USVI to get full-time Coast Guard cutter
|
| Published on Monday, December 29, 2008 |
Email To Friend Print Version |
By Susan Mann
Caribbean Net News US Virgin Islands Correspondent
Email: susan@caribbeannetnews.com
WASHINGTON, USA: Delegate to Congress Donna Christensen said on Saturday that she and the people of the territory got an early Christmas present last week when the US Coast Guard announced that the US Virgin Islands will get its own cutter to patrol the waters around the islands in March.
Christensen, who initially had a difficult time convincing some of her congressional colleagues that the territory needed additional homeland security monies, is clearly pleased about this latest turn of events.
 |
| Delegate to Congress, Donna Christensen |
“I was extremely excited to learn that the Coast Guard Cutter Reef Shark is nearing the final stages of construction in Louisiana and is expected to be commissioned in late February with its primary focus being patrolling the waters off the US Virgin Islands.”
As a member of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Christensen had pushed Coast Guard officials to establish a stronger presence in Virgin Islands with legislation asking for a border patrol specifically for the territory and for acknowledgement that the territory was an important part of the United States border in need of stepped up patrols.
Last April, the House Homeland Security Committee visited the territory and an interagency Department of Homeland Security report concluded that there was a need for an increased presence in the waters surrounding the Virgin Islands.
According to a letter to Christensen from Rear Admiral R.S. Branham of the US Coast Guard, which invited her to be the vessel’s sponsor and to give the keynote speech at its formal commissioning ceremony, the Cutter Reef Shark will be involved in search and rescue, law enforcement, maritime homeland security and fisheries/marine sanctuary patrols, as well as illegal drug and alien migrant interdiction duties off the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
“I am pleased to accept Rear Admiral Branham’s invitation to sponsor the REEF SHARK and participate in this time-honored naval tradition. I consider this to be a high honor for the people of the US Virgin Islands, in whose name I accept the invitation to sponsor and to keynote at the commissioning ceremony,” Christensen said.
The Reef Shark will homeport in San Juan, Puerto Rico and its commissioning ceremony will be held in the near future. | | | | Reads : 4319 | | | |
|
|
