Reefs, salt ponds and erosion: the nature around Epstein Island

Epstein Island sits inside a marine reserve

The land on both islands is private. The water around them is not. Little St. James and Great St. James sit inside the St. Thomas East End Reserves, or STEER, run by the territory's Department of Planning and Natural Resources ^1,2.

The system covers 9.6 square kilometres in three units: Cas Cay with the Mangrove Lagoon, Great St. James, and the Compass Point Salt Pond ¹. Mangrove forest, seagrass beds, salt ponds, lagoons, reefs and cays are protected ¹. The habitats were designated an Area of Particular Concern in 1979, the reserves themselves in 1994 ^1,2.

The boundary decides the question for the two islands. The St. James unit runs from the eastern edge of Cas Cay to the north-west shore of Little St. James, takes in Great St. James down to the mean high water line and ends at Cabrita Point ². Five privately owned cays lie inside it, both Epstein islands among them ².

St. James is the largest unit and the busiest, with recreational and commercial vessels moving through daily ². A protected-area database puts its marine surface at roughly seven square kilometres and rates the level of restriction as high ¹³.

The best known spot inside the boundary is Christmas Cove on the west side of Great St. James; the 2022 listing called the neighbouring island largely undeveloped and the cove a marine preserve ¹⁴.

Good to knowA private island and a protected area are no contradiction: the land has an owner, the water answers to the environmental department.

Reefs and seagrass, with a monitoring station off Little St. James

The shallow ground inside the reserve carries coral reef and hard bottom of the kind common across the Virgin Islands. A marine survey from 2008 counted roughly 45 species of hard coral, among them the threatened elkhorn and staghorn corals ².

The territory runs a long-term reef monitoring programme, and two of its stations sit in the reserve: one at Coculus Rock, the other off Little St. James ².

Unusually warm water in 2005 set off bleaching and a disease outbreak behind it, cutting shallow-water coral cover across the Virgin Islands by 40 per cent ². Inside the reserve losses ran from around 15 per cent on mixed hard bottom to over 50 per cent on reefs dominated by star coral ². Milder bleaching returned in 2010 and 2019 ².

Since 2019 St. Thomas has also faced a coral disease that causes tissue loss in stony corals. It spreads readily, affects many species and often kills whole colonies; as of 2022 the pathogen was unidentified ².

Pressure from close by adds to that: sediment and pollutants off the land, anchor damage, propeller scars in seagrass ². Conservation and construction touch directly here, because plumes from shore work settle over seagrass and coral and take their light ².

Salt ponds, turtles, a rare cactus and the tree boa

Salt ponds count as a threatened habitat type in the Virgin Islands. They catch rainwater, debris and pollutants and shield coral and seagrass from what comes off the land ². They serve resident and migratory birds as resting, feeding and nesting ground and hold the federally listed Virgin Islands tree boa ².

For Great St. James itself, a local commentary from 2005 lists four salt ponds, a fringing reef, green turtle nesting on the island's only true beach and a rare cactus on the cliffs, citing a soil survey under which roughly 60 per cent of the surface is boulders, stones and rock on steep slopes. That single local source is no longer reachable in the archive, so the figures carry no source number.

What the agency found when it reviewed the plans is on the record. The major coastal zone permit application of early 2017 covered mitigation for endangered corals and for the tree boa, sighted on Great St. James during site visits, and recorded that shoreline access including Christmas Cove would stay public ⁴.

The boa has been on the federal endangered list since 13 October 1970 ¹². In 2020 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed moving it down to threatened, then withdrew that on 27 September 2023: new surveys indicated one subpopulation had been lost, and the species still met the criteria for the higher level of protection ¹².

The territory's wildlife action plan names habitat loss to development on the east end of St. Thomas as the main reason for the boa's decline, and lists Great St. James as one of three islands whose purchase would be a priority for the protected-area system ³.

What the work on Great St. James left in the ground and the water

In May 2019 the environmental department confirmed unpermitted work on Great St. James, the third time in as many years ⁴. The worst environmental problem, in the agency's view, was not the buildings but what cutting the roads set in motion: erosion ⁵.

On a steep little island that follows. Cut lines across slopes strip the ground bare, rain carries the soil off, and it settles in the water on coral and seagrass ². The management plan ranks land-based runoff first among six groups of threats ².

In July 2019 the responsible commissioner listed what had appeared despite the stop-work order of December 2018: an excessive amount of extra roadway, two jetties and fill placed in submerged land ⁶. The maximum penalty then stood at $10,000 a day ⁶.

On 19 October 2019 the federal environmental agency and the territorial department inspected the site together. The federal inspector general, examining bribery allegations against the territorial agency at the time, found no evidence, closed the case and passed findings on water and waste violations back to the territory ⁷.

In the settlement reached with the estate on 1 December 2022, the environment appears as an item of its own: Attorney General Denise N. George announced that the estate would pay $450,000 for damage around Great St. James ⁸. The same release records that remains of centuries-old structures built by enslaved workers were razed for the development ⁸.

How much of that work was carried out, and what condition the ground is in today, is not on the public record ⁸.

The 2017 hurricanes on land and underwater

Irma crossed the northern Virgin Islands on 6 September 2017. At landfall on Virgin Gorda the hurricane centre put its strength at 155 knots, and a station on Buck Island off St. Thomas recorded 92 knots sustained with a gust of 119 knots ⁹.

For St. Thomas and St. John the report records widespread catastrophic damage and notes that both islands lost nearly all their foliage; fire and police stations collapsed and hospitals were badly damaged ⁹.

Maria followed two weeks later, coming ashore in south-eastern Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017 at 135 knots; damage in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands is put at about $90 billion ¹⁰.

Underwater a salvage effort followed: more than 7,500 corals were reattached at 28 additional sites in Puerto Rico and on St. Thomas, paid for by the U.S. ocean agency and a conservation foundation ¹¹.

Land habitats on the small islands came off worst. The wildlife action plan records that populations on the cays were hit disproportionately in 2017 because of their size, and that roads and buildings cut off the boa's routes out ³.

A side story concerns supply traffic. A 70-foot barge connected to Epstein, moored at a marina on St. Thomas, was blamed for heavy damage there during Irma; the marina sued for $160,473 in repairs and more than $70,000 for temporary work ¹⁶. That rests on a single local report and the outcome is not documented ¹⁶.

Trade winds, storm season and a rising sea

Weather in the Virgin Islands runs on the trade winds, which blow east to west across the tropical Atlantic. They are stronger in winter and bring less rain; summer brings more rain under lighter winds ¹⁵.

In summer tropical storms and hurricanes occasionally approach from the east and the south ¹⁵. The reserve keeps a zone for that case: anchoring is allowed there only from 96 hours before an expected landfall, otherwise it is a preservation zone ².

The management plan puts sea level at the top of its concerns: a vulnerability assessment from 2023 rates most of the boundary between land and water here as highly vulnerable, above all to sea level rise ².

Because roads, marinas and buildings crowd the waterline, the shore cannot retreat inland, and the plan expects mangrove and wetland to be lost ². Fresh work at the water's edge of the two private islands meets a system with little room left ².

What happens next depends on the next building application. Filings since the change of ownership are in the 2023 sale, the permit file in Great St. James.