The Department of Public Works is ready to start its biggest project on Saipan: the $12-million Talafofo Highway Project that is expected to boost tourism on the island.<\/p>\n
DPW Secretary Jose S. Demapan said that, once they receive the environmental assessment conducted by the Division of Fish and Wildlife, the department is ready to proceed with the project.<\/p>\n
Demapan said the federally-funded project is pending because the Division of Fish and Wildlife has concerns with the presence of endangered birds at the location.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just waiting for that agency that is holding up that project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under the project, a highway will be constructed from the Kingfisher Golf Course area on Capitol Hill all the way to Kalabera Cave in Marpi.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be very good scenic place also for tourists. It would increase the economic impact on Saipan. There will be more tourists,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Demapan pointed out that right now many tourists don\u2019t visit Kalabera Cave because the road is very bad.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this project, they [tourists] can go from King Fisher\u2019s Golf Course area all the way to Kalabera Cave,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
When he assumed office at DPW early this year, Demapan trimmed down DPW\u2019s operational costs by almost 66 percent by initiating cost-saving measures. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Department of Public Works is ready to start its biggest project on Saipan: the $12-million Talafofo Highway Project that is expected to boost tourism on the island.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}