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DEQ needs help locating leaking storage tanks
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Posted on Aug 04 2008
The Division of Environmental Quality is asking community members, especially those who have lived in the CNMI for several decades, to help pinpoint where leaking underground storage tanks might be located.
At a public meeting Monday, Bill Concepcion, of Duenas & Associates, Inc., who is conducting the site survey, shared the locations and information of tanks he and his co-workers have been able to find. But they need more help from community members, he said.
“We need to check the minds of all the people to see if they recall any buried tanks,” Concepcion said.
Using georeference coordinates from maps dating back as early as 1944, Concepcion and his colleagues have been able to locate some underground tanks, he said.
There was a Japanese radio station where Oleai Elementary currently sits, he said. Radio stations usually have a power generator supply.
Saipan Community School is the location where many locals would dig up cans of “blue gas” to use as fuel for their cars, Concepcion said. The fuel had been used as aviation fuel before the war.
“They say the blue gas was left by the Japanese in drums,” he said.
Concepcion said there is also evidence Joeten in Susupe currently sits on a tank.
“If you look at the parking lot, you can see the evidence of a tank,” he said. “It looks like cement was just poured over it.”
DEQ will continue to hold meetings to try to find out from community members what they remember, Concepcion said.
There are two more meetings this week:
* Tinian—Thursday, Aug. 7 at 11am in the Conference room of the Office of the Mayor
* Rota—Friday, Aug. 8 at 11am in the Conference room of the Office of the Mayor.
