A federal penalty of $349,600 has been paid by the Ritz-Carlton resort on St. Thomas to resolve Clean Air Act violations documented by the Environmental Protection Agency. The consent agreement was filed in July and the EPA closed the case in August after receiving payment.
The property at 6900 Great Bay in Nazareth neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing but agreed to the settlement and new oversight conditions. Ritz-Carlton (Virgin Islands), Inc., the operating company, waived its right to appeal.
How the Investigation Began
EPA inspectors arrived at the resort on June 13, 2023, and subsequently requested records related to generators, boilers, dryers and the facility's air pollution permit, which the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources had issued in July 2012.
Generator Violations and Emissions Problems
Investigators discovered that a 1,825-kilowatt Caterpillar diesel generator built in 2012 had been operated for purposes beyond emergency use. The machine was certified to Tier 2 emissions standards but faced stricter Interim Tier 4 requirements when used for nonemergency work. The EPA traced this improper use to at least January 2015, with the practice continuing through March 2024. The resort's emissions from such operation exceeded applicable limits.
Reporting failures compounded the problem. The resort did not file required semiannual monitoring reports for 2021 and 2022, and submitted 2023 reports late. Annual emissions statements contained duplicated data: a 2022 filing repeated information from 2018. The facility also missed its 2022 annual compliance certification deadline and filed 2020 and 2021 certifications after the due dates.
Equipment descriptions in compliance documents were recycled across multiple years, including operational details that could not logically have remained unchanged between reporting periods.
Fuel Record Gaps
The EPA found that hourly fuel-consumption records for one generator were not maintained between at least 2021 and March 2024. When asked for fuel purchasing documents spanning several years, the resort produced only four diesel receipts from January and February 2024 and a single sulfur-content analysis from August 2020.
Operating logs and fuel-use documentation for a boiler and four dryers were also incomplete, violating federal permit requirements.
New Conditions and Compliance Steps
The resort must pay the penalty within 30 days and submit its next two semiannual monitoring reports and annual compliance certifications on time to the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources. It must maintain accurate annual emissions records for 2026 and 2027 and provide complete fuel purchasing records, sulfur-content documentation and hourly and daily fuel-use logs for all relevant equipment.
The generator must be restricted to emergency use only under federal rules, with confirmation of compliance sent to the EPA.
Braemar Hotels & Resorts, which operates the property, disclosed in an August 2026 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it had retained outside environmental consultants, reviewed generator operations and prepared new operating procedures to strengthen compliance. The company described the matter as resolved for approximately $350,000.
The resort's application to renew its air pollution operating permit, submitted in June 2024, was still pending before the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources when the settlement was finalised.
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