The U.S. Coast Guard met with local seaport officials yesterday to determine what resources it needs after a \u201cpersonnel shortage\u201d reportedly left port recovery and off-loading operations inoperable when Typhoon Soudelor tore out port lights and tossed cargo containers around like toys when it hit the island a week ago.<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard also clarified yesterday that they did not deny a waiver request for a fuel tanker to arrive with supply for Shell gas stations.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Energy on Sunday said that due to a shortage of stevedores\u2014the personnel trained to work at docks and unload cargo\u2014the CNMI was unable to conduct both seaport recovery and off-loading operations.<\/p>\n
DOE said Saipan Stevedores reported a shortage of 17 personnel \u201cwho are survivors and have lost homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said the Coast Guard was scheduling a meeting with Saipan Stevedores and the seaport harbor master to determine resource requirements.<\/p>\n
USCG Lt. Clifton Graham, acting public affairs officer for USCG Sector Guam, said they met with the stevedores yesterday.<\/p>\n
He confirmed that Saipan Stevedores does have a shortage but that the port is still operating with limited personnel.<\/p>\n
That the CNMI was unable to conduct port operations was \u201cnot true\u201d though, according to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe operations are slightly restricted,\u201d he said in an interview close to press time.<\/p>\n
Federal Emergency Administration Agency federal liaison officer Stephen DeBlasio said in an interview at the Saipan port yesterday morning that they were not aware of a shortage at the dock. He instead commended the speed at which cargo was unloaded from relief ships.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been no delays in off-loading this vessel. The last time it came in with the resources that it had\u2014the generators\u2014they were immediately off-loaded, both from the stevedores and from the crane on the ship.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo delays and no limiting factors,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
FEMA external affairs director John Hamill added that the U.S. Navy commander of the USS Ashland complimented the stevedores on how fast they unloaded.<\/p>\n
USS Ashland arrived last Saturday and yesterday with relief goods.<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Ports Authority executive director Maryann Lizama confirmed the Coast Guard report near press time yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThough some of Saipan Stevedore personnel are out, they are still able to operate during the given operational period, which is daylight operations only,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Cargo is only unloaded during the day as ports lights are damaged.<\/p>\n
Fuel tanker for Shell?<\/strong><\/p>\n Meantime, the U.S. Coast Guard said they did not deny a waiver request for a fuel tanker to arrive at the Saipan port.<\/p>\n Instead, according to Graham, a request was not sent in.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Energy on Monday reported that USCG has \u201cdenied the waiver request as of Aug. 10.\u201d<\/p>\n The tanker ship is required to meet and\/or comply with port entrance regulations.<\/p>\n IP&E\u2014the company running Shell on Saipan\u2014requested the waiver, DOE said.<\/p>\n DOE said that due to the high sales of volumes of gasoline, IP&E was requesting a waiver from Guam Environmental Protection Agency to \u201cland the internal floating roof of a gasoline tank for approximately 7 to 10 days.\u201d<\/p>\n If approved, the tanker would have arrived on Saipan on Aug. 19 or 20, DOE reported.<\/p>\n Graham said yesterday that they had not denied the waiver request. He said the tanker never submitted a waiver of its intent to enter Saipan.<\/p>\n \u201cThey did not have the required U.S. documentation to enter the port,\u201d he said, adding that the request for a waiver was never sent in after the company looked into the possibility.<\/p>\n Graham said the Coast Guard helped look into the possibility for the tanker to come in. They do not know of any future intent of IP&E to bring in a tanker, Graham said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. Coast Guard met with local seaport officials yesterday to determine what resources it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,328,6221,6506],"class_list":["post-207787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-coast-guard","tag-doe","tag-saipan-stevedores"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207787","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=207787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}