A National Park Service planning team is working to define the role of Caneel Bay at Virgin Islands National Park/NPS file

Planners for the National Park Service are developing a framework for the role Caneel Bay should play at Virgin Islands National Park after the current contract for the resort there expires in September 2023.

“This is an important first step in envisioning a Caneel Bay that is fully integrated with the park and is a source of pride for St. John,” said Nigel Fields, the park's superintendent. “Steeped in cultural heritage and natural resources, Caneel Bay offers NPS an opportunity to better showcase the full splendor of St. John.”

Earlier this year environmental testing detected a variety of wastes, some hazardous to humans, on not quite eight acres of the grounds of the once-tony Caneel Bay Resort. That testing found varying levels of arsenic, elevated levels of certain pesticides, and a "mixture of benign organic materials, plastics, metals, and CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act) hazardous substances, including the pesticide DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls."

In September, it was estimated that cleanup would cost $6 million, though additional studies are planned for the coming winter to ensure there are no other wastes that need to be removed from the property.

The forthcoming cleanup has put a hold on talks with CBI Acquisitions to reach agreement on an operations lease to the resort that could take effect in the fourth quarter of 2023. The company has operated Caneel Bay Resort since 2004 under a Retained Use Estate agreement, or RUE, that the late Laurence S. Rockefeller dictated back in 1983. Under Rockefeller's wishes, the resort was to revert entirely to the Park Service in September 2023.

This past July the Park Service announced that a competitive bid process would be used to find an operator for the beleaguered resort, which sustained extensive damage when back-to-back hurricanes pounded the Virgin Islands in September 2017. That process will be affected by the cost of the cleanup and who pays for it.

According to a release from the park sent Monday, a team of NPS planners is focusing its early priorities on framing the stewardship, community and operational objectives for redevelopment. The Park Service will then work to define the project scope more completely, conduct a comprehensive environmental assessment and outline the site’s commercial, recreational and preservation areas. Planning in this initial phase will lead to a potential range of concepts to be made available for public comment this winter.

“We are taking the community’s ideas and concerns very seriously and value this input as we work together to determine the best future for Caneel Bay," Fields said. "We commit to keeping the public informed of our progress throughout the planning process,” said Fields.

The planning kick-off also coincides with the continuation of environmental testing at Caneel Bay to address data gaps cited in the Engineering Evaluation and Cost Analysis report, released in September. Among other inquiries, the EE/CA addendum will address potential groundwater contamination not previously analyzed due to weather conditions and seek to determine whether hazardous levels of lead or asbestos have been released to the environment.

Recommendations stemming from the addendum are expected to be considered next summer once findings have been analyzed, issued for public input and finalized. The current data gaps will not delay environmental cleanup and removal actions outlined in an Action Memorandum published to the Caneel Bay EE/CA project website last month.

Current information about the NPS redevelopment of Caneel Bay and related environmental investigations and actions are available at https://www.nps.gov/viis/caneelbay.htm.