The Commonwealth Ports Authority met with Precinct 1 lawmakers last Thursday to give a briefing on the U.S. Air Force\u2019s divert airfield plans for Saipan and Tinian.<\/p>\n
CPA outlined their position\u2014from their September 2014 resolution\u2014to \u201csite divert at CPA\u2019s facilities on Tinian,\u201d according to executive director Maryann Lizama.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concerns of siting divert on Saipan, particularly within the Dandan plateau of the airport affecting the surrounding communities and residents\u201d was also outlined, as contained in last year\u2019s resolution, she told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Saipan is the Air Force\u2019s preferred alternative for its divert plans in the CNMI, according to a draft environmental impact statement published earlier. The CPA board of directors essentially said \u201cno\u201d to this alternative in their September resolution.<\/p>\n
The resolution echoed concerns the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had over this alternative, where they had declared the Air Force\u2019s DEIS to be \u201cinsufficient.\u201d The agency cited noise impacts on Saipan residents as severe, saying this is inconsistent with directives requiring hearing loss risk to be properly estimated.<\/p>\n
Whether CNMI lawmakers draft a similar resolution akin to the ports authority remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Asked if there was a \u201ccollaborative\u201d resolution in the works, Lizama clarified that \u201cCPA has already issued its resolution regarding divert and the position remains unchanged: Divert shall be sited and permitted on Tinian and CPA will support an airport layout plan to that end.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether the House and Senate will issue resolutions on the issue articulating the Legislature\u2019s position on divert is a policy decision left to the representatives, including Precinct 1,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s meeting included House Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan); Reps. Edwin Propst (Ind-Saipan); Roman Benavente (Ind-Saipan); Lee \u201cPan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan); Angel Demapan (R-Saipan), and Tony Sablan (Ind-Saipan).\u00a0 Representing CPA were executive director Lizama; Wendi Prater; board members Benigno Sablan, Frances Mafnas and Thomas P. Villagomez; and CPA counsel Robert T. Torres. Wesley Bogdan, governor\u2019s counsel for military activities, represented the Inos administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Commonwealth Ports Authority met with Precinct 1 lawmakers last Thursday to give a briefing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[418,2252,124,2253],"class_list":["post-192355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-air-force","tag-benigno-sablan","tag-cpa","tag-maryann-lizama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192355","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}