April 17, 2005 – The controversy concerning dredging around the Ann E. Abramson Marine Facility pier isn't the first Frederiksted pier controversy. There was debate when the previous pier was damaged and was to be replaced with this one.
Dive shop operators and environmentalists, some of the same people in the current controversy, advocated leaving the old pier where it was and building the new pier a few hundred yards north.
Dan Odell remembers that battle. He said that was the big one to lose. The colorful sponges, coral and the fish around the old pier were established more extensively than they are around the present pier, and the old pier should have been saved, he said.
He took a small group of people snorkeling around the pier Sunday to show them the sea life beneath surface and to examine the extent to which it has grown back since the first debate.
Before he even got out of his wet suit, while he was sitting in the sand taking off his fins, he said he was surprised at how much the marine life has grown back since the new pier was built: "I am going to have to eat my words. It has come back. It is beautiful."
Odell, who taught marine science at Central High School for 23 years, has been snorkeling and diving around the pier for over two decades.
But even after the snorkeling trip where an octopus was spotted, a scorpion fish was riled up and many schools of yellow jacks appreciated, he didn't change his opinion of the general environmental health of the area. He said the area has been overfished, and that marine life in the area was not as rich as it was 20 years ago.
But the pier, with its recovered sponge population full of color, impressed him. He added, "We even saw some large fish out there."
Odell, a former board member for St. Croix Environmental Association and once chosen as Environmentalist of the Year, doesn't see himself taking part in that battle over dredging at the pier.
"I just hope they do it quickly and cleanly," he said.
Odell is proprietor of the Suite Birds of Paradise eco-lodge and takes groups on nature hikes and snorkeling tours.
Ironically, the V.I. Port Authority is asking to remove debris and pilings left from the original pier. (See "Permit Approved for Dredging in Frederiksted").
Dredging the southern berth of the pier should remove approximately 20,000 cubic yards of material. Dredging on the north berth of the pier to should remove 30,000 cubic yards of sand. The dredged material will be stored at the Gordon Finch molasses pier.
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