DOI funds eyed to close, convert dump

The CNMI is tapping into capital improvement monies from the U.S. Department of the Interior to fund the final closure and reuse plan for the Puerto Rico dump.

If funds become available “in a timely manner,” Solid Waste manager Steve Hiney said the plan could be implemented and fully completed after three years. The decades-old dumpsite will become a public park that will be ideal for viewing the scenic lagoon and Managaha Island.

Hiney said environmental consulting firm Earth Tech is in the process of finalizing a report that would be submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for approval, after the CNMI’s Solid Waste Task Force adopted a reuse option for Puerto Rico. He said EPA approval is expected sometime in August.

Hiney said the CNMI would ask the EPA to extend the deadline for the full completion of a final closure and reuse plan. The EPA is expected to impose a two-year deadline to complete the plan’s implementation.

Earlier, though, EPA’s Pacific Islands Office manager, John McCarroll, expressed the federal agency’s flexible stance in adjusting the CNMI’s compliance schedule, following the construction of the Marpi landfill, considered as the first fully compliant non-military landfill facility in the entire Pacific.

The task force selected a final closure and reuse plan among four options in a study conducted by Earth Tech, which was funded by an EPA grant. The task force wants to convert the dumpsite into a public park once final closure is implemented.

“Full compliant closure consists of making the slopes less steep, constructing a gas recovery system, and stormwater drainage controls. Groundwater monitoring wells will also be placed around the boundaries of the Puerto Rico property. A plastic liner will be placed over the waste, covered with two feet of dirt, and then vegetated,” explained the task force.

Based on the study, the annual cost and maintenance of the closure would be about $60,000.

“It is intended that paths will be constructed reaching to the top, where you will find a large grassy area to rest and enjoy the view of Managaha,” the task force said.

The park will have open-air pavilions and benches, restroom and parking space.

The construction of the park would follow the dump’s final closure—with a cost of approximately $8.5 million—once additional funding becomes available. An estimated $2 million will be needed to construct the park.

Located near the lagoon, the dump towers over 90 feet on some 20 acres of land, the leachate of which continues to contaminate the Saipan lagoon. The EPA had cited the CNMI for violating the Clean Water Act in the early 1990s.

After the gates of Puerto Rico were padlocked in February last year, the task force noted the need to stabilize the mountainous dump’s slope facing the lagoon to prevent possible collapse and contamination of the sea, an undertaking that needs several millions of dollars.

Earth Tech initially came up with eight reuse plans for the dump, which the task force narrowed to four, including the conversion of Puerto Rico into a cruise ship or floating hotel facility that could cost up to $75 million.