Senators learn $500K allotted for repairs of St. Thomas abattoir stalled by indecision
The abattoir on St. Croix has been operating since August 2020 with the promise of the revival of the St. Thomas abattoir to be on its heels, but two years later it remains closed even with $500,000 available in funding.
2022-05-05 12:20:30 - VI News Staff
The two abattoirs — the only ones in the country owned and operated by government — were initially placed on a 120-day suspension in February 2020 after receiving 17 non-regulatory citations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The St. Croix abattoir, after resolving the citations, was free to open its doors. The St. Thomas abattoir lags behind, having been closed for more than two years lawmakers with the Senate Economic Development and Agriculture Committee learned at a hearing Wednesday.
“The abattoir on St. Thomas has been down for some time,” Agriculture Commissioner Positive Nelson told senators. He added, however, that services were still available for residents and farmers on St. Thomas because the department shoulders the cost of shipping animals that are ready for slaughter over to St. Croix.
“There have been situations there prior to the storm. We are at the point where the engineers have done the [project worksheets] and all of these things, but there are new conversations coming up of whether or not to build it in the same location is the best thing to do,” Nelson said. “A PW was done to assess the cost of repairs for construction.”
When questioned by Sen. Alma Francis-Heyliger about why there would be talks of changing the location of St. Thomas’s abattoir, Nelson said the original discussion had “surprised him” as “an assessment was done and they determined that the building structure is good enough to rebuild.”
Clarifying, Nelson added there may not be any “real conversation” about moving the abattoir, but it had come up when the department was trying to obtain a scope of work from Public Works and the engineer was saying “we thought we were going to move it, why don’t we just move it?”
But this exchange which Nelson called not a “real conversation,” “halted everything” according to the commissioner.
Unsatisfied with Nelson’s response, Francis-Heyliger said the shipping of livestock was meant to be temporary and it is an inconvenience for those who live in St. Thomas.