U.S. regulators will require a new Clean Air Act permit for a troubled oil refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands, which could cost its owners hundreds of millions of dollars and take three years or more to obtain, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday.
Limetree Bay Refining, the problem-plagued plant that rained oil on St. Croix, filed for bankruptcy in federal court this week as activists widened their probe of the operation’s impact.
The Limetree Bay refinery, which caused a massive oil spill in the 1980s, first reopened in February under an order from the Trump administration, after eight years idle.
On the island of St. Croix sits one of the first major tests for President Biden's commitment to environmental justice: a major oil refinery coaxed back to life in the final days of the Trump administration.
