(a) The public health and safety and the environment are threatened where wastewater and solid waste is not managed in an environmentally sound manner and where there are not sufficient waste management facilities available;
(b) Providing environmentally-sound management for the collection and disposal of solid waste, including operation and closure of landfills, along with wastewater collection, treatment and disposal, is essential to the preservation and improvement of the health, welfare and living conditions of the citizens of the Territory as well as to the promotion and growth of industry and employment and the problem of managing wastewater and solid waste have become a matter of territorial concern;
(c) The existing Virgin Islands wastewater and solid waste management systems have not been able to achieve and maintain compliance with the mandatory requirements of the Territorial and Federal Air and Water Pollution Control Acts, Federal Solid Waste Disposal Act, and Territorial Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Act and their implementing regulations as promulgated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Government of the Virgin Islands;
(d) It is the policy of the Government of the Virgin Islands to comply with all Territorial and Federal mandates and ensure that the Territory's wastewater and solid waste management systems adequately provide the required services;
(e) Improperly functioning septic systems represent a real and immediate public health problem. Improperly functioning septic systems are discharging wastewater directly into the bedrock and into the groundwater, or overland into surface waters. These discharges contaminate drinking water sources, threaten coastal ecosystems, and pollute recreational areas;
(f) It is in the best interests of the Government of the Virgin Islands to create an autonomous Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority to assume all the powers, duties, and responsibilities pertaining to wastewater and solid waste management services in the Territory, as specified by this chapter; and
(g) The provisions of this chapter are hereby declared to be necessary for the protection and enhancement of the public health and welfare and in the public interest.
(h) Therefore, the Legislature declares that the purposes of this chapter are:
(1) To protect the public health and safety, the health of the environment from the effect of improper, inadequate, and unsound management of waste water and solid waste;
(2) To create an autonomous Virgin Islands Waste Management Authority to establish a program of regulation over the management, storage, transportation, collection, treatment and disposal of wastewater and solid waste; and
(3) To assure the safe and adequate management of all waste within the Virgin Islands.