![\"Joint](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Divert-pix.jpg\")
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Bolivar said she has kept Inos informed of the divert plan though \u201cperiodic phone calls,\u201d to get the governor up to speed. The military top brass earlier held meetings with Lt. Gov. Ralph DLG. Torres about the plan.<\/p>\n
Whelden said some of the plan\u2019s details include military construction such as bulk fuel storage areas, cargo and maintenance bays, a pipeline, and military bunkers on Tinian, among others.<\/p>\n
In the proposed divert plan, there will be less structures on Saipan compared to Tinian, where a majority of military activities will be, Whelden said.<\/p>\n
There is also currently an authorized $23.9 million to be invested on Saipan for bulk fuel storage, a cargo pad for offloading of military aircraft, and a small 6,000-square-foot maintenance facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not looking for a long-term presence at all on Saipan,\u201d Whelden said, noting that it will be different on Tinian.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Tinian, Marines will add concrete structures, fuel storage, pipeline from the seaport, cargo pad, maintenance facilities, aircraft taxiways, and other facilities that the U.S. Marines may need,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
For the Air Force, Basham said the hybrid plan calls for 12 Boeing 707 aircraft (commercial size) and a KC 135 Stratotanker (a midair refueling aircraft) spread over Saipan and Tinian.<\/p>\n
He emphasized that should the hybrid plan push through, majority of the activities will be on Tinian, which he said will allow the military \u201cto avoid\u201d disrupting civilian activities.<\/p>\n
The military official, however, said he cannot give a \u201c100 percent guarantee\u201d that the divert plan will not affect commercial flights, but stressed that as much as possible, there will be no \u201cdisruptions\u201d of commercial flights, particularly on Saipan.<\/p>\n
EIS hearings<\/strong><\/p>\n Whelden, meanwhile, said there are two EIS reports that the military hopes to complete. One is for the divert plan and another for the CNMI Joint Military Training exercises on Tinian.<\/p>\n He said the military is now halfway through the CJMT EIS and is looking at how to \u201cblend\u201d them into one.<\/p>\n An EIS describes the effects of proposed activities on the environment; in this case the effects of military presence in the CNMI. It will be presented for a public hearing before military activities can begin.<\/p>\n According to Whelden, the military is set to submit the EIS to the Federal Register on April 3. The military top brass will then go back to the CNMI for public hearings on April 29, April 30, and May 1.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably two [public hearings on Saipan] and one on Tinian,\u201d Whelden said, adding that the public will also hear about the hybrid divert plan at these scheduled hearings.<\/p>\n Japan interest<\/strong><\/p>\n Whelden said Japan is also interested to hold military exercises on Tinian, and that the Japanese government will pay a certain \u201cshare\u201d in the construction costs of the proposed military facilities on Tinian. However, he said he cannot disclose any other details.<\/p>\n \u201cJapan has been coming to the CNMI,\u201d Whelden said, adding that it is not exactly a surprise that its military will have \u201cinterests.\u201d<\/p>\n Still noncommittal<\/strong><\/p>\n As far as Inos is concerned, the hybrid plan presents an alternative for the government to further study.<\/p>\n The governor said he \u201cacknowledges the alternative,\u201d and admitted he never thought of such a solution.<\/p>\n However, Inos said these are still \u201cpreliminary discussions\u201d and the \u201cstrong stand\u201d of the Commonwealth Ports Authority against using a divert airport on Saipan remains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. military\u2019s top brass in the Pacific outlined details of the proposed Pacific Air…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":192703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[26,1503,170,200],"class_list":["post-192695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-eis","tag-japan","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192695","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}