{"id":204690,"date":"2015-06-22T06:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-06-21T20:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=204690"},"modified":"2015-06-22T06:00:39","modified_gmt":"2015-06-21T20:00:39","slug":"dod-willing-to-conduct-live-fire-demo-for-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dod-willing-to-conduct-live-fire-demo-for-lawmakers\/","title":{"rendered":"DoD willing to conduct \u2018live fire\u2019 demo for lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S Department of Defense is \u201copen\u201d to inviting CNMI lawmakers to have a first-hand look at how \u201clive-fire\u201d exercises are conducted.<\/p>\n

\"Scher\"<\/a>
Scher<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the questions during the visit of military representatives in the CNMI was how live-fire activities can affect the Commonwealth\u2019s tourism industry in terms of noise pollution.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero (Ind-Saipan) said Saipan has been relying on tourism for many years and he is wondering if artillery fire will not affect tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a way to prove that live-fire noise will not affect those tourists visiting Saipan?\u201d Deleon Guerrero said, during the meeting with military officials last week.<\/p>\n

But the exercises will probably not be held in the Commonwealth\u2014 particularly Tinian and Pagan\u2014but instead on the DoD\u2019s existing facilities in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect we cannot (conduct the live-fire demo) on Tinian, but we can in Hawaii,\u201d said Craig Whelden, executive director of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific<\/p>\n

Whelden said the demo can show the lawmakers \u201chow live-fire works.\u201d<\/p>\n

He noted that this will not be the first time that CNMI lawmakers have been invited to witness a live-fire demo.<\/p>\n

Whelden said one of the participants during the previous live-fire demo in Hawaii was then Lt. Gov. Jude U. Hofschneider.<\/p>\n

According to a draft environmental impact statement, the military proposes to conduct artillery fire, bombing, and amphibious landings, among others, on the CNMI.<\/p>\n

Aside from noise pollution, the long-term effects of waste, particularly on areas where bombings will be conducted has been one of the main concerns of the CNMI.<\/p>\n

Robert M. Scher, DoD assistant secretary for strategy, plans, and capabilities, concedes that the military \u201cdo not have a pristine clean up\u201d record, \u201cbut it does not have a bad record either.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do our best,\u201d Scher, told lawmakers last week.<\/p>\n

Scher also said the talks on proposed military activities and land leases on Tinian and Pagan remain at an \u201cearly stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need these kinds of engagements. We are still at an early stage in the talks and we have to get down to the details,\u201d Scher said, while addressing questions from lawmakers.<\/p>\n

He assured lawmakers that he agreed to meet to further \u201clisten.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S Department of Defense is \u201copen\u201d to inviting CNMI lawmakers to have a first-hand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":204704,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,3543,152,200],"class_list":["post-204690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-craig-whelden","tag-deleon-guerrero","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204690","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=204690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}