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LaStarr Watley From: Nate Olive <nateolive@gmail.com> Sent: Monday, March 23, 2026 7:09 AM To: Avery L. Lewis; La’Starr Watley Subject: Input on the incineration of resources -Virgin Islands Farmers Alliance [You don’t often get email from nateolivegmail.com. Learn why this is important at https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderldentification] This email was sent from someone outside of Legislature of the Virgin Islands. Always use caution when opening attachments, clicking links from unknown senders or when receiving unexpected emails. Dear Senators, I hoped to testify against the proposed incineration bill today however I have important business matters that prevent me from doing so. lam the president of the Virgin Island Farmers Alliance (VIFA) with 92 members across the territory. We are opposed to the bill as presented. Our primary worry is that the valuable resource of the so-called “Green waste” will prevent future municipal level composting projects. While the revised bill in its current form does mention composting, it does so purely in a manner that does not prioritize composting and seems to only have composting listed to appease opposition so that they can pass incineration as the main method of dealing with the so-called “Green waste”. “Green waste” in food, scraps and other carbon based outputs of society are actually valuable resources. Carbon is the basis for organic chemistry, and therefore the basis of all organic farming and food production. Carbon based materials are not waste. They are the evidence of life used to see if other planets in our universe have life. They are only waste if they are wasted. If they are incinerated, they are wasted. If they are composted, they are turned into a valuable resource that multiple municipalities across the country have proven can be profitable instead of a continual financial drain on the society. The Senate must ultimately decide if these carbon base materials are a waste or a resource, This is the question of the day. Please encourage your fellow senators to view these carbon materials as a valuable resource. Further, encourage them to bring Island Green Living’s compost project to the table. This project is ready to go since it was already funded by the EPA before it was recently stripped under the current White House administration. It would be incredibly ill-advised for the Senate, especially in a time of financial straits for the territory, to decide to view these carbon based out outputs as a waste and to turn our tax dollars into smoke instead of food and beautiful flowers for the territory while making a profit. Places like Athens, Georgia and Baltimore, Maryland prove that compost can be converted and sold by the municipality to actually make profit on this valuable resource. Should this debate continue past today, I would be happy to provide testimony as a 25 year professional farmer in the territory and member of the Virgin Islands Conservation District. Thank you for your consideration, and please feel free to read this in its entirety on the floor or to share in any medium that you see fit in order to prioritize composting over in incineration. 1, Thank you and have a wonderful day and may God bless the US Virgin Islands. Nate Olive, PhD President, Virgin Islands Farmers Alliance Director, Ridge to Reef Farm 2