#UCSTX
Natural Disasters
West Indies Lab
The Absence of a Marine Research Station on St. Croix
“All this madness over one splendid little patch of real estate perched above an azure sea [referring to the location of the previous West Indies Laboratory] may not mean much in the great global scheme of things. But it embodies the real life of conservation worldwide, in which misunderstanding, moral pride, blind eccentricity, endless delays, and the limitless loquacity of the dollar can easily overwhelm the best-laid plans. We want to think of the conservation as a matter of rational thought and rational action, when in fact the arcane, unpredictable, and just plain screwy caprices of human nature are many a time what determine the outcome on the ground.” -McNamee[i]
Farleigh Dickinson Jr. was a twentieth-century renaissance man; he was a philanthropist, businessman, New York State Senator from 1968-1971, and co-founder and board chairman of the Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU), located in New Jersey.[i] Dickinson had a passion for ecology and a respect for scientific research, which ultimately led him to donate about 200 acres of personal property on the east end of St. Croix for the purpose of creating a marine education and research center. His vision came to fruition in 1970, and the University dedicated the new facility, the West Indies Laboratory (WIL) in 1972.[ii] This facility would excel in marine research and education. for almost two decades, but the laboratory would ultimately prove unsustainable. The laboratory closed following Hurricane Hugo’s traverse over the island on September 17- 18, 1989. Controversy ensued over FDU’s decision to close the lab, and significant efforts have been made since, initially aimed at reopening the WIL, but later, to build a a new marine research laboratory in St. Croix. Political and societal divisions in the past twenty- five years among islanders as well as between residents and federal-government entities, such as the National Park Service, have hindered the development of a new facility. What becomes apparent, though, from the story of the WIL and the controversies in the aftermath of its closing is that St. Croix is viewed by many people as a particularly appropriate location for a field research station and the thought of its reincarnation in some form cannot easily be dismissed.
Above: Map of the east end of St. Croix. The red dot indicates the location of WIL.[iv]
Above: Birds’ Eye View of WIL and Marina[vi]
The establishment of the WIL in St. Croix was felicitous, as research on Caribbean coral reefs and coral fish flourished in the 1970s, and the WIL’s development reflected several significant trends observed among early and mid-twentieth century science labs in the Caribbean. First, the laboratory was part of an existing university. The lab was affiliated with other universities, including a longstanding affiliation with the University of Rochester, but FDU clearly was in charge of the lab.[i] Second, the WIL was established through an endowment; as previously mentioned, Dickinson donated all of the land that housed the WIL. Third, its development construction was largely due to the efforts of a few committed individuals. Dickinson envisioned the marine lab and, through his efforts, it became a reality. The lab’s focus on coral reefs and adjacent marine environments reflected not only St. Croix’s location, but also the specific interests of it first director, Dr. Grey Multer, who was a reef geologist,.[iii]
The West Indies Lab earned an excellent reputation; an extensive portfolio of influential research, reflected in some 250 scientific publications, was produced by researchers who used the lab’s facilities. The WIL also provided opportunities for professional networking in an informal setting.[ii] Its unique and key location undoubtedly also contributed to its success as an “internationally prominent laboratory, “[iii] and even led to a formal relationship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Undersea Research Program, including the deployment of an underwater research habitat the Hydrolab, at Salt River. The WIL’s prospects appeared strong, as a 1985 New York Times article titled “A College Succeeds In St. Croix” conveyed.
The facility was more than a place to collect information; it was a place that broke down barriers between levels of education, where students could bump shoulders with prominent researchers. FDU experienced significant growth in enrollment during the 1970s, which helped the lab’s growth.
News clippings and interviews indicate, however, that FDU began to struggle financially in the 1980s, and this, in turn, impacted the WIL. Because of its financial problems, FDU attempted to cut its overall budget and retool its curriculum to make it more appealing to incoming undergraduate students, as enrollment dropped substantially. During 1984, the university took measures to address its $3.5 million budget deficit by eliminating over 150 faculty and staff positions and cutting back on the liberal arts curriculum.[i] Faculty union strikes plagued FDU in the mid-1980s as these reductions were implemented. The university began to see the WIL, although operating at full capacity, as a financial drain. The land was valuable, but the facility built upon it could serve only forty tuition-paying undergraduate students each semester; by 1989 the University had sold much of the land around the lab to gain extra capital.[ii] The scientifically valuable research was of only limited financial value in the face of the University’s budgetary problems.
By 1982, two years prior to the cutbacks in New Jersey, Farleigh Dickinson University wanted the lab to become a moneymaker for the University, rather than losing money or simply breaking even.. However, Elizabeth Gladfelter, former director of the West Indies Lab, suggested that during the 1980s the lab had strong prospects to attract an increased number of students from FDU and outside universities. [i] The aforementioned 1985 New York Times article claimed, “Fairleigh Dickinson University’s West Indies laboratory on this United States Virgin Island (St. Croix) is still attracting its fair share of students.“ The lab, according to the article, had to alter its focus a bit to enhance its appeal to the growing numbers of “environmental studies” students, but it was still filling spots. [ii] The research and teaching programs also became increasingly well-known and respected through the- 1980s. Gladfelter visited over 100 campuses between 1983 and 1987 to spread information about the program, and she succeeded in creating formal agreements with five universities who would constitute the West Indies Lab College Association, diversifying and expanding the lab’s student body.[iii]
Above: Out at the West Indies Laboratory[viii]
Below: Scientists studying at NOAA’s Hydrolab, St. Croix [xi]
On top of its ongoing financial struggles, the WIL experienced an additional financial liability issue in 1986. A support diver at the Hydrolab, Peter Etu, became ill from decompression sickness, commonly known as “the bends.” As this was a debilitating illness that made him unable to perform his job and hospitalized him for some time, Etu claimed to be an employee at the time of injury and sued the University, despite signing a liability waiver.[iv] At a time when the University was already taking drastic measures to address its deficit, such legal battles were not good news.
The broader outlook for U.S. government-funded scientific research was also becoming less promising during the 1980s. During the Reagan administration, funds for research across the board were reduced substantially in response to the United States’ economic recession. Even funding for AIDs research, a major new health concern during the period, was limited.[v] At first, only the “soft sciences” (the behavioral sciences and other sciences outside chemistry, physics, biology and other natural sciences) were targeted, which would not have altered the amount of funding potentially available to scientists who conducted their research at the WIL.[vi] However, in 1986, newspapers reported that federally financed research was cut in half.[vii] Even though environmental concerns were growing in the 1980s, the decade became a difficult period for universities to acquire federal funding in support of environmental research and other activities. As the WIL depended partly on the success of research scientists to acquire funding for work to be conducted using the lab’s facility, this added to the financial pressures it experienced.
Beyond the mounting financial problems, the WIL had other potential problems connected to its location and research focus. First, despite good intentions when established, the lab did not have an extensive outreach program with the St. Croix community. This may partially have been due to the location of the lab the east end of the island, which is dotted with comparatively large homes and gated condominium communities, seen as culturally detached from, and more affluent than, many other parts of the island. In addition, the residents of the east end tend not be native to St. Croix or the Caribbean, but, instead, are native to the mainland United States and often don’t live in St. Croix year-round. In many respects, therefore, the part of the island where the lab was located was socio-economically and geographically isolated, and many residents of St. Croix did not (and still do not) cross the unmarked, but palpable “East- West Divide.”[viii] Also, while the WIL had great access to the waterfront, the lab was not centered in a significant town, such as Christiansted or Frederiksted, which would have allowed for natural interaction with a broader spectrum of island residents. Another potential limitation was the lab’s focus on marine research, specifically coral reefs and adjacent marine ecosystems, including seagrass beds. While this research was of great fundamental scientific importance, it is arguable that many island residents never knew about or appreciated its value, particularly back in the 1970s and 1980s. Given all of the aforementioned difficulties, the WIL was in a vulnerable state as the 1980s were drawing to a close.
Left: Yacht Club, used by WIL, after Hugo[xxiv]
Right: WIL campus Post- Hugo[xxv]
On Sunday and Monday, September 17-18, 1989, Hurricane Hugo, a category four storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, passed directly over St. Croix during a twelve-hour period, causing catastrophic damage across the island.[i] Approximately three out of every four homes lost their roofs. The infrastructure of the island was largely destroyed; electricity, telephone service, and water services were all severely damaged, and it took quite some time for services to be restored to the entire island.[ii] Prior to the hurricane, Elizabeth Gladfelter and other resident faculty and staff, visiting researchers, and students, all pitched in to do what they could to shore up the lab, board up windows, screw down hurricane panels for all buildings, tie down boats, and make other preparations. Nevertheless, the lab’s facilities were very severely damaged, with some buildings completely destroyed.[v] As John Bythell, a researcher at the WIL, wrote in describing his “first look outside,” the lab suffered “unbelievable destruction.”[vi] Some of the West Indies Lab’s dorms, for instance, were in ruins.[vii]
The destruction caused by Hugo did notimmediately lead to the closure of the WIL. At first, classes were cancelled for the semester, but then the University cancelled classes for the 1990-1991 school year, with plans to reopen afterwards. Elizabeth Gladfelter led efforts to keep the lab open, often visiting the President of FDU, Robert Donaldson, to discuss the lab. In an interview, Gladfelter mentioned that the new University President, Francis J. Mertz, was enthusiastic about rebuilding the lab at first, but this began to change in early 1990 when he suggested reducing staff at the lab.[viii] By February of 1990, the laboratory’s outlook appeared bleak.
Not surprisingly, given the University’s financial difficulties, money was of paramount importance in deciding the fate of the laboratory. In a 1990 New York Times newspaper article, Dean Gary J. Bronson told reporters, “ ‘Finances always plan an important part’ in university decisions…adding that the Virgin Islands laboratory ‘had a history of costing the university.’ Last year it cost the school $220,000 to $250,000.”[ix] The destroyed lab provided an unexpected opportunity for FDU to break free from what they saw as an unprofitable operation and apply an insurance settlement towards the University’s debt. Throughout the 1980s, enrollment at FDU was dropping; in 1980, the University’s enrollment was 20,195 but by early 1990 the University it had fallen to only 13,000 undergraduates. [x] The University could accept $1.5 million in insurance for rebuilding costs, or, instead, could receive $750,000 as a buyout, and close the lab.[xi]
On February 20, 1990, the FDU Board of Trustees voted “to rebuild if the University does not need the funds for general University purposes of higher priority.”[xii] Less than two months later, however, the board cancelled classes at the lab for the following year. This was followed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s decision to move the underwater habitat Aquarius (the successor to the Hydrolab) from St. Croix after the discovery that FDU’s Associate Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, Richard Touma, embezzled funds from the project. [xiii] Although Elizabeth Gladfelter gathered letters from scientists worldwide petitioning for the WIL to remain open, the University decided officially to close the lab on June 13, 1990. Gladfelter managed to win a temporary order from the Virgin Islands Territorial Court to keep the lab open for three months on the basis that FDU did not honor the Virgin Island’s plant-closing law, in which employees have the first right to purchase. However on November 30, 1990, Gladfelter and the rest of the lab’s staff received a notice from FDU’s Office of Academic Affairs that the WIL was closed The notice also conveyed that in case of an emergency, efforts should be made to contact Mr. Sid Farber and Mrs. Nadia de Navarro Farber (known locally as the “Contessa”) , prominent landowners who had been slowly purchasing the land surrounding the WIL during the 1980s and, when the opportunity presented itself after Hurricane Hugo, the lab grounds themselves.[xiv]
After the official closing of the WIL, there were proposals to reopen a laboratory on St. Croix, as it had been increasingly clear over the years that “reefs around St. Croix, including the underwater national park off Buck Island [a small island located near St. Croix’s northeast coast], are important scientifically and economically.”[xv] The first proposal, pursued by Gladfelter when FDU first suggested closing the lab, was to bring in the University of South Carolina (USC), which already had a well-known marine science program. USC offered to rebuild the lab and before it became clear that the Contessa had already signed a contract with FDU to purchase the property.[xvi] USC then considered another nearby location on the east end St. Croix, Cottongarden point,.[xvii] However, despite the St. Croix Environmental Association’s support, there was significant local opposition against extensive development at this pristine location. Gladfelter observed that the efforts to recreate the lab at Cottongarden Point simply took a while and “people move on.”[xviii]
More recently, another significant proposal to establish a marine lab on St. Croix has been proposed by the National Park Service (NPS). As an effort, in part, to protect coral reefs, the organization proposes to build a major marine institute, known as the Marine Research and Education Center (MREC) at the Salt River National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve (SARI). In 2001, the NPS acquired 73 acres at Salt River Bay, an important archeological site thought to have been the location of a 1493 landing by Christopher Columbus. Between 2004 and 2006, feasibility studies and environmental assessments were completed to determine whether the SARI would be an ideal location for what NPS termed a “Marine Park.” NPS collaborated with Rutgers University, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Virgin Islands to conduct these studies. Millions of dollars have now been spent on this project, and, as of 2012, the estimated costs for the actual construction of MREC were $54 million.[xix] However, like the earlier Cottongarden Point efforts, the proposed MREC has become controversial because of the apparently poor relationship between residents and the federal government, which, in the view of some islanders, is increasingly buying up, protecting, and placing rules and needless limitations on the use of St. Croix’s land and its surrounding waters. These and related issues, including the potential environmental impact of the MREC, are discussed more fully elsewhere in our group report .[xx]
That said, the continued, persistent interest in the development of a new marine laboratory on St. Croix 25 years after the destruction of the West Indies Laboratory reflects the view among many constituencies that such a lab would be of great value to the island and the region. As discussed elsewhere in our group report, an expansion of the new lab’s programmatic purview, and fuller integration with the St. Croix community would enhance its resilience and prospects for long-term success.