Tinian Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz said the people of Tinian \u201cwill not accept an artillery range on our island,\u201d echoing House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero\u2019s (Ind-Saipan) earlier call for the CNMI to make a stand now on the U.S. Department of Defense\u2019s plan to use both Pagan and Tinian for live-fire training.<\/p>\n
The Tinian mayor, in a Dec. 31 letter to the speaker, suggests a meeting with Gov. Eloy S. Inos to discuss what Dela Cruz describes as a \u201ccritical issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerhaps we can develop a position that best reflects our people\u2019s desire and still support the military development of their leased lands on Tinian,\u201d Dela Cruz said.<\/p>\n
Deleon Guerrero scored the CNMI\u2019s lack of position on Pagan to this day. The speaker has been planning to author a resolution objecting to the use of Pagan for live-fire military training, among other things.<\/p>\n
The U.S. military plans to use Tinian and Pagan to resolve its training deficiencies in the Western Pacific. Guam training areas are already being used to capacity.<\/p>\n
Inos, in a separate interview, said the CNMI has not received any formal communication from the U.S. military about its plans for Pagan, among other things.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that\u2019s been brought up with respect to Pagan is basically the EIS work that\u2019s being done over there… I would be concerned with live fire training capability out there, that\u2019s why we need to sit down with the military. We need to take into account also the desires of the community. I\u2019m sure within the next couple of months, we will be sitting down and talking about a lot of these issues,\u201d the governor told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Dela Cruz said the CNMI should address proposed amphibious training operations on Pagan and heavy artillery range on Tinian \u201cnow rather than later.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot speak for the people of Pagan but the people of Tinian will not accept an artillery range on our island. The encroachment on our airspace is too much to ask. We can deal with DoD [in] maximizing the development of their leased lands on Tinian within the terms of the Covenant and the original technical agreement. However, that will require us to fully develop the southern one-third of Tinian through private economic development,\u201d the mayor told the speaker.<\/p>\n
He said Tinian cannot do this if the air space is limited, compromising the investments of the Commonwealth Ports Authority, the Federal Aviation Administration and Tinian people in the airport to support the gaming industry, \u201cjust as it is about to boom.\u201d Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino is the only operating casino in the CNMI right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can even make adjustments to support an Air Force-Navy-Marine Corps joint use \u2018divert facility\u2019 at West Field International Airport, but we cannot make adjustments for losing control over commuter services with Saipan [both sea and air]. This is critical to maximizing Tinian\u2019s economic development potential,\u201d Dela Cruz added.<\/p>\n
Two-thirds of Tinian lands are already leased to the U.S. Department of Defense.<\/p>\n
Joint Region Marianas commander Rear Admiral Tilghman Payne earlier said that local residents\u2019 concerns about the proposed use of Pagan for live-fire training are being taken into consideration. <\/p>\n
DoD is also proposing to develop a U.S. Air Force divert airfield on Saipan, even as the CNMI is united in its position to have the divert airfield placed on Tinian. The U.S. military has not decided on the location yet.<\/p>\n
A newly-signed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2014 bars the U.S. Air Force from spending any of the $29.3 million for the program until it reports to Congress on all the alternatives that have been considered, the overall construction requirements, and the cost\/benefits of options for the land needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tinian Mayor Ramon Dela Cruz said the people of Tinian \u201cwill not accept an artillery range on our island,\u201d echoing House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero\u2019s (Ind-Saipan) earlier call for the CNMI to make a stand now on the U.S. Department of Defense\u2019s plan to use both Pagan and Tinian for live-fire training.<\/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-174876","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\/174876","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=174876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}