The Commonwealth Utility Corp. and Gov. Benigno R. Fitial have finalized agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice that set the course for CUC\u2019s compliance with federal environmental standards. These agreements will be filed in federal court as stipulated orders.<\/p>\n
Under one agreement CUC will complete work on Saipan\u2019s drinking water system and will bring CUC\u2019s sewage treatment systems into full compliance with the Clean Water Act. The second agreement is designed to resolve CUC\u2019s used oil concerns, including the storage of oil in the Lower Base Tank 104. <\/p>\n
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a number of administrative orders against CUC, dating back as far as 1999, which require compliance with drinking water and sewage treatment standards. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past people wanted to hide from bad news,\u201d said Fitial. \u201cWe decided to fix the problem instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agreements require CUC to reorganize its management and operations structure, hire engineers and other environmental professionals, submit financial and infrastructure plans, and undertake a number of interim construction projects. EPA, the Department of Interior, and the CNMI capital improvement program have all dedicated funds and other resources to CUC\u2019s environmental overhaul.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany of the engineers and environmental professionals required under the agreements have already been hired by CUC,\u201d said CUC executive director Tony Mu\u00f1a. \u201cWe\u2019ve been reorganizing agency operations for some time now. The stipulated orders just guarantee that CUC crosses the finish line in full compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The agreements, signed by Fitial and Mu\u00f1a, have been forwarded to the U.S. Justice Department for signatures of federal officials.[B][I] (PR)[\/I][\/B]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Utility Corp. and Gov. Benigno R. Fitial have finalized agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice that set the course for CUC\u2019s compliance with federal environmental standards. These agreements will be filed in federal court as stipulated orders.<\/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-125046","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\/125046","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=125046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}