The administration of Gov. Eloy S. Inos reiterated its major concerns with the draft environmental impact statement on proposed \u201clive fire\u201d exercises on Tinian and Pagan.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the government said \u201ctransformation, or re-branding\u201d of the CNMI from a tourist destination into a group of islands where military \u201clive-fire\u201d training takes place is \u201cworrying,\u201d considering that tourism is the Commonwealth\u2019s major economic driver.<\/p>\n
The special use \u201crestricted air space\u201d requirements for the CJMT will also create significant \u201cadverse\u201d impacts on the flights between Saipan and Tinian and the costs of transportation between the two islands as reported in the draft EIS.<\/p>\n
According to the government, the potential impacts to the environment raises even more questions.<\/p>\n
One example are plans to build ramps for amphibious assault vehicles at Unai Chulu, which will result in dredging 10 acres of corals and will have direct and indirect effects up to 20 acres.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gov. Ralph DLG. Torres said he is urging \u201call members of the public with concerns to join in the scheduled public hearings and make those concerns known.\u201d<\/p>\n
Online petition<\/strong> \u201cThe United States citizens of Tinian, Pagan and the Mariana Islands have survived thousands of years and it is our human right to continue to enjoy and protect the pristine islands, ocean, and sky; a legacy entrusted to us by our ancestors,\u201d the petition said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. military\u2019s proposed CNMI Joint Military Training Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) contains plans that will desecrate our way of life and will have permanent NEGATIVE impacts on all facets of our community and future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe therefore firmly oppose the plans as outlined in the DEIS and demand that the Department of Defense select the \u2018NO ACTION\u2019 alternative within the EIS,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n The online petition can be found at:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.change.org\/p\/president-of-the-united-states-united-states-department-of-defense-u-s-house-of-representatives-u-s-senate-do-not-use-the-inhabited-us-islands-of-tinian-pagan-as-a-high-impact-bombing-range?recruiter=285805249&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=share_email_responsive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The administration of Gov. Eloy S. Inos reiterated its major concerns with the draft environmental…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3539,2272,200,4221],"class_list":["post-200441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cjmt","tag-deis","tag-military","tag-negative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200441","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=200441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nA petition against the proposed military exercises has also been initiated online at www.change.org. The petition seeks to gather 500 signatures.<\/p>\n