The Department of Defense needs some $9 million to lease or purchase 7.1 hectares of land in the Commonwealth as part of their planned divert airfield activities in the NMI, according to an U.S. Air Force fiscal year 2017 budget request package sent to U.S. Congress this month.<\/p>\n
The Air Force does not specify the exact location of the land needed for a desired long team lease\u2014\u201cin excess of 25 years\u201d\u2014according to their report; however, negotiations for the proposed lease involves the West Field Tinian Airport and is expected to begin this summer, Saipan Tribune learned.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis project is the first installment of a larger land acquisition package to enable future beddowns to occur within the CNMI,\u201d the Air Force said in the budget report.<\/p>\n
Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-Saipan), who shared the Air Force budget request in his newsletter, first broke the news last Saturday, two days after top Defense officials convened in a meeting with Gov. Ralph DLG Torres to announce that a \u201cTinian-only\u201d option would be the military\u2019s \u201cpreferred alternative\u201d for the divert airfield project. <\/p>\n
The Air Force\u2019s \u201chybrid option\u201d to use both Saipan and Tinian airports to lessen competing use conflicts between commercial and military tanker craft was found disagreeable with the Torres administration and the local ports authority.<\/p>\n
Sablan on Saturday said the Air Force included $9,002,000 in its military construction budget request to lease 7.1 hectares of land\u2014or 17.5 acres\u2014in support of the divert activities and exercises initiative.<\/p>\n
Sablan cites a Navy real estate survey to state that the cost to acquire the land by fee is $3.2 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut\u2026the Air Force is prepared to lease the property at a higher cost in order to conform to the Covenant agreement to acquire only the minimum real property interest necessary to meet mission requirements,\u201d Sablan said, citing the budget report.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time the Defense Department has proposed a lease or purchase of land in the Commonwealth in recent years. The Department of Navy, for the Marine Corps Forces Pacific live-fire training project, has proposed a lease of the entire island of Pagan to support training inclusive of a bombing range on Mt. Pagan.<\/p>\n
The last lease negotiations between the CNMI government and U.S. military involved the 1994 leaseback and 1999 partial release of leaseback rights over on Tinian, where two-thirds of land is leased to the military.<\/p>\n
The cost to lease the desired land interest is about $1.13 million per hectare for a long-term lease versus $450,00 per hectare to acquire by fee, according to the Air Force budget report.<\/p>\n
\u2018More land a must\u2019<\/p>\n
In their budget, Air Force stressed the need for securing the desired land because the existing federally leased land in CNMI did not have the \u201cland parcels required for\u201d the divert airfield project. <\/p>\n
\u201cNone of the projects that support the Divert and Exercise Mission within CNMI can be constructed\u201d without the land, and initial operations also \u201ccannot be achieved until these facilities are constructed, depriving the Air Force of this much-needed operational capability,\u201d the Air Force said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Air Force is willing to purchase by fee if the CNMI government is willing to sell it,\u201d the Air Force added. \u201cThis project allows the NAVFACPAC to begin land acquisition discussions for the entire DOD requirement, with initial emphasis for the Air Force requirement. It is important to begin negotiations now and pursue a phased approach because land acquisition discussions could take 12 to 18 months to complete.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Air Force has set the options of building on the north end or the south end of the Tinian airport.<\/p>\n
Asked which end they would build on, Anthony Crutchfield, deputy commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said last week that the \u201cthe indication is that the favored place\u2014not a decision\u2014would be the north.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there is a process,\u201d he told reporters, \u201cwe have to work through, a legal process\u2026before a decision is made.\u201d<\/p>\n
Competing use<\/p>\n
For any future buildup at the Saipan or Tinian airports, the military and the ports authority would have to come up with an agreeable \u201cairport layout plan\u201d\u2014expected to satisfy commercial concerns with military needs\u2014to submit to the Federal Aviation Administration for approval.<\/p>\n
The Air Force dropped fighter jets from their divert plans after scrutiny by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over severe noise impacts to the local community, during an environmental impact process in recent years.<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Ports Authority executive director Maryann Lizama looked toward the future, when sought for comment on the military\u2019s announcement of Tinian as its preferred location for the divert project.<\/p>\n
\u201cCPA has held its position in holding U.S. Air Force divert and all other military activities on Tinian,\u201d Lizama told Saipan Tribune. \u201cThis is in line with the board of director\u2019s decision through the board resolution two years ago as well as Gov. Torres\u2019 and Lt. Gov. Hocog\u2019s and their administration.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should be making headway from here forward.\u201d Lizama added.<\/p>\n
Private businessman Alex Sablan, a former Saipan Chamber of Commerce president, said they had been a agreeable with the administration\u2019s and CPA\u2019s position that the divert project be placed on Tinian.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made the most sense to everyone,\u201d Sablan said in an interview last Thursday. \u201cThe Chamber was supportive of this effort\u201d and \u201cwe are pleased they made the right choice.<\/p>\n
Sablan believes CPA needs to look at the overall expansion of the Saipan airport as well as the Tinian airport.<\/p>\n
He pointed to signatory bonds that airport concessionaries or airlines could be signatories on, noting this was how the original Saipan airport was built for some $17 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have 600 people coming in the wee hours every morning, basically wrapped around poles all the way down to Gate 4. And that\u2019s not right,\u201d Alex Sablan said, adding that the arrival cue only allows for 150 people, not the 300 as believed, when taking in concerns of airport security. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taking three to four hours\u201d for \u201cthree different flights that are coming in the wee hours of the morning. That is not a good first experience for any of our tourists or our returning residents,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n
If Tinian is able to sign on airlines to arrive on Tinian for direct flights, Sablan suggested that the Tinian airport approach expansion in the same way\u2014by getting Chinese or other carriers going to Tinian to sign off on signatory bonds to expand the airport along with duty free or food vendors.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d hope you\u2019d use all those concession agreements to secure a signatory bond for the expansion of the airport and I would imagine Tinian needs to do the same thing,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cThey are going to need to be expanded [for] direct flights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Port issues<\/p>\n
Asked last Thursday if the shift in focus to Tinian would prompt the military to look to help repair the Tinian port, which is in tatters, Crutchield said, \u201cthis is something they can take a look at\u201d but added he was not in a position to say they \u201cwill or will not do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s something we should talk about,\u201d Crutchfield said. \u201cWith this relationship [between the governor and himself as DoD\u2019s new single point of contact for military projects], it\u2019s something we can talk about and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur focus right now is on the military strategic nature of what we need for the Pacific Command and the security of the Pacific,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
For their part, the Department of Navy has highlighted a potential \u201cconflict\u201d with current development at the Tinian port and their military plans, calling these developments\u2014specifically a casino resort built on the wharf\u2014a possible \u201ccompromise\u201d of their rights to the port and airport, according to a letter obtained from a Navy lawyer to the CPA last month.<\/p>\n
However, the Navy later clarified that they did not see any existing conflicts with the lease and said they \u201cmerely communicated its desire\u201d to make sure that \u201cDoD interests are part of the planning process in existing and future leasing actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until things ramp up with further Navy environmental impact documents and \u201cultimately what happens with\u201d with these plans, Alex Sablan casted doubt on if anything will happen at the port.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we don\u2019t have the funding,\u201d he said. \u201cI think everyone is relying on the idea that the military will come in and rehab that port facility. They have shown concerns recently about tenants in the port. We are hopeful they fix the port and that both Tinian\u2019s ports\u2014the lifeline of their economy\u2014are built to the satisfaction of all operators coming in.\u201d (With reports from Frauleine Villanueva-Dizon)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Defense needs some $9 million to lease or purchase 7.1 hectares of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[418,26,200,9732],"class_list":["post-220933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-air-force","tag-cnmi","tag-military","tag-navfacpac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220933","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=220933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}