Virgin Islands National Park officials are proposing a redesign of the Cinnamon Bay Campground/NPS graphic

A redesign of the Cinnamon Bay Campground in Virgin Islands National Park calls for 55 new "eco-tents" to be installed while retaining 31 "bare" sites for folks who bring their own tent or rent one from the concessionaire.

The redesign of the campground was called for under a new concession agreement the National Park Service reached last fall with the Redwood Parks Company. At Virgin Islands National Park, the California-based company is operating under the name Cinnamon Bay Resort and Campground.

At first, the new concessionaire wanted to install 64 eco-tents, but that would have required eliminating some of the bare tent sites. Due to public opposition to reducing the number of tent sites, the plan now calls for 55 eco-tents and all 31 bare tent sites that have been available in the campground.

For those who haven't been to Virgin Islands National Park, Cinnamon Bay and Trunk Bay are the main attractions for beach-goers. Both feature sugar sand beaches rimming warm turquoise waters that are home to coral reefs and multi-hued fish, from green parrotfish and yellow-and-black-striped sergeant majors to blue tangs. Cinnamon Bay offers the park's only campground.

Cinnamon Bay, Virgin Islands National Park/David Pinardi via NPS

To bring in 55 eco-tents, the park needed to clear some of the vegetation to make room.

Many of the eco-tents will be located in open areas where clearing of vegetation is not required. In some instances, because the configuration and size of the eco-tents differs from those previously present in the campground, vegetation including trees must be cut or completely removed. Park staff visited each site where vegetation clearing was proposed. In most cases the orientation of the tents could be modified to avoid tree cutting, but where cutting down a tree was necessary, staff identified specific trees. Usually, but not always, the trees were fast-growing species. No rare vegetation would be removed. The proposed group camp site has not consistently been used as an area for tents previously and has largely been used as an area to store excess soil, sand, and vegetation. The area is heavily disturbed and though artifacts were found here during recent earth moving, they are out of context and lack provenience. This area of the Cinnamon Bay historic district lacks historic and archeological integrity.

However, because trenching is necessary for electrical lines, and anchors need to be driven into the ground to secure the eco-tent platforms, more research was conducted on the proposed grounds and it was discovered that "the installation of new eco-tents would have an adverse effect to historic properties." Specifically, "(T)h entire Cinnamon Bay Valley is both a prehistoric village and ceremonial site dating between AD 1 to AD 1450 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The archaeological remains of two historic plantation sites that were conglomerated into one estate in the early 18th century are also present in this area."

To mitigate the disturbance of the ground, the Park Service and the Virgin Islands State Historic Preservation Office "agreed that the adverse effects associated with the installation of the tents and electrical power would be mitigated through monitoring and archaeological data recovery."

Due to public interest around the number and arrangement of eco-tents and bare tent sites, the Park Service is accepting public comments on this proposal through April 11. You can read more about this proposal and comment on it at this site.