Flashback – June 10, 1999-2003

[B][U]June 10, 1999[/U][/B] [B]Tinian mayor: No to casino[/B]

Tinian Mayor Francisco M. Borja has vowed to fight plans to establish a casino on Rota, but said he would vow to wishes of the residents of the island municipality if they approved the project. “Any form of gambling that is in competition with Tinian, we’re always not in favor of that, but if the people of Rota decided to have it, we cannot stop them,” Borja said in an interview.” Last week Rota Mayor Benjamin T. Manglona unveiled plans to establish the ambitious casino project in the island municipality, a proposal he planned to submit to residents in a balloting during the November midterm elections.

[B]CIP Committee eyes 2 new high schools[/B]

Aside from considering budgetary savings and the opportunity to offer facilities for specialized education, the usual preference of young students to attend a new school would again pose over crowding problems. In a proposal to consider building two new high schools on Saipan, Public School System CIP Committee said the construction of one new high school will result in overcrowding, while leaving the Marianas High School under utilized. Based on the original PSS CIP plan, Saipan will build one new high school and a junior high school. In defending the proposal for two new high schools and convert MHS to a junior high school, the recommendation said all students would go to the older middle schools and will look forward to attending to the two new high schools.

[B][U]June 10, 2002[/U][/B] [B]Audit on cost-effectiveness of HPMR eyed[/B]

The Northern Mariana Islands Retirement Fund is set to ask the Office of the Public Auditor to conduct an audit that would compare the expenditures of Group Health and Life Insurance before and after it hired a third-party administrator. The Fund’s Board of Trustees voted during Friday’s Board meeting to request the audit, amid criticisms and complaints from local health care providers over the Fund’s decision to hire Hawaii Pacific Medical Referrals as third-party administrator for Group Health. Trustee Thomas Saures made the motion for the audit request. The Board agreed that the audit would initially cover on-island claims.

[B]Fuel leak remediation at Saipan airport stopped[/B]

Remediation work of the jet fuel leak at the Saipan International Airport, which involved an estimated 6,000 gallons of petroleum threatening groundwater contamination, has been stopped sometime this year, even if just about 10 percent of the waste has been extracted so far. This prompted the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, which maintains water wells at the Isley and Obyan well fields, to express concern on the stoppage before the Division of Environmental Quality. The DEQ confirmed that there was indeed such stoppage of the remediation work, which was then being implemented through the soil vapor extraction method where the fuel’s vapor is extracted from underground.

[B][U]June 10, 2003[/U][/B] [B]DLNR: Strip CRMO of some functions[/B]

Lands and Natural Resources Secretary Tom Pangelinan has asked Gov. Juan N. Babauta to strip the Coastal Resources Management Office of certain functions and the capability to represent the CNMI in obtaining federal coral reef initiative funding. Pangelinan requested this from the governor as he cited the need to eliminate duplication of governmental functions that lead to waste of resources. At the same time, Pangelinan also said his department is ready to legally challenge the Division of Environmental Quality, if it would cite the DLNR regarding the department’s use of rotenone to collect fish specimens.

[B]8 new fishes found in NMI[/B]

The Department of Lands and Natural Resources yesterday disclosed it has discovered eight fish species that has not been previously named by scientists anywhere in the world. The eight were among the 95 species of reef fish that were newly documented in a study conducted by the agency last month. This brings the total number of documented fish species in the CNMI to about 1,045. The DLNR estimates around 1,200 fish species on local waters. The study, conducted by the Division of Fish and Wildlife’s biologists and scientists from the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity and the University of Kansas Natural History Museum, resulted in the collection of 276 fish species from Saipan’s waters using rotenone, a substance that poisons fish populations.