Receipt of HUD Funds Will Force WAPA To Become More Reliable, Says VIHFA

Last week, lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Disaster Recovery pressed representatives from the V.I. Housing Finance Authority on ensuring the Water and Power Authority improves the reliability of its operations.  Dayna Clendinen, VIHFA interim executive director, told legislators that as the agency which will receive funds from Housing and Urban Development on behalf of WAPA, VIHFA has a responsibility to ensure that the utility was using “its most reliable, modern generators to facilitate increased power reliability." Senator Kenneth Gittens asked Ms. Clendinen why – if that is the case –  has the territory been suffering from a rash of unplanned outages over the past few weeks. Ms. Clendinen explained that VIHFA’s oversight role will not begin until the requisite agreement between the two agencies has been entered into later this month.  She disclosed that VIHFA’s first substantial amendment to its Mitigation Action Plan, to include the funding for WAPA’s acquisition of the pr...