💧 Water and Power · U.S. Virgin Islands
WAPA director rejected delegate’s call for emergency declaration in letter to Gov. Bryan
Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority Executive Director Lawrence J. Kupfer said in a September 24, 2019 letter to Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. that there was no basis for declaring a state of emergency at the utility, responding to a request made by Delegate to Congress Stacey Plaskett.
WAPA said Plaskett had written the previous week to Bryan and Senate President Novelle E. Francis Jr., describing an energy crisis at the authority and calling for extraordinary action to provide immediate relief to customers.
In his response, Kupfer said many of the steps proposed by Plaskett had already been taken or were expected to be taken by WAPA. He said the authority was already pursuing technical expertise from the U.S. Department of Energy for generation planning, seeking a reevaluation of Virgin Islands allocations under the Bipartisan Budget Act through HUD, and pursuing Rural Utilities Service funding and other federal assistance.
Kupfer also disputed Plaskett’s call for what she described as radical reform, writing that such changes were not needed to obtain federal resources that he said were already available to and being used by the authority.
The letter also asked Plaskett to provide the root-cause studies underlying her conclusions about WAPA’s financial and operational problems.