should be carried as a deferred fuel
balance. So if we're not collecting it in rates, and the cost exceeds what we're collecting in rates, there's some calculation
that should be maintained that says this is the amount that has not been collected. This is the under-recovery. And
perhaps at some future point, we try to recover that, or maybe we never recover it.
0:35:58
But we have never quite agreed last year in an effort to broker some compromise. We agreed to forfeit our claims to prior
year fuel recovery. But that is an ongoing battle between WAPA and the Public Services Commission. And could the
PSD weigh in on the same question as far as what's the process? What's your process on your end? Certainly, Boyd
Sprain, General Counsel for the Public Services Commission.
0:37:05
The Public Services Commission has a long-standing practice of quarterly reviews of WAPA's fuel. WAPA submits
invoices, et cetera, contracts, shipments, payments, and we look at that and we do projections. WAPA also does a
projection of what generation they're going to use going forward. used mattered greatly and has because to produce the
same amount of electricity unit 15 uses twice as much fuel as a warzilla generator does. Twice as much fuel matters when
you're talking at the end of the day about these things. There is currently a LIAC freeze on the rates as part of the
compromise we reached with WAPA last fall regarding the prior year's deferred fuel balances. our normal process would
be to do a quarterly review should the situation with the Mideast continue as it is at fuel prices continue to soar I would
expect WAPA would seek at some point here an emergency review if they don't seek an emergency review it is
scheduled for review in June of this year so how would they recover if they're spending over we amortize the under
recovery in the current period over the next quarter or depending on the amount it might be as much as a half a year or
longer that would be a question I can't it would be speculative for me to say how long it would take them to recover that
that amount but we have never denied a recovery of accrued costs that were considered prudent I will say that WAPA
clearly doesn't control the price of diesel. So if their diesel consumption remains steady and the price of it goes up, I
would imagine, though I cannot prejudge for the commission, that that would be an allowed
0:37:40
expense. Time. What would you define as prudent? If you have the wartzillas in Unit 15 available to run on propane and
they're conditioned and they're maintained, and you don't run those, but you run Unit 23, which is highly inefficient, that
would be an imprudent action on diesel. We would never do that.
0:39:31
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
6 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
That would be an example. But if Unit 15 is not available because of some action that WAPA took, that might be an issue
of prudence. If Unit 15 is unavailable because it had a severe mechanical breakdown despite having been maintained
that's just bad luck and we would allow the expense but again I'm getting into speculation as to what would and wouldn't
be prudent at this point the general idea is that WAPA should be running its system as efficiently and cost-effectively as
possible and that's what we're generally looking for. Well thank you for your response. Mr. Chair I got one more question
for the executive director i don't know with senator um executive director knight that cable that was damaged do you
think it was damaged when the power was down or when the power was on were you sure they caught on cable we
believe it was damaged well the power was on when it was damaged that's why we lost power um once they hit the
copper core You can see that there's a cut occurring, and once the copper was compromised, that would have knocked off
the power. Mr. Brown could probably elaborate more.
0:39:58
He actually was able to go out there that evening and put eyes on the situation. That's perfectly correct, Mr. Knight. And
of course, the pregnant question after that is, why wasn't anyone injured? That's what you really want to ask. Mr. Brown
can speak to that as well. With regards to the risk or the hazard of injury to the person, our protection systems would
operate so quickly, primarily to minimize destruction to the cable and infrastructure, but it also protects anyone who
happens to be inadvertently near a fault.
0:41:13
And that protection system works in milliseconds. What type of voltage are we talking about? Thank you for the
response, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. Thank you very much, Senator Joseph. Senator Kenneth Gittins,
Chief Counsel, is on the floor, so you may pose the question directly to him. The next speaker has a pressing issue, so I'm
going to hold off until then, but thank you.
0:41:52
Thank you. Just ask them to review Act 7562 in the meantime, please. Okay. Fair enough, Senator. Senator
Maurice-James, you're recognized for your seven minutes. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank
you, Senator Gittins, for allowing me to move forward. Good afternoon also to the testifiers and my colleagues and
people inside and outside the room. When I read the book, I paid close attention to both the testimonies of the PSC and
WAPA because it seems as if we're ignoring a tension that is existing that may, in fact, in my view, be preventing us from
really moving forward. And one of the things that jumped out at me that I wanted clarification on was the language
regarding Unit 15 in both testimonies. I saw where Unit 15 has been running continuously, and the fact that you, WAPA,
have not been able to do the maintenance that the unit needs, and you go into that.
0:42:26
And then I saw where in the public services commission's testimony, it states that the same thing, that unit 15 is
overworked. But then there's a line that says, the only short term route to additional capacity, which the commission is
aware of, is the acquisition of additional mobile generation capacity, either by lease or purchase. And then the last
sentence says, additional leased units can be installed within a matter of weeks with sufficient resources. And I wanted to
get the CEO Carl Knight's response to that specific sentence because it makes me think that, well, maybe we can do
something in a matter of weeks.
0:43:52
I mean, sufficient resources, I see that too. but you know why would it sorry go ahead mr knight go ahead oh i'm sorry
when we were asked about um unit 23 um mr harrigan gave the answer in weeks he said 52 of them right right um so it
all a matter of how much weeks we talking about but mr harrigan probably is better suited to talk about realistically
trailer mounted a tm 2500 if we were to try to add that to the plant as a temporary generation um what that time frame
would probably look like from our experience From our experience, you're typically talking about six months to install
shipping, transit, and actually installing the package, commissioning, testing.
0:44:47
It's usually a short-term solution. However, there's a lot of planning and execution that goes into actually delivering or
dispatching the engine on the grid. So, Senator, if I could just amend that. What I want to say, well let me say this though,
you understand though to someone like me, who is a lay person with respect to utilities, when I hear installed within a
matter of weeks, do you understand the impression that that would also give to the public, and that's for the Public
Services Commission. And how do you respond to writing language like that, that to me would lead me, the layperson, to
believe that it's less than a month, right? You know what I'm saying?
0:45:32
PSC? Good afternoon, Senator James Boyd-Sprain again on behalf of the PSC. I didn't intend to mean a couple weeks,
weeks. We have had previous events where we have had companies notify us that they could deliver equipment within
six to eight weeks. I understand, unfortunately, at the present time, and we didn't want to quantify this, and again, it's a
matter of resources as well as delivery times and shipping. We understand that under the current world environment, that
there is increased demand for certain generators in other places. Certainly, there's a long line now to buy new efficient
generation for long-term installation. There is still temporary generation, we understand, available for lease.
0:46:31
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
7 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
There are significant cost issues to doing so, but in other utilities in the U.S., it is not a six-month process. It's
substantially less than that. so that's okay but that's the u.s the the u.s and and we know that we are surrounded by water
and and there are so many differences between a utility in in the states and one here my my concern is this the people of
st tamas are already under so much stress which flows over and we all may say we are all in this together and we're
working together but we a majority of us not me I was going to recognize saying not me assign a lot of blame to WAPA
and we have to be careful that when we use words like that and you're an attorney just like I am you know words matter
so when I read that I was like well what Carl doing if it's just a matter of weeks what's going on here and I'm going to
move on from that because we just need to to understand the stress that people are and the suffering really at this point in
addition to that on the last page of the the other tension that I see that I think if we're all in this together then let's really be
be genuine about it and sincere the on page 10 of um the PSC's statement you say that the PSC must have the full support
and backing of this legislature and and and then when i read um ceo carl knight's testimony he talks about action on
suggested legislative measure measures previously
0:47:26
presented in a stable regulatory environment so i'm focused on the legislature right now you want the full support and
backing of this legislature and you you you you the psc um you state on page 7 which i'm trying to understand also that
um only in december of 2021 was this issue addressed which which and the the commission unequivocally granted that
authority what exact what exact authority were you granted um in december 2021 because you the previous sentence says
you could not order wapa to buy new generation time and you could not controversial decisions such as the vital
amended agreements can you explain to me because if there is something the legislature needs to do regarding both
entities to make the environment better for our consumers i i would i would like to know what that statement is about on
page seven of the psc's testimony and then and then the action that um wapa is expecting from um legislative measures
that they presented to us if if we have if the legislature has to play a role we need to to be proactive in that role and i
know my time has been called and if i could get one more question i would appreciate it i'll allow i would do answer and
allow you to do your wrap-up questions senator thank you so i just wanted to um to point out so in trying to to rush
generation we talked to a lot of vendors that promised us weeks and that's the material says that it's just not real
experience we put in at least four temporary generators in the last several years we know exactly how much time it really
takes in a real world and I think one of the things one of the other factors is temporary generation which lasts during the
construction phase is permitted differently so there's a permitting process that we also have to go through that is in fact it
into the manufacturers time as well and that adds to to the time frame what we are trying to do I want to show it on
Senator James what we're trying to do is get some what we call emergency generators which are permitted on an
emergency basis they're limited to 500 running hours a year and that allows us to bring them in escape some of the more
rigid permitting requirements and they're smaller units so that the connection and the ability to interconnect them is as a
little bit simpler and it's just a bridge that little Delta in in capacity that we were falling short of that we think we may
have a potential to fall short of again in the future so that's that's the
0:49:16
difference when it comes to temporary power and what about your measures that you presented you know we still you
know last year when we presented our budget we gave a list of measures we provided white papers draft legislation I you
know I I would love for the body to pass and approve everything that we presented because we think they're they're all
worthy of approval but at At the very least, I look forward to at least having hearings, even if the decision is to not move
forward with those measures, give us a chance to at least discuss them in a committee setting so that we can at least make
a case for the merits of those legislation.
0:52:04
Eighteen different measures have been proposed to this body. So when you ask how can you help, let's start with those 18
measures. just added two more um in my testimony today so okay thank you i um i i also i think you my my other
question was really for odr i was trying to um from your language where you talk about the um the joint solicitation in
june 2025 and then in december 2025 you selected rg uh and your language is the contract is in the final stages of
negotiations so from december to now you've been negotiating and you anticipate that it will be executed shortly what
what what can i can you give me a time on shortly uh uh at least within the next two weeks, month, because it's speaking
to the temporary generation that Mr. Knight just explained to me. And I also wanted to find out when you do temporary
generation at boat power plans. I'm trying to understand it. Believe me, I think somebody mentioned about the legislature
understanding this whole process and I am really trying hard they it's design and replace power plants in both districts so
when you're doing temporary generation at the power plants does that mean that the power plants are going to be at a
different site is am I interpreting that correctly so this is
0:52:49
yeah sure uh so the the the replacement within the replacement for the plant maybe if i can share it if you think of it like
uh if you're building a new building that female provides a temporary solution while you're rebuilding a building so you'll
have to move out of a building to create um funding whether you're leasing something so that you can keep your
operations going the process that we began in this from December includes getting board approval there's a number of
0:54:38
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
8 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
steps between to get to the point where we now have a contract in place that we've been going back on fourth with one
terms you're asking where we at we're at right now we have we had three issues that needed to be addressed and we have
found a solution and has been provided to the contractor they can't we and we're hoping that the contractor accepts the fix
that we have in place and we can get it executed within less than a week and Wendy oh great I think the last part of it is
that the remember I stated that we have an emergency solutions so we can try to mitigate the problems that we have dealt
with at this point we have the option of procuring it through the contractor or we can procure the generators through wapa
themselves whichever is faster they're finalizing what generator they're going to get once they've put that into place we
then send that request to FEMA for the environmental approvals as mr. Knight mentioned permitting a temporary
generator is way
easier we've already sent the scope and a language to FEMA and they said that they're gonna allow us to move ahead and
procure that will be very quickly because the next process does take a longer period of time but still it would take that
time in order to go ahead to install so we're running things in parallel to be able to get these generators the temporary
solution then the permanent solution again will happen but it gives us the temporary emergency solution helps us to buy
time so that when we are not in such a critical state for the permanent for the temporary generators that we're going to
purchase so just think of it in a three-step process stop the bleeding the emergency to the temporary to the permanent
temporary to the permanent exactly okay thank you all right thank you thank you um very much mr chair thank you and
senator giddens thank you so you got another four extra questions i mean strategically chairman also had a had a response
you wanted to give yes yes thank you uh thank you chair i i just wanted to add that uh director williams octolin is is is
correct here okay um there was a process that began for temporary generation to bridge us to permanent generation the
board recognized along with our other stakeholders with the recent events with uh attempting to get unit 15 back on
board and ready that an emergency solution was necessary.
0:56:30
So on April 1st, I gathered my colleagues and others for an emergency meeting. This emergency meeting gave a directive
to our executive director to come up with a plan for emergency temporary generation for the St. Thomas-St. John district,
specifically for the issues that St. John has to face. where we are right now is is attempting to move fast although we have
a solution that is as the executive director said about 24 months maybe a little bit more than that out from that correct um
somewhere between temporary somewhere between six and 24 months good and so what what we've seen is the ills that
residents of the St. Thomas and John District have had to have dealt with over the past couple of weeks. And we've said
that something that is an emergency needs to be brought to the forefront. So I just wanted to give that clarity from the
board's perspective that it is a three-step solution. Emergency, temporary, and then permanent.
0:58:25
Initially, we had temporary and permanent. So I just wanted to put that on the record from the board's perspective to the
body here today. So thank you. Emergency, temporary to permanent. Okay. Did you say who the vendor, the name of the
vendor was chosen for the new generators for St. John? So we are vetting several vendors.
0:59:39
There is a vendor that is offering some Caterpillar engines and so they are, we're doing our due diligence on that right
now. So you haven't selected a vendor as yet? We have narrowed it down. We're doing due diligence on their proposal
and once the engines are what they represent them to be, that'll be the decision. So they haven't been selected? Right. You
could say yes. Okay. Sure. Point of information, Senator Lewis. Thank you. Mr. Knight.
1:00:09
Yes, sir. these type of generators you're talking about i wouldn't imagine they're probably in somebody showcase sitting
down but these companies you're dealing with uh they have generation built already to what you're looking for or they
have to be waiting to custom and i mean customize it to what we're not here miss williams actually let me get correct said
today about procurement so in the procurement processes are we sending them our specs and then they have to fill out
what we need customize it to fit what you're requesting or did they have something set in a trailer container so well okay
wapa needs 20 megs let me send it down now uh how'd that go please so there's three aspects of this using on what miss
um williams ocklin pointed out um starting with emergency um in those instances sometimes it's a unit that is um lightly
used or somebody no longer needs it in some cases they're brand new um it all depends right it's what's available right
now right um with the temporary generators those are usually leased units and you have companies that specialize they're
in the business of leasing units so they'll let you know if they have a unit to lease um it's kind of like the the rental car lot
they'll let you know if you have any cars available on the time you're looking for for a car it's the same thing with the
lease generation the permanent generation will be factory built so we'll send specs we'll say this This is what we need. It's
usually a model. We'll be saying we want this model, and you get to customize it if you want to, and they build
something to spec or provide you something to spec.
1:00:38
Typically what we do there is put out an RFP, say give me a proposal that meets these criteria. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Senator Lewis. I'm going to go back to Senator Kennedy Gittins and St. Croix, and then I'll go
back to you for your point of information, Senator Blyden. Mr. Gittins, please pose your specific question to Legal
1:02:14
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
9 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
Counsel Cardi. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I did reach out to him.
I wanted him to review Act 7562, which speaks to the single-payer utility fund, and specifically in Section 2, which
speaks to the entities who are affected. I wanted to find out from him where it speaks to instrumentalities of the
government of the Virgin Islands, if this includes autonomous, semi-autonomous, and any other agency that might
receive funding from the GVA.
1:02:48
Attorney Cotty. Through the Chair to Senator Gittins, the short answer to your question is yes, and specifically in Act
7562 codifies or codifies Section 1 of the Act, Act, and that's codified in Title 33, Section 3100, small y, and specifically
subsection A of that section provides that the single-payer utility fund is established for the purpose of paying to the
Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority the electric and water utility bills of departments, agencies and
instrumentalities of the government of the Virgin Islands that are supported by the general fund. So, which means that if
there is any department, any agency or instrumentality of the government that receives or is supported by the general
fund, this particular single pair utility fund applies to them. Moreover, in section, In Section 3 of Act 75-62, which also is
codified in Title II, Version Alliance Code, Chapter 2, Section 28, which is the Executive Appropriation Act, which
speaks to the general fund budget, there is a provision that says, and I will pull it up. The Executive Appropriation Act
shall include as appropriations by the legislature amounts for programs and salaries to be funded from general federal
grants, contributions and matching funds, and amounts designated exclusively for deposit into the single-payer utility
fund established in 33 BIC chapter 111 for the payment of bills owed by the government of the Virgin Islands to the
Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority or to any successor power company of the government. Does that answer your
question, sir?
1:03:25
Yes, certainly do. So this measure was originally passed by the legislature, September 26, 2013. That's in the 30th
legislature. It was vetoed by the governor October 15, 2013, and eight days later, overridden. So from then to now, we
were told that the agencies were up to date in their payments. payments. Is this so, and I'll rest after this, through the chair
to the finance person for WAPA, are the agencies up to date in those payments?
1:05:59
Good afternoon, Lorraine Kelly, CFO of WAPA. The single payer is, there are one or two exceptions, But the
single-payer overall is only one month behind, i.e. they're current. There are maybe 20 agencies, I'm just counting them
generically, I can list them off if you'd like me to, that are not included in the single-payer.
1:06:43
No, I don't need you to list them off, but when you say one month behind, do you mean just that outstanding payment
that's due to you on April 15th? That's correct. is in the next couple of days? Yes, so let me rephrase what I said. They
owe only the current month owed. Okay, thank you. Thank you Mr. Chair. That's what I wanted to get on record,
especially after hearing that statement from our Good Finance Chair that brought that needed clarity to this type of
longstanding and demanding, honest discussion that we need to have. Thank you again for that point.
1:07:12
Thank you very much, Senator Gittins. We're going to excuse Director Actalin, I know you have a flight to catch. Thank
you for your presence. Thank you. Senator Marvin Blyden, you are recognized for your point of information. Thank you
so much, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon to all. In respect to the standby temporary generator for St. John, and my
colleague inquired about is it going to be new or used? FEMA is paying for that generator, correct? That's correct.
1:08:01
I am saying on the record today it must be know because FEMA is paying for it, number one. Number two, I believe that
whatever generator we're getting must be able to use LPG and another form of fuel because right now we see that the
price of diesel has doubled since August. So we must find ways to be strategic in terms of saving on fuel costs for
WAPA, for the authority, and at the same time being able to generate power for people. So I want to make sure that when
you guys are doing, because you said you signed a contract this morning?
1:08:42
No, I haven't signed a contract. Senator, I'd love to discuss with you when we have more time the realities of what has to
go into that decision. Correct. So that you can understand how we're making our decisions. What is most important is that
it is emergency, so we're trying to do something quick. And it is also standby. It's not permanent generation that's going
to be running every day, all day. So even the fuel consumption, it only runs if it has to run. So I also want to put that
context in there. But we can certainly discuss it off the record.
1:09:25
Please, we need to because we can achieve all of those objectives, even though it's temporary. But thank you so much.
Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. Senator Marvin Blyden. I wanted to ask you, CEO Knight, did we pay a $2
million reservation fee to Watsila for the St. John Generators? That is my understanding. That predates my time with the
authority, of course. But my understanding is that there was a deposit to hold a space in the manufacturing line that was
paid by Wampa.
1:09:57
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
10 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
What happened to that $2 million? If WAPA did not proceed with the manufacturing, then they forfeited the deposit. I
don't have any record that we were remitted the deposit. I think you had to, in order to hold space, there's a lot of demand
for units to hold your space and show that you're serious. You put on a deposit, and if you walk away from the project,
you lose your deposit. Right. So you're not 100% certain whether or not WAPA paid a deposit and walked away with it,
didn't follow up, whether we lost it? That's really the bottom line question. It is most likely that we lost it. I would need to
get confirmation. My understanding in inquiring as to what occurred, quite frankly, in preparation for the town hall we
had in St. John, I did have an examination of what exactly occurred, and my understanding is the deposit was paid, and it
seems like that deposit was lost once the project was abandoned. Wow. That's concerning.
1:10:35
But I just want you to provide us with concrete, because you're not telling me definitively that was the case. Can you
provide me with some concrete information, you know? ODR has left, and the folks that would have probably been
managing the decision at that time would probably have more insight than I would have had. So I can certainly try and
follow up with them or see if there's records in the archives that we can share as to what occurred. I appreciate that. So,
Ray Fonseca, you're recognized for your seven minutes, sorry. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, and a pleasant good afternoon
to all the viewing and listening audience and the distinguished panel of testifiers, the Public Service Commission, a
couple of things. I wanted to first go back again to the October 19 testimony because the reason why we had that
committee of the whole, because there was some outages on September 3rd, September 4th, September 8th, September
11th, September 17th, September 18th, September 19th, and that's the reason why we had those hearings, and we're right
back in the same situation again. So, you know, if I was to ask everybody in this room and everybody that's listening to
my voice to raise your hand who has lost a TV or refrigerator or any other appliances due to
1:11:33
WAPA outage, guess what? A lot of people raising their hand. So the community is really suffering from these outages.
But I want to say one thing, right? And this is to Ms. Kelly, right? Just earlier today, the director, Carl Knight, told us that
WAPA is about a $325 million annual operating agency. You then go and tell the distinguished rules chair that your
revenues is about $23 to $24.5 million a month. So what that means, if we do the math, and all of us are intelligent in
here, is that the maximum you're making is $294 million. That means you're losing $31 million a year. That's what you
said. $23 to $24.5, it's on the record. That's what you said.
1:13:25
So sometimes you need to keep your mouth closed to defend the executive director, because what you do is you cast a
doubt. The director just told us, all of us, it's $325 million operation. You're telling us it's 294 is what you're collecting.
You're losing 31 million dollars. But anyway, I'm going to go on from that because I think I support what the
distinguished senator from St. John is talking about, the St. John transmission line. And I also looked at your testimony
and I see that the unit 27 and the unit 15 and the feed at 13 is, you know, some issues. So I would support colleagues that
we find out what it would cost to get 23 and 15 and feed at 13 and the St. John transmission line. And we probably do an
appropriation because I think if you get those three things, those four things, I think that your generation capacity would
be a lot more reliable. No, this is what I feel looking from what I'm saying. So through the chair, I'd like to request from
WAPA what it would cost to get Unit 27, Unit 15, FIDA 13, and also the St. Thomas and John transmission line.
1:14:20
I know Bolke is you drawing up a bill, and let's get that moving. I think we probably can tap the Budget Stabilization
Fund. I think it had about $14 million, hopefully more than that. But that would be a way. So I want to go to Mr. Torrey,
because I think, Mr. Torrey, I think you do an awful great job. And I want to congratulate you on defending an awesome
job. Just momentarily, Senator, I know, Mr. Torrey, you have a plane to catch.
1:15:45
When do you have to leave? Like, right now? Yes. Okay. Okay. Mr. Torrey has a plane to catch. So quickly, Mr. Torrey,
there was a statement made that due to the fuel costs, right, that they could possibly entertain, you know, due to the war,
the fuel prices. I would like at all costs to avoid any kind of increases. So let's, you know, try to get an appropriation to
WAPA, but at no possible way should it be an increase to the rate payers.
1:16:19
So if WAPA could agree to that, and the legislature, we can agree to fund those four items, I think that would help you
out, and I think we would be on a good track, because would the budget stabilization fund have some funds in it? So I
would definitely go into that. Thank you very much, Senator. So now I wanted to ask about the, there was a statement
that you had made about the routine maintenance and also cutting the trees, Because you had made a statement here, the
loss of generation capacity has been affected by contact with the power lines.
1:16:57
And certain feeders, you said that that has been a chronic issue. You said that you were going to get a crew. Well, what's
the status of getting that crew? We've gotten a crew. You have the crew? Yeah, we do have a crew. Mr. Brown? Colin
Brown, Director of Transmission and Distribution. Yes, Senator, we have onboarded a crew, a supervisor and three tree
trimmers in both districts, St. Croix and St. John. They've recently onboarded within the last 30 days and they're currently
being trained and as well as we are in the process of procuring additional equipment and tools that are needed. They are
onboarded, and we have started preliminary work initially in St. John to start with proper vegetation management.
1:17:45
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
11 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
Okay, so that crew is then... I know you do things right, but I just want to know, does the crew go and cut and trim when
the lines are energized, or you make sure the lines are not energized? It's on a case-by-case basis. In some circumstances
we can clear the lines while they're energized once it's safe to do so. In other cases it's preferable to de-energize for safety
reasons and in other circumstances we can combine a scheduled outage for another purpose to carry out tree trimming.
There are some safe clearance distances, depending on the voltage of the line.
1:18:39
It cannot work on that line. It cannot trim close to that line if it's within that clearance distance. So if it's outside of that
clearance distance, it can trim and energize. Otherwise, it cannot. Okay, so at no time you're endangering the worker. The
safety is in full effect. Yes. Go ahead, Mr Brown. Correct. At no time are we putting workers or the general public at risk.
Okay, so, Mr. Chair, then I would definitely support the senator from St. John's measure, and if we can add unit 2715 and
those to it, I would definitely support we sit down and see how we can bring financial assistance to WAPA. Thank you
for the time.
1:19:18
Thank you very much, Senator Fonseca. I just wanted to get a clarification. You said there was a crew of three, two
trimmers, and one supervisor. And is that in each district? I'm Colin Brown, Director of Transmission and Distribution.
It's a crew of four, one supervisor, and three trimmers, each district. each district. Okay. Okay. Point of information you
recognize, Senator Francis Heiliger. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Do y'all have bucket trucks available to go up and
cut the trees? We do not have a, sorry, Colin Brown, Director of Transmission and Distribution, Senator. We don't have
our full complement of bucket trucks. We supplement. Do you have any working yes we do how many uh as of yesterday
i believe there was one bucket and one tree trimmer in st croix and one bucket and one tree trimmer in st thomas and john
okay how often are those maintained and running up and running i would have to check with the garage the reason why i
ask that is um i that is a major problem in just dealing with constituents because a lot of them had said they've reached
out to you guys for help and they were constantly told they didn't have bucket trucks they were down maintenance
problems so i'm thinking you have a whole group of people to cut down these things and where these bucket trucks last
well i'm even going to share my own little experience i had to pay for one because we had a situation at my business
where the tree was running into the system the lines and it had blow out a fuse and they were like we need to get this cut
down
1:20:05
and we call in wafa we call in wafa and i'll be told in a bucket truck we literally had to pay and beg somebody to come
and while they were there we paid also to cut down the trees so so i i want to make sure this is not a major issue because i
hear this from constituents and i witnessed it myself so if you're telling me there's only one in saint croix one in saint
thomas how do you all really manage the entire territory if if i might respond um senator so the complement of trucks that
i provided are wapa owned trucks um we supplement wapa owned trucks with um rented and contracted vehicles um with
regards to your experience um that that response that we are unable to address the report because we don't have sufficient
trucks all of them were down it's not an acceptable response and it's not it's not a response that we were desperate and we
just paid for one and it's not it's sorry not to cut you off it's not a response that is um sanctioned for for the for our father
personnel to provide the customers once once default report is received go ahead we were in a dangerous situation and
we kept calling we were not getting any response so we literally had to call a private entity to come and do it so at the end
of the day if there's not enough bucket trucks how could we make sure that there are enough or if you have maintenance
problems how could we help because this is a dangerous situation across the territory you the executive director came in
here and told us maintenance of these trees is one of the major issues that they have with wapa it's a major issue and one
bucket truck cannot run a whole island two of them's okay mr brown just put your final position on
1:22:06
the record because i know mr knight is going to have to leave shortly and i want to give the benefit of the senators who
have not had an opportunity to ask the questions of him no problem at all so i i agree with you senator um which is which
is why i said the the response is not sanctioned and it's it is not acceptable um we we maintain that there is no one better
to maintain what infrastructure than wapa and we contract equipments where our internal equipment is not sufficient um
i'll defer to mr knight with regards to procurement of additional equipment we have several um trucks in procurement
new trucks we have um parts that we're getting to repair the trucks that are in our garage for repair. We wanted to make
sure that each tree trimming crew has a tree trimming truck that's built for that purpose. So we do have in each district
bucket trucks is something. So prior to us having the crew on board, we were using regular line workers to do the tree
trimming. We're now trying to have a specialized crew with the specialized equipment in each district. That we have
achieved. We need to work on getting our trucks out of the garage and getting new trucks in, and we're working on that
right now.
1:24:08
Thank you very much for your response. Senator Marvin E. Blyden, you're recognized for your seven minutes. Senator
Marvin E. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon again to all. Before I begin, I want to make a statement in
terms of folks having to have to leave. I think that's unacceptable in my opinion because, for instance, I had a meeting
1:25:19
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
12 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
yesterday in St. Croix. I stayed over because I know it was important in terms of telecommunications to get answers we
needed from the people. If we have a hearing of such importance, you make arrangements to stay late. like flights, you
know what I'm saying? So I don't, we had so much question for Mr. Torrey. She's gone, I don't like that. If we have
hearings, we need to make it clear when we say another statement that plan to stay late. It's simple, we don't do this every
day. I don't like that, I really don't like it at all. At all.
Mr. Brown, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Senator. How many trucks do you have in your fleet? I know you say you
have two workers in each district, how many trucks do you have in your fleet? So I would have to get the number for the
entire fleet, meaning in-service and on-service from our garage team. But at peak during my time with the authority, I
would have said we've had four trucks in each district peak during my time. And how many do you have on contract in
each district?
1:26:08
At present, we don't have any in St. Croix on contract in St. Thomas, St. John District. On an average week, we contract
two trucks. Because I know, as my colleague said, the director stated that vegetation management is one of the most
important concerns for the authority, and it's one of mine also. How often do we maintain these trucks, though? And why
are there so many down? What's the challenge?
1:26:40
so we actually have about 16 bucket trucks in the fleet right um st thomas we some of the issues we've had we've had
some issues with brakes um on the trucks and we've also sometimes the linemen have complained that the narrow roads
in st thomas have made it very difficult we're trying to source smaller trucks to navigate some of the smaller areas so we
have issues related to that um we've had some operation issues and we've where you know brand new trucks have been
damaged due to improper operation so we've been training our our folks to operate better um but yeah trucks keeping
trucks on the road because they run 24 7 has been a challenge how many mechanics you have um i think i have about five
in each district okay very well um what is your current inventory on propane and diesel fuel i'm sorry say again what's
your current inventory on propane and diesel fuel um we are good on on both fuels in st thomas um we might have about
five days of of diesel um but we have probably a couple weeks of lpg on st croix we're good on both fuels right now
probably a couple weeks on both fuels okay very well and i know that you have been operating um on a rate freeze i
believe since june a rate freeze yeah through june yes are you through june 30th yes through june 30th the the change in
rate would be effective july 1 if it were to change so and with with all that's going on in terms of the the rising cost of fuel
you cannot change it We, Lorraine Kelly, CFO, and Ms. Satori had said, this Director Satori, is that based on the fact that
there is a current arrangement for a cost rate structure to be held, we could put a request in at any point in time for an
emergency change in that rate structure, which the PSC would review.
1:27:10
because i remember in august of last year um the rates that were in effect at that time was already projected to be 9.6
million dollars shortfall by the end of that year um what was the shortfall last year with fuel well that's the current fiscal
year that we haven't wrapped we haven't closed out the current fiscal you remember our fiscal year runs till june 30th um
but what i'll what i'll say is we recognize the shortfall and we were cutting trying to cut operating expenses one of the
biggest cuts we've made is the new fuel contract that we've just negotiated went into effect this month and that is a three
cents per gallon reduction on transportation cost from 51 and a half since on the 48 and a half cents by comparison last
year we were paying 58 what were we paying last year 57 57 cents 59 cents 59 cents was what we were So we've been
able to cut significantly what our fuel expenses on the LPG side.
1:29:14
So with the war in Iran, right, and liquid propane gas costing about 35 to 50 percent more, and diesel doubling, what's
your projected shortfall for this fiscal year? Can I correct you on that? Of course. If I may give you, sometimes if you
look up on Google LPG, lpg there's a specific type of lpg that we use um and and let me just give you relatively uh recent
pricing um up until about a month ago we were paying 61 cents um a gallon for uh lpg that is currently approximately 75
um for the diesel that was about a month or maybe six weeks ago two dollars and twenty cents that is now closer to four
dollars per gallon so our efficiencies of the new waltzilla engines that are are greatly more efficient and give us the ability
to to run on lpg saves us a very very significant cost okay i'm glad i'm glad to hear that but how are we going to minimize
um number two diesel in terms of assuring that we use that at the least we can because of the increase compared to the
other fuel that we use at your plant?
1:30:15
What's the plan? So as I said to Senator Francis earlier, that is our concern. The reason why we're fighting with Unit 15 is
because that's the one gas turbine that ultimately can run on LPG. The water cellars all run on LPG, but we need to get
Unit 15 on LPG. Otherwise, Unit 27 burns diesel and it keeps me burning diesel even though I don't want to. So that is a
challenge. I don't think we have fully dissected that challenge. We do have a meeting tomorrow, I think, with the
Department of Interior. They're asking us about our fuel and fuel inventory and fuel needs. They're cognizant of the U.S.
territories and the impact that the rise in fuel costs is having on energy in particular. So hopefully they may have some
relief that they can provide, but we haven't necessarily factored that in. That is a fly in the ointment as we're trying to
1:31:34
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
13 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
close our budget deficits.
And in closing, Mr. Chair, if I may, in closing, in respect you spoke to the solar farm that you hope comes on line by
summer. My concern is, and I want you to respond in terms of, Let me know if that's a concern when it comes to most of
our major hotels, grocery stores, and everything in between are going to solar, which you said is a good thing. But what
does that mean to your bottom line?
1:32:35
Yeah, I never discourage entities that have the wherewithal to self-generate. That makes them more resilient. Most are
still grid-connected. Solar works during the day. Unless you make a very large, considerably large investment in
batteries, you're still using us at night, and that's perfectly fine. We can scale up, we can scale down. Right now, less load
on the grid would not be a bad thing for us. We're not in the business of making profit. I'm not trying to sell kilowatt
hours to make a profit. I'm trying to meet a need, and if that need increases, I want to be able to ramp up to meet the need.
If the need decreases, I want to be able to ramp down to reflect that. What's key is just making sure that we cover the
fixed costs for the lines and the other equipment that everybody relies on As long as we can cover our fixed costs, less
power generation means less fuel to purchase. It's a scalable business.
1:33:04
So with that being said, and the less customers on the grid, and they're not going to have a ton of the price being
increased because you have way less customers than you used to have? There is a correlation on the fixed costs where at
some point we have to cover the fixed costs. So that might be the cost of my charge, might have to increase. We have to
cover our fixed costs at some point. But, again, there's cost reductions.
1:33:55
The less we're generating, the less fuel we're burning, the less maintenance, etc. So the business is a lot more scalable
than people think. I'm not afraid of defection. Most folks remain on the grid. They're just becoming more efficient.
They're generating a portion of their energy needs for themselves. And that's not a bad thing. That actually has smoothed
out our peak loads. At times, during the middle of the day, it used to be our peak. Now we don't have the peak in the
middle of the day. It's at night because solar is smoothing out that peak load. I appreciate that. I just hope and look
forward to seeing the prices come down if and when that occurs. That's my point. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman,
and thank you for your responses. Thank you very much, Senator Blyden. If I may add a point of clarification, I know
Senator Fonti-Seeker is no longer here, but he asked a question in terms of the numbers that I had given previously, And
our budget for total revenue was, in fact, $325 million for the current year. The $23 to $24.5 million that we collect each
month is from ratepayers. In addition to that, we have approximately $4 to $6 million each year that we expect to get
through FEMA reimbursement of management costs. That is money that we receive. And then in addition to that, we've
got about $10 to $11 million of other revenues. And further than that, we actually do have some investment accounts
where we add interest. So I'm more than happy to give a full accounting for that.
1:34:27
I don't want the general public to think that what I've just quoted was misaligned in some fashion. Thank you. Thank you
for the clarification. Senator Cotevilla, you're recognized for your seven minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon to the people at the Virgin Islands. So at the end of the year, you expect to break even? We were on track
to break even by June 30th. We do need to do our most recent variance reports and compare that to our projections, but
we were on track to break even this year. The slight increase as a result of the wire might throw those figures off, throw
those numbers off?
1:35:54
yeah the cost of fuel is moving in um we're going against that tide now um which throws off our projection so even with
what we were banking on this cost reduction but that cost reduction has been eroded by increasing the market price of
fuel so we need to make a comparison as to how much we're gaining through the cost reduction versus how much we're
losing through the increase in market price now uh bringing unit 15 back online is it back online running propane or back
on line running diesel when we bring it back online it'll be on propane which one is which one is back online now 27 and
that's a diesel unit and that's a diesel yeah so that's substantially increasing your costs also yes it's it's not a very
inefficient unit but it's still burning a fuel a considerable amount of fuel that we would prefer not to burn on the diesel
side and it wasn't possible to cover the unit of propane we've go ahead mr we've um we've made assessments and
attempts to we were in early discussions to convert to propane that's something that the team is still evaluating but that
depends on availability to execute such a large retrofit on the package and that wasn't a part of the original contract with
veto to retrofit all the units no um unit 27 was added after um the the conversion the propane project okay i think i did the
big question um st damas and john have really gone through a rough time in the last month i mean it's i i can't even
imagine what it has been like to to live under those conditions and go to school and open a business and go to work and
the purposes of this session as a result of the community crying out that they want some answers and i'm really hoping
that we could provide some answers on clarity today because i'm crossing my fingers that next week
1:36:35
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
14 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
we don't hear that the big unit gone now and we're back to to where we were and i think the trepidation that the
community faces that you know years ago we heard that well vital is going to be the savior we're going to convert to
propane it's going to be a 30 reduction that didn't work out and we ended up with costs overrun the government doing a
lot of money and then we heard the wattillas are going to be the fix and then the wattillas came and they sat for years four
or five years and then they got installed and then the price increased and there was a change order and you have to pay
more money so i sit in the seat i'm like well what is really the solution because you bring this you bring that and it's
supposed to be a solution and then they end up costing you more so the idea was with the seven wattillas that you would
have been able to not utilize these gas-guzzling turbines that you have, but you have one of the Watt-Solar that's presently
down. That one that is down, how long is it going to take to come back up? That's one of the ones that are four years old?
Is it down to maintain that, or is it down because of something?
1:38:28
So it's down because of a turbocharger issue. The projection is about 90 days for the repairs. We just got that, I think, hot
off the press this morning, because we've been asking whether they have all the parts, if Watzila has everything that's
necessary to proceed with repairs. You're absolutely right, the Watzilas, if that one unit was online, there would have
been no power rotation. Because it was down, because of this issue, that triggered the need for power rotation. We could
carry the load that we have at this time, maybe not later in the summer, but we could have carried the load if that engine
was up. So right now, because you have this big unit up, you're not running all of the six watt silas we're still running all
six because um from you're producing additional capacity that you don't need right now from from a capacity standpoint
without um with us with seven engines we are able to generate 57 megawatts without number the one word so let us miss
in number five our capacity is limited to about 48 megawatts yeah and what's What's the usage during the daytime with
all the solar being on? Is it less than 48?
1:39:32
It is less than 48 for a good portion of the day, but around... So you're not able to turn off Unit 15 until a certain point of
the day? Well, Unit 15 isn't being dispatched. I mean, not Unit 15. Unit 27. Unit 27 is able to come offline at night after
the peak. So typically what we do is overnight we juggle the maintenance on units. So tonight, Unit 27 will be dispatched
well. another unit would be offline for repairs during the minimum or low-load time of the day. Tomorrow, we'll most
likely go back to a more efficient mode of operation and dispatch the six watt-cellars overnight while Unit 27 remain on
standby and restart during a different week.
1:40:43
All of the watt-cellars are presently running on propane? No. Three watt-cellars engines are running on propane. the
phase two engines are running on diesel until we get some additional parts that um and now this or their responsibilities
and those are the newer units that are running on diesel yes correct okay so and and the newer units are supposed to run
on propane my whole thing is i think watson i just give us a 619 and i want us to file a case against them i can say
publicly you guys can't you do it behind the scenes we need to file a case against them to recapture the monies that we are
losing every single month because we hired water to provide propane one minute not providing propane and it's costing
us two million dollars extra a month they owe us the money that it was the money from january from the time they came
online that that's a cyber conversation um so i'm just gonna push it so that they could know that it's not you the senate one
we want that because watsila held this government hostage and the governor went and negotiate a deal with them correct
yeah the deal was negotiated well you were in you were in there i was in the other wearing the next half so don't answer
you weren't there and they both the butcher wasn't there but negotiated a deal absent of the board and absent the whopper
and paid watsila x amount of money to come in line with these efficient units and then they come in line and the units
aren't efficient and they're not burning what they're supposed to burn so the government get the shot down at the stick
again and my fear is it doesn't really make a difference what we do if we are a temporary units if we don't get if we don't
have a good contract you have inherited a bunch of bad stuff a bunch of bad contracts a bunch of contracts that waste the
government of the virgin islands money and waste authority money time if we don't moving forward make sure that every
contract is song and the engineers do
1:41:27
blah blah blah that they make sure that these units are working we don't want to bring in a temporary unit and it sits on
the ground for four years like the Watson are sat in the ground in St. Thomas for four years so moving forward every
single deal gotta be locked tight and the engineers gotta do their homework not turbines coming to St. Thomas and then
oh he can't run on this or he can't run on that or it wasn't configured to this cool I mean those people whoever is making
those decisions those million dollar decision that's causing us these issues i hope they're not working or we're not using
them as consulting anymore because they're costing us money repeatedly and the decisions moving forward has to be
those in which the authority will be able to improve efficiency and move forward my last question mr chair is that there
was a point where the fuel was done before this latest skirmish.
1:43:26
The liac literally has been the same for what, two, three years now? Eight. Three years. Technically, the rates have
remained steady for eight years now. Okay, eight years. And the rates originally were based on a certain price of fuel.
1:44:23
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
15 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
Correct. Yes. The price of fuel went up, and then it came down, and then you added solar capacity on St. Croix. You had
the subsidies of $100 million from St. Thomas. And I just want to know mathematically, how has that helped the
authority? Or how has that lowered the recovery fee? Or how has that lowered?
I mean, at some point, it got to be that the cost base and the solar base and the price of fuel, what was that total cost and
what were we charging? And I think at a certain point, it was lower than what we were charging. So you should have
been collecting a bit more in terms of being able to financially help WAPA. So we've kept accounting of the deferred fuel
balance. Sometimes it has gone up, sometimes it has gone down. We're still underwater, as it refers to fuel expense.
When you crunch the numbers, I know last year, the LIAC would have needed to be like eight cents higher than it was at
the time to cover actual costs. So that number has gone up and down, but i think what we're trying to do is to make up for
some of those lean years um when that's what i'm saying but that's what i want i want for the cfo to be able to come and
said as a result of us getting the solar online at this online um we have a leaner um authority the amount we were
charging we're now able to recover x amount and we're able to break even by a certain period of time i i can lorraine kelly
cfo i can give you some rough numbers and the the solar costs are ten and a half to eleven and a half cents a kilowatt hour
no we're working out at the next meeting the chair is going to have us all committee that we can really scrub the numbers
and we can give you an accounting of the comparisons of each each unit on diesel versus lpg versus the solar and the
renewables yes including a break even point which i think is what you're getting yes and i just want to end you you use
um you said that wapa is a bird in the cage that goes down into the coal mine now when the bird doesn't have oxygen the
coal miners come up what's the people of st damas and singham they are hand in hand with us now they're worse than a
bird
1:45:00
well the borders died so we hope they're not worse on the board so the the bird is in intense intensive care but but st dama
st johnny we we are intensive care and you believe that you're out but you're only two days out so you hope the
medication work and everything else work or next week let's cross our fingers bless those turbines yeah i don't that's
that's what we need blessed turbines we um we are we are on borrowed time um we we need to move quickly and so
that's what we're trying to do is expedite that's why we have an emergency because we couldn't wait till we get to the
temporary so we're trying to press the timeline by going to emergency and then eventually to temporary before we can
get finally eventually one day to to the permanent solution for saint thomas st john i forgot one thing just on the record i
asked covenza or lime tree whatever it's called now yeah what's the age of your turbines 1974 68 96 2006 and three of
them that are 1974 working and working without any issues it's maintenance it's maintenance okay it's not that you're old
and age right it's a 66 classic lack of maintenance yeah thank you so much mr Thank you, Senator Avila. I wanted to just
quickly ask you a question, Mr. CEO.
1:46:59
I mean, throughout this day, you know, you said in your testimony, you described these outages as a series of unfortunate
events, storms, vandalism, equipment, failure. I haven't heard you mention once that the failure, at least part of it or any
of it, can be attributed to any sort of systemic mismanagement or poor decision making, poor decisions along the way
that the authority has made. Is there room for us, are you able to acknowledge, and I know you are relative, I can't say
you're the new kid on the block anymore, relatively new kid on the block still, but are you and maybe the board chair able
to acknowledge that there might be some things from a management perspective that the authority could do better or
should be doing better or may have contributed to some of the challenging situations that we find ourselves in right now.
You mentioned when they were talking about our wish list or something, I think one of the senators mentioned, you
mentioned that your wish is for WAPA to be·I appreciated your response.
1:48:18
Your wish was that WAPA could be self-sustaining. That is how WAPA existed historically. But somehow we have
found ourselves in this place right now. And I don't expect you to tell me how we got there, but I know that it has to have
contributed this WAPA structure, WAPA mismanagement issues relative to decisions that WAPA has made has to have
made some level of contribution to where we are today and still might be contributing to it.
1:49:35
Yeah, there is, so I hate to Monday morning quarterback because everyone that sits in this seat, they go through, just as
they sit in your seat, you have to deal with the circumstances at the time. And it's always room for someone to come 10,
15 years and question your decisions, but they weren't in the position you were in, right? Yes, there are some things that I
look at. I wonder why we took so long to identify the failure at the Great Bay transmission line. It's been damaged for
about four or five years. What prevented us from being a little bit more urgent with getting that repaired?
1:50:12
It doesn't seem to me as a complicated matter. I guess when we start to do the repairs, maybe I might discover something
different. But I question that. I don't agree with the consulting reports that said that we couldn't proceed with the standby
generation. Some of the reasons they gave, I thought, were solvable problems. So maybe if I was in the seat, I might have
second-guessed some of that. Maybe I might have pushed for a different approach to that. And certainly the time that we
lost without coming up with an alternative, I think that was time we can't get back.
1:50:48
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
16 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
But then there's some decisions, I mean, we vilify, for instance, the VTOL project. I've always said within the first three
years of that project, WAPA saved more than the project overruns of that project. And the fact that we are the only
Caribbean utility with a bulk LPG terminal to supply us with fuel is probably what's going to save our skin as the cost of
diesel continues to rise on all our Caribbean neighbours. They don't have an alternative fuel source to go to, so, you
know, we can look back and say, oh, it will cost overruns, but I'm glad I have that asset that I can lean on because I'm not,
I'm no longer fully dependent on LFO diesel to supply the plant. So there are certainly some areas where we could have
done things differently, done things with more urgency. There's decisions we've made, you know, we could go as far
back as the decision to purchase a unit as large as unit 23. Back when I was at the company, we were projecting
economic growth indefinitely clearly there was a point where economic growth tapered off and and WAPA didn't
forecast that very well smaller units became a thing after the fact so you have this big behemoth that what we know still
be holding to so you can go back but decisions I like to think that folks that sit in these positions make the best decision
with the best information they had available to them at that point in time in that moment and so I don't like to go back and
second guess i like to project what i can do moving forward how do i fix this i inherited this this uh uh this hand and um
how can i win this uh win the game with the hand that i was dealt fair enough thank you for your response sir levy lewis
you're recognized for your seven minutes thank you good afternoon again to the whopper folks good afternoon everybody
do you like you to do even say you're all alone now but anyhow mr knight let me flip flip this a little
1:51:22
bit here over the employees um a lot of them are fatigued mr harrigan is finally getting um a few nights rest he's had a lot
of sleepless nights um you if you heard a line of question with um center vla he says look we're gonna do maintenance
and we always at the morning when the load drops we're going in to do maintenance on units so that the next day those
units are ready to go um there's a lot of late nights put in um the tnd crew also has been taking a beating and we didn't
discuss water but for some reason water got jealous we've been springing leaks left and right and so you know the water
crew has also had their fair share during the last uh 30 60 days as well so that's what i was coming to you know i hear
everybody and i too don't get frustrated you know earlier today the director of odia made a joke and call the governor
moses and he said he declared today no you're in the 27 and and whapa is fixed i said i can't declare that one today papa i
take too much blows for whopper and you know i it'll be nice to have them two other guys phone number to the end
because i don't want to wake you up all over the night but i'll text them to you the next thing the part i want to get at
though it's a night before i get my line of questioning every once in a while treat the employees a little lunch maybe a day
half a spa day something because i know each one of them working hard and they're putting they're producing whatever
you know outside company WAPA is our people. Like our brothers, sisters, cousins, friends. So treat them. Middle line
crew. A little lunch. A little something. I'm not talking about our leadership. You too, Ms. Board Chair.
1:53:22
What do we build it back to WAPA forever? Treat them. You know. No. Hold on. And the next thing I say, um mr board
chair wapa really and i want to say peterson channel last name is what spencer spencer no yes spencer yes she tries her
best thank you miss spencer she only could put her what she have and you know when she get it and so forth but
sometimes if the board would just come out a little bit too and support the ceo support the age the entity the authority
people would know a calling all up mr knight is not all alone you have backing you know come out say something every
time you look at social media my back brother and i could take it what elected officials say not one ever say we're the
board and the board is in charge of mr knight and he's in charge of the day to the operations unless i got something wrong
just support him come out say something mr knight in st john you gave a whole uh litany of things that you anticipate
could happen and you're trying to push i didn't really hear you mentioned much of those things today but i want to
encourage the authority maybe on your website you need to have a recovery section a repair section so people can see
your projects your timelines you know when gonna be executed the funding you know just put the information out there
make life easier on you you can't say it all you're gonna miss something then you got people working for that authority
1:55:14
don't say nothing at all so we don't know so put the information out there in st john you talk about repair i mean we um
you said there are four lines coming from from St. Namaste Center, right? Right now there's two and one to make one.
Right. You know, what's the plans to make at least three walking lines? So in the testimony earlier, we spoke to the Great
Bay line.
1:57:05
That's the line we're trying to splice out there. It's in the shallow portion of the waters, so we're gonna try and get that
repaired. We've identified the contractor, and we have the splice being manufactured. So as soon as we get that shipped
in, we're ready to mobilize, and the contractor will do it and wait for payment. We're also looking at the Ridge Road
circuit. Do you have the funding for them in place? No, that's one way the Senate can help me, because these are local
contractors we're going to be using, and I call on them for everything. We mentioned renting bucket trucks. Well, this is a
contractor that I rent bucket trucks from, and I often don't get to pay him in a timely fashion I would love to pay him for
this work and not have him he's doing it as as he understands the urgency that doesn't mean that we should string him out
on payments so this that would help me to to make it worth his while to get in there and do this work for us quickly I
1:57:38
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
17 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
don't want to call no one vendor name and the record but you owe several vendors yes I do local vendors local vendors
but you never talked about it you didn't say well you know because when we have these issues nothing against wapper
you just don't have the wear it all to do it all by yourself so you got tapping outside help sometime oh it come with a cast
yes it come with a cast but does wapper say that no because you didn't want to come into ask us for no money because
hold on mr niger a lot of pride he wants it but you see if we're afraid to see That's a direct assessment.
I don't like begging, I like being able to stand on my own two feet. That's my mission for the company is to get it on its
own two feet. One minute. We also, the one project I missed mentioning today, so there's a ridge reed socket which backs
up cruise bay. We think we can get it repaired very quickly as well. There's a different contractor that's going to work on
that for us. They actually have the contractor to do the permanent repairs, so we're just asking them do some temporary
repairs until that contract for permanent repairs kicks in and then um i mentioned earlier but it's not in the testimony
working with vingn to run a new transmission line to st john as part of their telecommunications project and let me go
back to what i was saying previously you have a lot of projects running you know i don't know when the next four
outages i don't know when the next water leak on spring but we need to know timelines when things gonna happen if you
have the funding source the funding you and hfa went at it in the media you know we just need to know what's going on
because the community can't be held hostage anymore mr knight time and i just want to say this to you right now and and
this i really mean this with all my heart that we've been going through some rough months here now and people have
been dealing with some billing issues and we what about really having fully got it rectified i'm going to say to you we
ain't disconnected call him and do a payment plan do something but we ain't disconnected until we could say my son we
have reliable stable power we disconnected do what we have to do to help the people call him and let's set up a payment
plan let's do something pay where you could pay i mean they're still obligated to pay but we can't meet them halfway
because we ain't paying for no groceries we ain't paying for no medication at last we ain't paying for no air conditioning
we
1:59:13
ain't paying for none of those people generate emotional because of wapato so i have to put it out there that's my beg and
that's my plea to you and if i have to legislate it it coming forward thank you mr chairman thank you very much senator
lewis i'm gonna get you mr moi yes yes um senator lewis um thank you thank you for your comments i i just want to
clarify a couple points um the board since i have been chair and i think previously as well we have sponsored asks from
the staff um to me that is never a question to ask because it is woefully granted because the staff deserve it secondly uh
today shows my commitment i show up no matter how far i have to travel i show up the words that stick in my mind are
actually from senator joseph senator carla joseph when she asked me three times during my confirmation are you
committed i showed up to saint john the whole day that's nothing on for me to put on my back but it's to show i show up
because my duty as chair is to the survival of the authority plain and simple That is my mission and my objective. And
here today as well, it's five o'clock. I have not left for lunch. I have not left.
2:01:10
I have sat and I've listened. Secondly, I called the board on an emergency board meeting. We meet at least twice a month.
And then I still have to ask my colleagues, we need an emergency board meeting. Can you attend? and executive director
knight delivered the beginnings of a plan on april 8th as we directed him to do because i had the war with the
wherewithal and the foresight to see that this is an emergency we need to do something different we need to amend the
plan that is my leadership style And lastly, we worked with Mrs. Spencer on the public statement that came out after that
emergency board meeting.
2:02:49
So I just want everyone to know that I see and I hear the staff, the public. People contact me at all times. And one thing I
want them to know is that while I am board chair, as I am board chair, I am available. because my duty is to the authority
and that's why I'm here today and that's why I believe that we need to make some additional steps. So in addition to what
Executive Director Knight talked about in terms of the pieces of legislation, he talked about 18 prior and about two that
he made today, which from what I've seen, they are certainly beneficial to the authority and the community, I would like
to reiterate one that I made last October.
2:03:42
And this is from the report that was delivered from Ernst & Young. And one of the things that they recommended was a
committee. And I've been working on this for a while, shopping this around. And when I heard today from the Senate
President about the subcommittee, I want the legislature, I'll ask a second time. I want the legislature to be part of that
transformational leadership committee because what we do today is have separate conversations. I want everyone to be in
the room. This meeting, what we had today, I want that to be in an organized fashion where we could all sit down and
hash out what we need to hash out. And Executive Director Knight knows what I'm talking about with regards to a
meeting that we had yesterday. It was a very productive meeting and it just tells me again that is necessary.
2:04:34
So I want to make that request again and I hope that it will be honored and I look forward to working with the legislature
on that as well. Thank you very much, Mr. Knight. I mean, Mr. Mouye Chema Mouye. You're welcome. I have to say
2:05:33
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
18 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
that this is my experience. I know I was a part of the Rules Committee, I believe, when you were initially confirmed and I
find you to be one of the most, one of the more engaged board chairs that I have had the opportunity to engage with. So I
can say that you don't need me to vouch for you, but I just want to say that for the record. Thank you, sir.
Very, very briefly, because I know Senegaleteen still has to go. When I ended first, I really had ended. but it wasn't an
attack on a board it wasn't a stop saying get engaged and help mr knight out and come out communicate with the
community be a part of it when you you said some points there that you know when we hear in the dark we don't hear
nobody so your involvement is good but you call emergency meeting yesterday april 8th no no no no on the on the first
and and and and and and and and we were in darkness before that but listen to this though i really want i know that mr
knight is gonna have to leave very shortly so i don't want this to get into a back and forth that's going to suck up some
time you could save that point for after senator gettens goes i'll allow you to go ahead and continue the engagement okay
the senator was speaking i was i know but your time was already called so i just didn't want it to and it was escalating into
a back and forth and back and forth and i just wanted to be respectful of Senator Gittins' opportunity to, you know, make
his statement as well as myself. So Senator Gittins, you're allowed seven minutes for your turn.
2:06:12
Thank you, Mr. Chair, but I would have liked 25 minutes like everybody else. But good afternoon to all, and thank you
for your testimony and your responses. you know before I begin I must say that as a body we have to be careful in our
statements made bill number 35 that's zero two eight nine which turn into act number eighty eight seventy four spoke
about perjuring yourself before this body So, as legislators, we cannot, on one hand, invite testifiers here to be honest,
open, and demand honesty, and on the other hand, suggesting to the CFO of WAPA that she should keep her mouth shut.
2:07:50
totally unacceptable move on to the board chairman I heard you and I still want to express my disappointment that you
came here today totally unprepared with a testimony knowing the situation that we are in with the authority you had a
formal invitation with prior notice to be here with testimony no testimony I want to ask you though has the board and I'm
gonna be specific I'm I'm pointed. Has the board conducted any independent audits or performance reviews of executive
management related to system reliability?
2:08:47
Yes or no? If I may, I need to answer the first question. As a board chair... The first question is whether or not The board
has conducted any independent audits or performance reviews of executive management related to system reliability.
That's the first question.
2:09:51
Chair of this committee, may I at least answer the first point of Senator Gittins before I get to his question? May I
answer? Wait. I wonder if this is my time or WAPA board time. Senator Gittins, what is your specific question? He's
asked his question, but I would like to answer his first point. I'm going to allow you to answer Senator Gittins' question.
The manner that he asks, he poses it.
2:10:18
So if he asks that question for us, Chairman Mouye, I'll ask you to answer the question based on his. Okay. Understood.
To answer your question, Senator Gittins, yes, we have. We have gone through the process of developing metrics for the
executive director. When were these audits conducted? Not audits, Senator. These were metrics to assess the performance
of the executive director as per our contractual agreement with the executive director.
2:10:48
So these are performance reviews? These are performance metrics developed to perform a yearly performance review of
the executive director developed by the governing board. Yeah, but I'm not just talking about the executive director. I'm
talking about your executive management team. Can you provide this body with any performance reviews that you have
conducted since you have been the chair? Since I have been the chair, we are contractually obligated to perform a
performance review for the executive director because he has· Mr. Moyet, Mr. Moyet, Mr. Moyet, the question is, can you
provide this body with those performance reviews? You already said yes. You're doing it.
2:11:27
So I'm asking you, can you produce those reviews to this body? I will have to discuss with legal counsel if that is
something that we can do. The reason I say that is because it's a contractual agreement between the board and the
executive director. Let me move on, because it seems like you're working for somebody else. I'm going to move on. Man,
CEO, you outlined, and I wanted to, this is where I wanted to go to the board because in today's testimony you spoke to
three plans, your short-term plan, your intermediate plan, and your long-term plan. So I really wanted to ask the board if
the board believes that the current leadership at WAPA has the capacity to execute those three plans that was listed in
today's testimony, the short-term, the intermediate, and the long-term plans. So, I'm going to skip the board chair because
I'm not getting any responses. So, Mr. CEO, you outlined those three plans, but you did not address any routine
maintenance in that testimony.
2:12:24
So, what does WAPA current preventative maintenance schedule look like? We have a preventative maintenance
department, two supervisors and a plan. Maybe Mr. Harrigan could speak to that. But we have a preventative
maintenance program for each one of our equipment. But Mr. Harrigan could probably describe it. That's good, because I
2:13:54
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
19 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
want to know what it looks like across generation, transmission, and distribution. 30 seconds. Okay.
You want a response now? You're asking us to submit something? What's the response? What's the request? Yeah, I
wanted a response. Go ahead Mr. Harrigan. Yes we do have a preventative maintenance program for all engines and I
believe that was requested earlier. For those three categories? Well this is solely for generation that I'm speaking to but
that's definitely something that we could provide. So I'll ask in addition to the generation I'll ask for transmission and
distribution as well through the chair. Time.
2:14:28
that's preventative maintenance schedule am i clear yeah you're clear you have anything to add mr brown or just submit
just submit just submit that just submit that through the chair please um mr chair Chair, I have a couple others. May I?
You may, Senator. You may wrap up.
2:15:06
The Watsela generators are relatively new. Why were these units not maintained in a way that prevented failure? Who is
contractually responsible for the maintenance of these generators? WAPA personnel, the manufacturer, who? So, most of
the component parts are now out of warranty. We do not have an operations and maintenance agreement in place for the
newer Phase II units. We have one in place for the Phase I units. So, WOTSILA is responsible for the first three units.
We're still responsible for the last four. They're being maintained. Matter of fact, that's why we speak to having to take
down the Phase I, keep on track with their maintenance requirements. So we're going to schedule that for later this
summer. It was only delayed because of this issue of having Unit 15. We are looking at executing an O&M agreement
with Watsila for Phase 2. We're trying to work through some of our issues before we get into a service agreement with
them, and they will be responsible for the maintenance of the Phase 2 units once we do that.
2:15:37
So since you don't have an agreement in place, are WAPA personnel currently assigned to maintain advanced generation
equipment? Are they fully certified and trained? Or what's the percentage of staff working on critical systems hold
up-to-date certifications? How many of them? So we had several trainings to maintain and operate the Wartsele engines.
2:16:48
That's also part of the O&M agreement to continue those trainings. Just to clarify, the issues that we experienced early on
with the Phase 2 engines was not a lack of know-how or qualifications. There were some issues that caused the engines to
fail under warranty, and Wartzilla was contractually obligated to resolve those issues. So during that time, Wetzelah was
on site to resolve them or flew in on island to resolve those issues.
2:17:21
So before I go to the executive director of the PSC quickly, any disciplinary actions have taken place, if any, against
personnel responsible for preventable failures? If there's incidents where someone is at fault or accidents do happen but
there's disciplinary action, so if you violate lockout, tag out or do something, there is disciplinary action. But none of the
issues we've discussed today or that have affected us recently have fallen into that category.
2:17:59
these are not operator operator error okay there's an accountability culture that needs to be addressed at the authority so
i'm hopeful that this will take place now to the psc the public service commission is not here senator the public service
commission is not here okay yes all right so i will i will uh rest at this time thank you uh mr chair thank you very much
uh senator gittins mr knight you have how many more minutes do you have okay awesome awesome he's available for as
long as we need him to stay i wanted to ask you mr knight you in your testimony you lean heavily on unit 15 being old
and obsolete when you talk about you know the causes for where we are um unit 15 was commissioned in 1980 and is
well past its useful life right you know that when did whopper force know that this unit needed replacement and why was
it still carrying system load in 2026. we have known um so a decision was made in the aftermath of the hurricane to retire
the unit I think what needs to be said here is FEMA responded very quickly after the storm.
2:18:39
They had great emergency response. There was decisions. Sorry about that. However, this recovery process where they
went about trying to cost out what it would cost, costs, what they would allow us to do, and that process really played out
for several years to get to a point where I think Ms. Williams-Octolin said it was last February that we got permission to
proceed with the replacement of the unit. So WAPA has known that the unit needs to be replaced, but we need to be able
· the one thing that wasn't said by the PSC is you have · even if I know this is foreseeable, I still need to have resources to do
something about it. So I can't · yes, I know a unit needs to be replaced, but I need money to buy the replacement. The
FEMA Prudent Replacement Program provided the opportunity to replace the unit.
2:20:10
That's the program that we're looking towards as being the vehicle to get Unit 15 ultimately retired. But, yeah, you know,
WAPA has been looking at this clearly before the hurricane because it was an immediate decision after the hurricane to
apply to FEMA to have it replaced. And Unit 14 was also retired, and that's been retired for some years now. So it's just a
matter of can we get new generation to supplant it. So you really made a decision. It was a conscious decision.
2:21:03
Yes. While we could maintain the unit forever, as I point out in my testimony, getting spare parts and those sort of things
is becoming increasingly difficult. And so at some point you have to cut your losses, get rid of the 66 Classic, and
decided you need to get something new. We just, we could probably keep it up. If we had the budget, we could maintain
2:21:32
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
20 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
and upkeep, but it's harder to source parts for that unit. And we've run into that when the unit went down. We had to
cannibalize other units in order to find parts for it. Understood. So you made a conscious decision to operate without
adequate redundancy based on the fact that you're saying we had no other choice.
We had no other option. We, so our preference in running Unit 15, I want to point out, even when the other units were
available, is Unit 15 has been, is dual fuel. I can operate it on LPG. So if I'm going to operate one of the larger gas
turbines, I would prefer to operate Unit 15 because it's burning the most economical fuel. Okay. I want to ask you, based
on what you said and based on what the PSC said earlier today. about their statement, and I quote, WAPA is without
credit rating of cash. It already has high rates and is questionable if raising rates will actually produce additional revenues
or simply result in further defections. This is my point, further defections from WAPA's grid and sales. Solar and battery
costs continue to decline, and the ease of system operations are significantly improved. WAPA cannot survive as the
power company for the poor.
2:22:14
So I've always thought about this. I think I've engaged you with this before. The fact that more and more Virgin Islanders
and business owners, through necessity, are gravitating away from WAPA and to renewables, to solar. So logically, just
looking at it from a logical perspective, the more people who leave WAPA, right, the less business opportunity, the less
opportunity for WAPA to collect revenues from them exists. You said, look, you are too anxious.
2:23:19
You've held this position. You've been pretty consistent with this position. You're not too anxious about customers
leaving the WAPA grid to do solar. But shouldn't you be concerned? So I want to dispel the myth, right? First of all, most
people don't leave WAPA. They become more efficient by producing a portion of their own power needs for themselves.
So they pay less to WAPA. They pay less to WAPA.
2:24:00
But they're still grid-tied, still my customers. Very few customers are totally off-grid. You'd have to look at the larger
commercial establishments that'd be totally off-grid. Most customers are not totally off-grid. Again, my mission, I think,
as a public utility, is to make sure that there's affordable, reliable power, whether you do it for yourself, whether I do it
for you, or whether we do it jointly together. Our mission is to make sure everybody's resilient and that no one has to be
without power for any reason. right so i don't i don't fight the future and and try to stop people from being self-sufficient
and self-sustaining that's that's just nonsensical matter of fact i have a whole unit headed by director of vinergize brian
walden to help facilitate people who are trying to make those decisions and trying to go into solar energy and and
whatnot we we we the net meeting program is our program we facilitate that program to assist our customers so we're not
worried about that we do need to maintain cover our fixed costs and i do want to play and be more competitive for the
large power customers the little mom and pop shop the little residential customer that's trying to help themselves we do
the bill is high if you have a means of helping yourself i want to help you help yourself the large power customers those
new hotels like the nice beautiful hotel on the waterfront those are the customers that i think wapa needs to play a little bit
more aggressively in providing power solutions to meet their needs coming in out the gate saying i want to be off grid
that is a problem for me i do want to make sure that those folks consider the utility because i can provide them on-site
generation i can provide them on-site battery storage um there's things we can do to ameliorate their concerns okay and i
think that's where our revenue is that's where
2:24:28
the big bang for the buck as far as covering that fixed cost really comes from okay so your business model see you've I
mean you've communicated to me that you're I guess you're making an adjustment to the WAPA business model to
accommodate for the reality of the day being that people are going solar in larger and larger numbers and the impact I
know you you know you don't have anything against people becoming more efficient and all of that, but as a utility, I
would say you would be concerned, you would have some concern if it had an impact on, you know, this person was
paying $500 every month on average to WAPA, and now because in the daytime they're using their panels to run their
operations, so at the end of the month, their bill was cut in half, so that's less money going to WAPA. Yeah, so if you're
here with me today and your solar panel is on, you're probably not using that much electricity at home. You're probably
selling some of that power back to me. Well, I'm buying that power from you at wholesale rate, and I'm able to resell that
to other customers that I need to provide energy to. I'm burning less fuel because you're using less energy, so I'm not
paying for that extra gallon or two of fuel. The business ultimately is scalable. I don't lose money. My shareholders are
the people of the Virgin Islands.
2:26:19
I'm not a private investor-owned utility, so as long as they have what they need, we are succeeding in our mission. If you
have power and I need to back you, I need to be your standby and your backup, I'm there for you if that's what you want
to do. If you can't afford it, I'm also there for you. If you live in a housing community, I'm there for you. If you're a
government agency, I'm there for you. There are entities that need WAPA. There are some folks that can help themselves.
Again, our mission is to make sure everybody has access to energy. If I could sell you the panel, I'll sell you the panel,
because I'm not in competition with solar providers. I'm not in competition with renewable energy. This isn't a new
2:27:51
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
21 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
thought. Remember, I did my turn as the director of the energy office, and I convinced the utility that you can't fight the
future. You have to embrace decentralized power production. You have to facilitate it. You have to build a grid that can
accommodate it. I don't see a conflict there, and I don't think customers should be worried. If you can help yourself, help
yourself. I don't want you to have to do it.
I don't want to force you into needing to generate your own power, but certainly if that's an option that you want to avail
yourself of, I'm there for you. Okay. Thank you for your response. Finally, the comprehensive plan that the Public
Services Commission mentioned that WAPA needed to have. I know we've spoken about this before, something I know
WAPA has had on their website, a transformational plan, you know, it's a general broad sort of thing, but it doesn't really
have a heavy, specific, detailed plan that outlives Carl Knight or, you know, because you leave, somebody else comes on
board and they just start from scratch. How much of a priority is developing something like that to the Water and Power
Authority, particularly since you're out in in fires. You're dealing with keeping the lights on every day and keeping
consistent power to folks. Is there a person, an entity, a team that is, who wakes up every day focusing on this? Or is it
something that is kind of forced to be placed on the side as a secondary priority because you're dealing with just survival
of WAPA? That's what I am feeling, what i am i am i am sensing no no no i i i we we are always we're always
positioning ourselves for what comes next we we fight the battles um i have with me the gentleman that deal with the
day-to-day issues so that at my level i could project one step down the road right so i'm not bogged down with just out in
fires my job is to always have a vision for what comes next the but to answer your question what what the PSC is
alluding to is an integrated resource plan yeah the most recent one that was done did inform the decisions to go to what
2:28:53
sellers basically I don't think I said what sellers but it talked about reciprocating engines and those being a more efficient
smaller units all of those decisions were informed by the last plans to run Alexander in the back knows that we've had
discussions about kicking off a procurement so we can bring in we've actually had some unsolicited offers to do
integrated resource planning for us because the landscape is changing so quickly. We have to adjust for this new prudent
replacement generators that are coming in, all the solar that we're putting in. We need to adjust for now the emergency
generation that we're doing. So we are at a point where even though the cart has left the barn, the horse has left the barn,
we still need to kind of catch up and pull this all in the context of how all of these things interplay what we're doing with
solar what we're potentially doing with wind energy what we're doing with new generation and how that actually affects
the grid and and grid stability so that is a necessary effort it needs to start this year it's it's a protracted process that could
take a few months but it is something that is necessary so I don't disagree with the PSC at all my setup before the end of
the year yes because I actually think I THINK IT'S, SO I BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD FUND IT FROM OUR
REPLACEMENT FUNDS, BECAUSE I THINK IT'S AN ELIGIBLE EXPENSE BASED ON THE FACT THAT I'M
ADDING GENERATION.
2:30:59
I NEED TO ADD GENERATION IN THE CONTEXT OF A PLANNING FRAMEWORK. AND SO WHILE WE'RE
RUSHING TO ADD THE GENERATION, I THINK BEFORE WE GET TO THOSE PERMANENT GENERATORS,
THAT THEY NEED TO BE INCORPORATED INTO A PLAN. SO AFTER I'M GONE, THERE'S A DOCUMENT
THAT SAYS THIS IS WHAT EXISTED, THIS IS WHY IT exists, and this is what WAPA should do next. OK. Finally,
I just want to end by really saying thank you to you and to Water and Power Authority. Just this past Good Friday, I live
in the Tutu Valley area, and there was, I got a call. You need to come down here fast because there's a WAPA poll that is
leaning over in the street because a truck was heading, I guess, in a westerly direction and slammed into the pole. And the
pole was practically on the ground. And at least 20 homes in the area were affected by it. They were knocked out. And
they were like, I know we will not have power for another three months. That was what the neighbors in the area said to
me when I showed up. And they were anxious. They were in distress. Because this was on top of the rotation that they
were dealing with. So it was a very stressful and overwhelming situation. And by the end of that Good Friday, they had
power.
2:32:24
So I just want to say thank you. When you do good, you're entitled to compliments. So I want to say thank you to the men
and women of the Water and Power Authority. Mr. Brown is hearing you loud and clear. That's his crew that was out
there. That's Mr. Brown. OK. Thank you. Yeah, so don't worry about buckets and whether we have bucket chucks or
whatnot. We don't respond. Mr. Brown? Thank you, Senator, on behalf of the team, Technical, Engineering,
Administrative. We appreciate the acknowledgement that, notwithstanding all the other challenges, we make the effort to
provide the best service we can.
2:33:44
Sure. Thank you. Thank you for that. Colleagues, we're going to go to our quick lightning round of... I'm tempted to say
30 seconds, but I can say three minutes. let's say two minutes two minutes because if i said two minutes you're gonna say
you're in the three minutes anyway so we're gonna say a two minute round if you need it you don't have to take it if you
don't need it it's a two minute round senator alma francis heiliger you're recognized for your two minutes thank you so
2:34:22
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
22 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
much um one of the things we were talking about earlier today had to do with the importance of the board um and one of
the things i'm going to be honest my colleagues had brought it up i think it was um in regards to the governor stepping in
and doing things he didn't have authority to do based on um wapa being an autonomous agency what did the board do
because i get a little bit confused when the governor just wakes up he intercedes negotiate things bypasses the board and
then now we're stuck with craziness what did y'all do about stuff like that because i try to understand how that worked let
me let me if i could put some context on that because i was on the other side um the watsilla had come to a stalemate with
wapa management they had walked off the job okay nobody's questioning that my question is how does that work how
does one minute and that was the only that was not the only thing it happened with it also happened with for example we
found out he just went ahead and negotiated a deal with the company in st croix for the solar panels and their bills you
remember all of that i remember all of it you weren't here but um i i'm not sure if the chairman was there um so i was
not here at the time but senator how does that work where the governor just jumps in and intercedes and bypasses the
board how does that work because that's something that's always confused me i would that's something that i would ask
government house but what i will say is that we have a board that has two responsibilities and i'll lump two into one the
lot of governance and oversight and a fiduciary responsibility but the law does not allow us as senators to just interject
the board is there for a reason to run wappa i as a senator just can't get up and interject and say you know what y'all
wasting my time let me just bypass i am going to negotiate a deal so i've never understood how our governor does these
things or maybe i'm overlooking something that i know is outside the confines of the law but that's something somebody
needs to clear up from me um what happened to us these last couple of days here specifically we we understand what
happened in saint john we spoke about it but saint thomas this was deplorable in my opinion i i was one of those very
much stressed out along with my constituents i got phone calls bombarded and i am of the mindset at this point we need
to start looking at other ways to clean up wapa i've been here this is my sixth year and i just feel like i keep having the
same redundant conversations over and over and over and we're not really getting anywhere it's always we could do this
this might happen propane could reduce this what silas could and it's nothing is happening in a positive light in order to
help reduce the utility bills in this territory time and that is what matters most to the people but i think i heard my time but
i really appreciate um the the time but i really think we need to clean this up thank you so much mr chair
2:36:18
thank you senator francis hi legger then it's an uncle jr first i didn't let me make sure senator franklin johnson good then
the focus jr you're recognized for your two minutes uh thank you mr chair um and i thank you to the panel before us
today listening and viewing audience um director night ceo night sorry um what we're seeing here in my opinion is a is a
desk a disconnect um housing finance authorities saying that there's 37 point 35.7 million dollars available for the grid
projects and they're funded they're ready to move um with no financial barriers and no pending pending payments i know
that they're not here today however that's what we read in the document that was provided to us and then on the other
hand of course the reality of what wapa has to deal with on a daily basis with with the um describing the extreme
conditions or strains that wapa goes through on a daily basis with the aging infrastructure the insufficient generation and
repeated outages um because of that but despite both of those realities technically being true or accurate these critical grid
stabilization projects have not started so what is it what is the core issue of these projects not starting even though the
funding is there what is it is it the permit process is it what is it exactly and then i want to know in the next 30 to 60 days
what can we expect from the water and power authority at this given point in time The core issues that was explained in
the letter that was read into the record is that they're in environmental review. As I understand it, they have to do
consultations with different agencies to satisfy HUD.
2:38:23
And so my understanding is that those projects are going through the environmental review process with local
governmental entities that are supposed to review these projects. we as a government know the critical nature of this issue
our departments should be in high alert mode they should be trying to expedite these things because of the nature of this
issue um i i would have liked to have dpnr here too you know based on that response along with obviously housing
finance authority and others but i don't want to belabor any longer but um we really need to work together that's what we
need to do it's all about performance at this given point planning is where it needs to be but performance is what needs to
get executed at this given point in time thank you very much mr chair then thank you uh mr moise yes um chair if i may
senator boquez i would like to discuss something with you to see if that may be what you're looking towards it's it's it's a
process that they utilize in puerto rico and i think it it may be helpful in some of the things we need to do here so i'll
discuss that with you at a later date if you don't mind 30 to 60 days mr chair um in response to mr senator bolkus um
repair of uh those two lines um the great bay line and the ridge road line going out to st john um i hope to have made the
the purchase of the emergency generators that we're talking about.
2:40:19
And if they're not here, that they're on their way to getting to us. And I am hoping that I can get a breakthrough on the
transformers that we spoke about earlier and have those also procured on their way to us as well, 30 to 60 days. Thank
you. Thank you, Senator Booker. Thank you. Mr. Knight. Mr. Knight, real quick. I know you had a meeting last week,
2:41:50
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
23 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
and I was in the States. I couldn't attend. Where were we with the street lighting, especially in the St. Thomas, St. John
District? So we are moving ahead with the resources that the Senate provided us.
I want to thank you for that. We are going to be procuring light fixtures and everything that we need. We are going to be
paying vendors that we are going to need to lean on to do some of this work. So we have a street lighting plan. Mr.
Brown has developed a street lighting plan. Essentially, it's focusing on that Rappoon Hill to UVI corridor that you had
previously discussed with us. Over on St. Croix, it's focusing on the Queen Mary Highway. So that's going to be the first
priority areas. And we've talked to our line superintendents about how we can do some of that work, maybe even utilizing
some of our young apprentices. So we are getting ready to ramp that up. We have some requests that we're going to be
placing to the finance division to start um the department of finance is not drawing down on those resources so we can do
the things that we need to do i thank you if i might just add to mr brown if the team could us take a look at um especially
from the university of the virgin islands maybe from blackpoint hill heading towards um as far as uh i want to say
community motors there's some trees that are really overgrowing not that the lights are not working but the lights are on
but because because the trees are so overgrown, they cannot illuminate the road. So you may want to look into that and
maybe, you know, upgrade them to the LED and so forth.
2:42:25
Senator Caller, those have to be recognized for your two minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on
the Chairman's question regarding the streetlights, because I voted for that. What's your time frame to get all of this plan
fully executed and completed? What is your time frame? Mr. Brown? Good afternoon, Senator. So the plan as it is, is for
one financial year and the priority areas, as the executive director mentioned, highways and high security risk areas.
Twelve months. Twelve months.
2:43:41
Okay, so you have your time frame, so we'll be monitoring them and the like. No, the street line is dynamic, so don't tell
me that the light went out over here. So 12 months to do the priority areas, but of course, as lights go out, we will try to
adjust it. i just wanted to see when you're going to commence and when it's going to be completed because if you don't
have a start date you can't have a finish date you got to start so you're saying 12 months start or 12 month finish 12
months to finish 12 months to finish okay good um now i i wanted to ask you mr knight relative to unit 15 being online
now offline 27 sorry sorry and knowing that 15 actually was using lpg yes is 27 also using lpg or this is diesel no it's a
diesel only unit it was supposed to be at one point converted to be able to use lpg was it not i'm not certain i know unit 23
was i'm not certain about unit 27 mr. Harrigan yeah we evaluated um converting unit 27 to LPG everything this was
before mr. Knight's time okay I know I remember something like that so it was not done no it was not okay so now we
are going to have an increasing cost for the to run this unit opposed to I'm sorry mr. chairman opposed to you running
LPG because diesel is more expensive than LPG. What is the differential in the cost?
2:44:17
It's still about 30%. The difference LPG is about 25% to 30% less than diesel on a BTU basis. But I also want to point
out, those aeroderivative units are very finicky. I think what we have had success with is on the heavy-duty gas turbines,
like Unit 23. But those aeroderivatives, the conversion isn't, necessarily uh uh straight a straightforward i'm just i know
this will be predated your time here mr knight but i know mr harrigan and those who've been working deep in the
trenches consistently would have known that that was a plan and i just wanted to understand if that's still a plan or that
plan has been scrapped entirely well initially uh during the conversion from what i recall there were some challenges um
some related to safety and some related to the operation of the gas turbine and lpg and um once that a relationship
between the contractor um dissolved the that project stalled under that contractor okay since then that's something that
we've discussed um internally to reduce the cost the fuel costs however due to that unit being included in our current
dispatch, we haven't prioritized that.
2:46:00
Okay, understood. And that's because you need to use that to help carry the load of the electricity so you don't have the
time to do the conversion. Simply put. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for the time. Thank you very much, Senator
Carlos Joseph. Senator Marvin A. Blyden, you're recognized for your two minutes. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Director Knight, I know that last senator spoke again about the generators for St. John and the transformers, and he said
30 to 60 days.
2:47:22
I'll tell him. Correct? Can you? The acquisition of the generators, yes. That's not installation and everything else, but I at
least want to be able to say that we have secured them and they're on their way. So you've already secured them? Sorry?
You've already secured them? No, no, no. I said within 30 to 60 days, we want to have them secured. because i want to
remind you remember we say you're going to have a conversation so i look forward to having a conversation before
because i'm telling you no no no not news let's have the conversation that's my point okay very well also in respect to unit
27 i want to honestly thank the crew wapa crew for actually putting that online because i mean it's going to cost a little
more but the price that we have paid in the same time as St. John District in terms of not having any power is worth way
more than that couple more dollars in terms of cost. So I want to say thank you to the workers and to the team for actually
2:47:54
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
24 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
being a generator online. But you just made a statement that it will not assist in, the PSC made a statement in respect to
that generator because she said it does it will not um provide backup or spare generation for service or maintenance um is
that accurate i i think what she was alluding to is that we still are on the margins as far as capacity you know until we get
15 or 23 one of the other units we're still not running with the necessary spare capacity we like to have we like to have
we'd like to be able to run the whole we want to be able to carry the whole load for the district with the largest two
generators offline and so that's probably what she's alluding to i want the timeline for those two large generators offline
what's that time time so 23 um mr harrigan said earlier it's about a year yes minimum 52 weeks out and 20 and 15 he was
much more optimistic with 15 but i i i'm not as
optimistic as he is but at this time um we haven't really finished that evaluation yet to determine the um the root cause of
failure however we're hoping to have the unit back online um at this time we i don't have a specific time timeline thank
you for your response here thank you so much for that thank you very much senator blyden senator lewis you're
recognized for your two minutes thank you mr chairman thank you for the four minutes um Mr. Harrigan, I don't want to
ask C.O.N.I.D.'s question, because I know his answer. So let me ask you this. You seem like a Garntarian kind of guy. If
we had to do it over, would you go with the Wadsilas?
2:49:55
That's a good question, and that's something we've discussed. Mr. Harrigan? Let's just say that I believe there is no bad
generation and the operating costs and the fuel savings that you receive from operating those engines, they are worth the
headache that they give us. Comparatively, when you compare GT15 and the fuel costs from the Watsila engines it's it's
night and day so in in essence what we should have is um when the most efficient mode of operation is compromised we
should be able to dispatch um backup generation until we get the units back online why don't you ask me the question
don't get rid of that guy he's on the team don't get rid of that guy but let's go to something else but i could answer that real
quickly right the phase one units really work well you find them out throughout the caribbean they're lpg only and they
work really really well the phase two i think we got a little bit too ambitious with the dual fuel operation and that is where
we've gotten a lot of headaches the phase ones i do again the phase two is probably not so let me ask this question you
and you're an electrical side you've got full prudent replacement in both islands right that's correct what about the water
uh same with water you actually have more money for water than we do for electricity so where we would water when
we go actually see no more brown water these you've seen brown water i'm sorry i'm still seeing it we um we have
several ongoing rehab projects um mahogany estate um blackbeard hill time um and then the bundles are supposed to
start up i think the first ones are in design and they're telling me what by the end of the year they're going to start
construction on the east end um bundle um so we have projects going on right now we have projects going on right now
and we have more to come before the year is out okay and and it doesn't sit this here right and again i go back to my point
let's put the information out there either in a printed media let's update the community i mean there's a lot to put in printed
media so on your website so people could actually see what's going on mr knight you know these timelines are real
critical you know when the governor first started out talking about we have billions and billions of of dollars people
really thought that the money wapa come sitting and i call nico go in and write
2:50:38
a check by board approval and just pay for these things nobody really sit down and said it's a 17 step process i know this
because i was on the other side so i understand this but the community don't understand this so we are thinking that you
have billions and billions of dollars and then when we hear we run into these problems and what i don't have no money is
that you can't use this money for this particular problem so it was never clear that delineation was never clear so again i'm
asking you however we could get the content out there so the community could understand let's do that and lastly we
disconnected no bill thank you very much uh senator lewis you recognize your point of information senator carla joseph
thank you thank you so much mr chairman mr chairman you know i like when you're sitting in that seat you don't leave
me ask because you know i have a whole heap of questions i just just one question and i just want to pivot because uh the
secretary mentioned about water now we have carnival time and we have all of these pipes and um the apron that we
have here in on the waterfront all of the cars are now shifted from fort christian to the apron does that affect our water
distribution because usually around carnival time we're seeing a lot of bus pipe especially on the apron and i'm wondering
if the apron has the capacity to constantly hold the load of all of these vehicles because the apron wasn't designed for that
that heavy load of all of these vehicles do you think that it has the capacity to be holding it or or the like or does that
contribute in any way to some of the issues that we have with the bus water pipes mr knight i i don't i don't know
anything about the design of
2:53:04
the waterfront apron um what i what i do know i know seismic activity even though it might seem far off does have an
impact particularly on the old cast iron pipes um so anytime you see trimmers just a little too close to saint thomas we're
probably going to spring some leaks um the cast iron system is aging on the waterfront apron uh part of that veterans
drive phase two will allow us to replace that 24 inch line it is a problem um every time it breaks we try to repair as much
of it as we can maybe one day we'll have a brand new pipe just by all these repairs all these um extra lengths of pipe we
2:54:51
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
25 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
add in to repair but it's not only is it um you got to bust up that concrete then you have to use heavy you have to use
cranes to lift that stuff it's very heavy it's a real difficult repair very time consuming and we lose a lot of water when that's
leaking because of of how large a transmission line that is but um with the new veterans drive phase two that's part of the
project okay thank you so much for that response thank you so much mr chairman thank you very much senator joseph i
must say uh mr harrigan ever thought about going to law school your answer was just some some loyally kind of you
know you know mr harry looks fairly young don't put any ideas in his head he's eligible for retirement and i don't want
him to start planning I don't know second careers at the time, sir.
I respected your response about the . I wanted to just ask you, I just have two quick questions, Mr. Knight. Should a
modern utility system be this vulnerable to a single point of failure? Is that something that is, I'm assuming It's just
atypical that a single act like that could have such serious ramifications. Certainly, we don't want to be this vulnerable.
2:56:13
And we haven't always been this vulnerable, and I hope we're not this vulnerable in the future. If we had been a stateside
utility, you would not know that Unit 15 had tripped. Because we would have either, you know, if you can't sell me the
power, i'm going to the next power generation plant down the road um you know when it wouldn't be a self-concerned
system you would buy power off the grid and if your unit is down i'm gonna buy from the guy who has a unit that's up in
most cases power generation facilities have multiple units one goes down you know they keep on trucking so we have a
unique situation here where we are vertically integrated we produce our own power and we're not tied to a grid if a unit
goes down mr harrigan starts to fix it immediately because there's no help, there's no extension core, there's no lifeline.
Either he gets that unit up and running or he has to do without it. When enough of those units go down, you have what
happened over the last two and a half weeks. So it's on us to try and turn these units around as quickly as we can. We've
been very fortunate during my tenure and that luck ran out three weeks ago. Okay. My final question. You admit over
and over, I think you said that several times today, that you lose money on fuel.
2:56:51
Yes. You said the WAPA loses money on every barrel of oil. How long has this been the case? It's been several years
now. So, the last time we were recovering, so the rates are set by the PSC to recover, is it 33 cents a gallon? About 33
cents a gallon. The most recent contract I signed was 48 and a half cents a gallon. Those rates have been in place since
the initial VITAL project, which is now like 15 years old. So, it's been at least a decade that we've been under-recovering.
Ever since VITAL pulled out, remember the mother ship used to be there?
2:58:10
filled up with fuel. Their pricing started to rise, but the LIAC did not rise with that pricing. So I would say at least eight
years, because that was the last change in the LIAC rates. It's been at least eight years. Okay. So knowing that, I mean,
isn't it, why has the business model not shifted just based on that? So the business model has to shift, right?
2:58:51
So the decision that I've made, the conversations I have with the board when I was interviewing with the board was we
have to find a way to reduce our operating expense to fit the rate. So if we agree that the rates are about as high as virgin
analysts should be asked to pay, and I'll say this at the risk of creating headlines tomorrow, these are not the highest rates
that we've paid in recent history. There's probably a penny or two there that won't kill us all. But if we agree that the rates
are pretty much at the top end of what we can reasonably expect Virgin Islands to pay without short-circuiting the
economy, then the only thing I can give is we have to find ways to cut expenses, reduce employees. We have to use more
technology, become more productive. We have to cut our contracts, make our contracts more affordable.
2:59:19
We have to find ways to cut operating expenses. That's been my mission since I got to WAPA, is to eke out opportunities
to cut expenses. So you have a plan to cut this structural deficit. Raising the rates don't seem to be a viable option. It's not.
But if you think people are angry with me now, they would be even more angry if I petitioned for a rate increase. So my
mission has been to figure out a way. Now, if it gets to a breaking point, because I am watching the price of fuel, there's a
point where we have to be reasonable. And, you know, I can't absorb. If I can't cut expenses faster and the fuel is rising,
something's got to give. I can't bankrupt the company either. So there's a point where if we have to do an emergency
petition, it might come to that.
3:00:15
But I honestly believe that there are ways to cut expenses. I think we did a great job last year in cutting expenses. There's
still some more fat we could cut, and I think we can do it without compromising our service. And that's the key. Shouldn't
that plan be reduced to rating? Shouldn't that be a plan, a brainstorming session of you and the board, your management
team, to come up with this holistic plan that you can execute? We do have a plan.
3:01:03
We certainly can sit and brainstorm with anyone. Matter of fact, a lot of the elements of that were part of my personal
five-year plan for the authority outlines a lot of those items as well. So certainly that's, yes, we have that. So that's just
part and parcel of our everyday operation. So aside from what these guys do to keep the power on, water running, we are
trying to, me and Ms. Kelly on the other side, trying to figure out how we streamline the operation.
3:01:34
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
26 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
And effectively we're going through contract by contract, looking at those ways to save costs. And another big part of
that is opportunity costs of costs that we do incur incur and making sure that our grant applications are written and
executed in a manner such that any any appropriate costs that would be eligible under those grants we've done a lot of
review in the last year to make sure that we are applying those costs for reimbursement um candidly that's that's caused
us to rub a little bit with odr um but uh we're we're refining that each month as we go along but we are looking at you
know rent what can we do so we're moving locations you know security what can we do the printing of the bills line by
line by line and i know you guys you know the plan that you have in mind to execute but i would love for us it makes us
feel better a sense of comfort knowing that there is this strategic plan in place that you thought about, well thought true,
that you're executing on a daily basis, that everybody in your organization is aware of, everybody's on the same page, and
you're moving in that direction. Things like that make you feel like this organization is focused, they are serious, this is
what they are implementing. So I would love it if I would see that plan, because you've been doing it, and anecdotally
You know, you got a co-op hiring and this and that, but it helps if that plan were reduced to writing and we would, you
know, the members of this body would be able to see it. You're absolutely correct. That's probably, I don't want anybody
to think we just shoot from the hip, and so we can certainly work on getting you a written version of that that kind of
outlines
3:02:05
what the plan is that other than raising rates, how we actually right-size the organization and so we can certainly pull that
together okay thank you for that colleagues we've it's been a long day we have exhausted our line of questions for the
WAPA team I'm gonna give the WAPA CEO and the board chair an opportunity to just give us your we normally say 30
seconds but since this is WAPA we'll give you one minute extra 30 seconds um so i just want to thank um senators i want
to thank you all we we we understood that there was going to be a the necessity for some accountability um based on the
start of 2026 that we're having and so um i don't um i'm not surprised that this hearing was called i think I think is a
necessary step in holding us accountable. I meant what I said in my testimony. We understand that the buck stops with
us, but we also, of course, welcome the help and support. We are a public utility and we welcome the help and support of
other governmental entities, other community entities, support us in being successful in our mission. We truly, no one
feels it more than us when we fail, because yeah the strain is on us we get it double both as employees and as customers
of the same utility that we are employees of and so we you know I've had personnel spend a 12-hour shift in the plant and
go home just in time to catch the rotation at their home and so they're highly motivated to resolve these problems because
they hear it from their spouses their neighbors their loved ones their classmates um they hear it and so we don't run from
the issues we we dive in um part of what i said earlier is i just need a recognition that the job is difficult because yeah we
are trying to total line our rates um we are trying to not take the easy way out
3:04:09
everybody that comes in and does an examination of our situation says well why don't you raise the rates we know what
that does to our people we know why that's not a palatable solution um we know that our economy just isn't in a place to
be able to handle everything else has gone up we don't want to add to that additional burden but it does mean that the path
is very tricky we will probably slip off the path every now and again like we just did um but i i see a very positive future
ahead um i outlined what that looks like quickly not so quickly and ultimately down the road. But there is a path ahead,
and I think we're making good, steady progress there. This was a setback. I just try to take two steps forward for every
step that we take back. Thank you for your time, and thank you for the very poignant questions. Thank you very much,
Mr. Knight. Chairman Moya? Yes, yes. One of the greatest challenges that we have at the authority is that we don't have
a power market as the executive director mentioned earlier we can't buy from anyone else we can't even take power from
St. Croix or vice versa if we did that would be we would have had this problem guaranteed I will tell you today as a
former power systems engineer we wouldn't have this problem but it gives us the unique opportunity amongst our
neighbors here in the Caribbean that we We have an influx of capital that we've never seen before. Nobody else has that.
3:06:17
They have to go to development banks at a very high expense to be able to do that. And we don't have that. We can go to
our federal partners, and they have supported us in this process. Time. If I may finish. Our challenge is, how do we hold
ourselves accountable? I'm really big on that. The authority, I don't say the authority when I speak. If anyone listens to
me, they always hear that I say we. I never say the authority. I don't separate myself from the authority because I'm on the
board and I hold myself accountable to that. What we must do going forward, because Senator Heiliger said it very well
actually, she's been here six years and hearing these conversations again and again. What I believe we understand we
need to do is come together in the same room to solve these problems together if we can do that no matter the differences
that we have from one side to another or anywhere in between we can seriously get this work done on time on budget and
most importantly on schedule because we only have so much time but a schedule is a little bit different than time and so I
want to make sure that as board chair that I not only hold we only hold management accountable but we also hold our
stakeholders accountable as well so I think that's very important I appreciate yourself and your colleagues bringing us
here today and I we feel the pain of the Virgin Islands community and I can tell you that we are working non stop so
3:07:59
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
27 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
thank you thank you very much I appreciate you taking the time to be here today appreciate you making this meeting a
priority and like I mentioned earlier
there's no way you can go on St. Thomas as a senator and you're not stopped and ask what's happening with WAPA you
know sometimes we don't have the words to to articulate, because we're not the subject matter experts, you are, and we
rely on you to provide that information in common language, plain language, so that the people of the Virgin Islands can
understand. And that was really the purpose for inviting you to this meeting here today.
3:10:00
You came, you showed up, and we are deeply appreciative to you for that. I know the temptation is always there, like I
mentioned earlier, to portray WAPA as the boogeyman. Nobody can be cheering WAPA and all of that based on just the
realities that they're experiencing on a daily basis. They're not saying everything is going great, because it's not. And I
don't think you came out saying that you guys don't have anything, what you're feeling is invalid. You're not saying that.
You face the music, you answer the question. That is important.
3:10:33
I think Chairman Moyer, you mentioned the need for this committee comprised of persons external to WAPA also, to
meet on a regular basis, to join forces, to brainstorm, to come up with solutions. I think there's value in that, and I hope
that we can see this come to fruition soon this year, for sure. it is in all of our best interests.
3:11:11
So on that note, the committee of the whole for Thursday, April 9th, before I do that, I wanna express my gratitude to the
hardest working central staff that any legislature could possibly have. And these guys do incredible work behind the
scenes. You don't even know they're there, but they're performing exceptional work, exceptional service. So we
appreciate you in a massive way. And I want to thank my staff for their support along the way also.
3:11:37
So having said that, the meeting committed a whole for Thursday, April 9, 2026 is hereby adjourned. Thank you. Thank
you.
3:12:14
People named in this transcript
SUSPECTED, and a finding aid only. Names were matched by machine against the spellings used across all 426 of our transcripts, and the
title is the one used in the room. Being named here is NOT evidence that a person attended or spoke · only that the name was said. Speech
recognition mishears names, so a spelling may be wrong even where no alternative is offered.
12x
Senator Kenneth L. Gittens
heard in this transcript as: Gittins, Gittins', Kennedy Gittins, Kenneth Gittins
7x
Senator Marvin Blyden
heard in this transcript as: Blyden, Marvin A. Blyden, Marvin E. Blyden
4x
Senator Carla Joseph
the surname alone also matches: Clifford Joseph; Karla J. Joseph
heard in this transcript as: Carlos Joseph, Joseph
3x
Senator Alma Francis-Heyliger
the surname alone also matches: Alma Francis Heiliger
heard in this transcript as: Francis Heiliger, Heiliger
3x
Senator Avery Lewis
heard in this transcript as: Lewis
3x
Senator Novelle Francis
heard in this transcript as: Francis
2x
Senator Clifford Joseph
heard in this transcript as: Clifford A. Joseph
2x
Senator Hubert Frederick
heard in this transcript as: Frederick
2x
Senator Kurt Avila
heard in this transcript as: Avila
2x
Senator Marise C. James
the surname alone also matches: Javan James; Giovanni James Sr
heard in this transcript as: James
2x
Senator Ray Fonseca
heard in this transcript as: Fonseca
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
28 of 29
Legislature USVI · Committee of the Whole
Bills and acts referred to
Matched by number against our own acts corpus. The number is what the recognition heard, so it may be wrong; where it resolved, the title is the one
the Legislature gave the act.
Act 7562
Act 7562 · An Act amending 33 V.LC., chapter 111, to establish the ·Single Payer Utility Fund· and the parameters for its use;
amending 2 VIC §28b relating to requirements under the Executive Appropriations Act; and providing for other related
matters, enacted by the Thirtieth Legislature at its regular session held on September 26 , 2013, (a copy of which is
attached hereto) and vetoed by the Governor on October 15, 2013, was duly enacted, by override, by the Thirtieth
Legislature at its regular session on October 23, 2013, pursuant to section 9(d) of the Revised Organic Act of the Virgin
Islands, 48 U.S.C. §1575 (d), notwithstanding the Governor·s veto, and has become law. DATED: __/0/23//3 ·Hu hdd M
Machine transcript · UNVERIFIED. Verify every quotation against the recording. Speakers are not identified.
VI Update · usvipublicrecords.com · public record, no rights asserted (CC0 1.0)
29 of 29