Fully understanding a draft environmental impact statement on proposed \u201clive fire\u201d military exercises on Tinian and on Pagan may prove to be a difficult undertaking, according to noted historian and former educator Samuel McPhetres.<\/p>\n
McPhetres pointed out that the CNMI does not have local expertise to fully review a draft environmental impact statement on \u201clive fire\u201d exercises on the two islands.<\/p>\n
But aside from the lack of local expertise, McPhetres said he finds it difficult to predict a scenario\u2014if and when the military exercises happen\u2014because as of today, \u201cwe still do not know what the military is planning.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past few weeks, the U.S military has gone around the CNMI to present a draft EIS to government officials, legislators, and businesses. A much-anticipated public hearing has also been set by the end of the month.<\/p>\n
The draft EIS is seen as a prelude to the military\u2019s plans to fire live munitions on Tinian and drop \u201cinert\u201d bombs on Pagan\u2014which, as expected\u2014drew an uproar.<\/p>\n
The government has been given 60 days to comment on the EIS, which was deemed too short a window, and requests have now been sent to the military to extend this deadline to six months.<\/p>\n
When asked if the CNMI has the resources to review the draft EIS, McPhetres simply said, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Impact on history<\/strong><\/p>\n He, however, said that as far as history is concerned, the proposed military exercises could have an impact.<\/p>\n McPhetres said one area that he finds problematic includes ongoing archaeological digs on the islands.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we find something that really is archaeologically valuable but it is in the middle of the airport, what will happen?\u201d McPhetres asked.<\/p>\n He also stressed that \u201cwe have no definition yet of what a historical artifact is in the CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPieces of pottery? Lapita pottery? How about artifacts from the sugarcane trade during the time of the Japanese?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n Incidentally, McPhetres is part of a team currently digging for artifacts on Saipan.<\/p>\n Military \u2018mess\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Another concern that McPhetres sees is the impact on the environment. \u201cWho is going to do the cleanup after the military exercises?\u201d<\/p>\n McPhetres, speaking lengthily on his experience on Saipan looking for unexploded bombs and munitions throughout the Commonwealth, said it has to be made clear who will be tasked to clean up the mess<\/p>\n He said there is a site on Tinian that was previously used as a target for mortar fire. The area has warning signs, but still poses a danger as there might be unexploded munitions lying around.<\/p>\n \u201cI am particularly sensitive about this. For 10 years, I have been working with demolition people and looking for unexploded ordnance in the Marianas,\u201d McPhetres said.<\/p>\n He said he earlier initiated a program where his students were asked to conduct a survey. The survey question\u2014\u201cHow many people in Saipan have been killed or injured of unexploded ordinance after the war?\u201d\u2014yielded about 200 deaths.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not know if is there going to be a cleanup of live fire,\u201d McPhetres said.<\/p>\n He cited a historical account of the Battle of Saipan in which 600 ships lined up along the islands and fired thousands of 16-inch shell<\/p>\n He said a mere 10 percent of the unexploded rounds may prove to be very dangerous.<\/p>\n \u201cAbout 10 percent are expected to be duds. And these [unexploded bombs] are still out there buried in a lagoon, or at sea,\u201d McPhetres said. \u201cThere are the kinds of things that I am worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fully understanding a draft environmental impact statement on proposed \u201clive fire\u201d military exercises on Tinian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26,1503,200,67],"class_list":["post-199501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cnmi","tag-eis","tag-military","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199501","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=199501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}