![\"Gov.](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Military-pix.jpg\")
<\/a>Whelden was referring to Dentons US LLC, which was recently hired to conduct a third party review of the impact documents.<\/p>\n
Dentons presented its initial review of the documents and described the said documents as \u201cinadequate\u201d from a legal standpoint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are things that I\u2019ve asked to be more specific. If you think we\u2019re not in compliance with NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) law, tell us what exactly what we\u2019re not in compliance with,\u201d Whelden said, commenting on Dentons\u2019 initial findings.<\/p>\n
Whelden also contested one major concern of Dentons, which earlier said the military also did not examine enough alternatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne example (that Dentons cited) was \u2018we (the military) did not examine enough alternatives.\u2019 But if they check Page 4 (of the draft EIS) of the executive summary, it tells you of three years\u2019 worth of study done that brought us the CNMI,\u201d Whelden said.<\/p>\n
The official said he is \u201cnot sure exactly how they came to the conclusion that we did not look at all the alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to hear from the Dentons group more directly, more specifically so we can address their questions,\u201d Whelden said.<\/p>\n
Whelden also said he is aware of the planned public hearings on the draft EIS that Dentons and CNMI departments will conduct and that the military will be in attendance.<\/p>\n
Aside from the public hearings, Whelden said the military is also open to meet with Dentons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have said all along before they were hired that we are open to meeting with Dentons and answer any questions that they may have. To date, nobody from Dentons contacted us, but the invitation is open,\u201d Whelden said. \u201cIf they have questions a out our documents that they are unsure of, they can contact us and we\u2019ll be happy to answer them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Public comments<\/strong><\/p>\n Whelden said the good news on the hiring of the consulting firm is that the military will now have more comments on the draft EIS.<\/p>\n He said the military will welcome comments not just not just from the public but from technical advisors as well, referring to Dentons.<\/p>\n He stressed that there are over a thousand comments on the draft EIS and that \u201cwe will assess and address each and every one of them, before we get to a final EIS now scheduled for release late summer in 2016.\u201d<\/p>\n Tinian visit<\/strong><\/p>\n High-ranking U.S. military officials met with Gov. Eloy S. Inos on Tuesday to discuss the draft EIS.<\/p>\n Lt. Gen. Anthony Crutchfield, the deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii; and Rear Adm. Bette Bolivar, commander, Joint Region Marianas and U.S. Pacific Command\u2019s Defense Representative for CNMI, were at the meeting along with Whelden.<\/p>\n Crutchfield said he will fly to Tinian after meeting to talk with representatives of Tinian. He said efforts to be on the ground will always be important, which is why he making the trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The initial statements presented by a third party consultant on a draft environmental impact statement…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":205669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[26,2272,200,5805],"class_list":["post-205660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cnmi","tag-deis","tag-military","tag-whelden-initial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205660","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=205660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}