U.S. Navy ordnance use on Farallon de Medinilla would increase some 450 percent per year in either action alternative laid out in the Mariana Islands Training and Testing draft environmental impact statement, for which a final version is due in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, it\u2019s unclear how or if federally requested studies on erosion impact for current and increased bombings activity will be addressed.<\/p>\n
Recently, satellite imagery and oblique photographs have shown significant changes to the morphology of Farallon de Medinilla, or FDM, a routine-bombing area leased to the U.S. Department of Defense.<\/p>\n
Citing satellite imagery and oblique photographs, the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality said there appears to be mass wasting along FDM\u2019s east cliff lines; mass wasting on its land bridge on its eastern side, and imagery shows a recent cave collapse on its southern end.<\/p>\n
Erosion or sediment runoff is one of the most serious stressors affecting coral reefs in the Mariana Islands. In reference to this, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in their 2013 comments on the Marianas Islands Training and Testing, or MITT, noted a concern for the \u201cpotential for erosion by current activities at [FDM] as well as the increased training of the proposed alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n
The EPA said a 2008 range assessment of the islands \u201cdid not assess the fate and transport of sediment, including munitions constituents,\u201d from FDM.<\/p>\n
The agency requested that impacts of erosion on near shore habitats, coral reefs maps, and mitigation measures, among others, be discussed in the final impact statement.<\/p>\n
Right now, the U.S. Navy proposes to deploy on FDM 168,097 or 168, 928 total ordnance per year for action alternatives 1 and 2, respectively.<\/p>\n
For explosive bombs alone, it would almost triple in amount\u2014jumping from 2,150 per year to a proposed 6,242 bombs per year in alternative one, and 6,821 bombs per year in alternative two, according to the draft impact statement.<\/p>\n
Both alternatives also introduce substantial amounts of explosive rockets and small- and medium-caliber gunnery to the island where there was none before.<\/p>\n
When sought for an update on their requested studies, EPA told Saipan Tribune last week that the military has not yet released the final impact study and has not contacted EPA with any additional information regarding their comment.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2026Therefore, we do not know if [or] how they will respond to our comment,\u201d said EPA public affairs officer Dean Higuchi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not aware of any water quality reports for the waters around FDM,\u201d he also said.<\/p>\n
When sought for studies on FDM sediment transport water quality, BECQ also indicated they did not have this information. Instead, they shared their 2013 comments on the MITT, which described as \u201cdeficient\u201d the Navy\u2019s studies on erosion impact.<\/p>\n
In their comments, the bureau examined military claims that \u201cweathering soil and coastal formations on FDM has resulted from typhoons,\u201d as well as military claims that monthly surveys show \u201cthat increased erosion is the result of natural causes, storm, and wave erosion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bureau requested that more information be shared to see if mass wasting was actually caused by typhoon damage.<\/p>\n
For the Navy\u2019s part, a 2012 study found that \u201calthough minor ecological impacts, that could be attributed to military training\u201d in the previous 10 years were detected, \u201cno significant or substantial impacts to the physical or biological environment\u201d were found in the near-shore environment of FDM.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe restricted access to FDM has resulted in a de-facto preserve effect,\u201d the Navy study said. \u201cThe marine natural resources at FDM are comparable to or superior to those of any of the other islands within the Mariana Archipelago. There was strong evidence during the 2012 survey that FDM has become subject to commercial spear fishing. This has resulted in changes to the estimated total numbers of some key fishery target species and changes in the behavior of those species towards divers. An infestation of coral barnacles was observed in 2012, but this is not related to [military] training activities.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest threat to FDM\u2019s marine resources is overfishing,\u201d the study said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Navy ordnance use on Farallon de Medinilla would increase some 450 percent per year…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[352,332,200,44],"class_list":["post-199563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-epa","tag-fdm","tag-military","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199563","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=199563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}