The Department of Defense expects to close an environmental review process for training on the islands of Tinian and Pagan by 2018, and eyes a release of revised training plans and impact studies in March of next year, according to a statement from Joint Region Marianas yesterday.<\/p>\n
Military planners have focused, since a formal comment period closed last October, on nearly 30,000 comments from private citizens and U.S. federal and CNMI agencies on the proposed expansion of military training activities on Tinian and Pagan.<\/p>\n
The Department of the Navy in October ordered a new round of studies on the heels of concerns from local and federal agencies like the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the amount of feedback from the community, it became clear early in the planning process that we needed to revise this study,\u201d said U.S. Pacific Command Deputy commander Gen. Anthony Crutchfield in the statement yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cOnly through a revised EIS would we be able to address concerns from CNMI leadership and agencies for the best possible alternative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Marine Corps Force Pacific, under the Navy, disclosed this month they had completed their studies on the Tinian groundwater aquifer, studies found lacking in the original environmental impact documents.<\/p>\n
Jim Keany, director of Environmental Science Associates, told Saipan Tribune in an email that \u201crobust\u201d studies are \u201cneeded considering there are human health issues.\u201d ESA is consultant to the CNMI government on the military plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the time since comments were received by the Navy and now,\u201d Keany said, \u201cthere has hardly been time to read the comments and come up with a detailed study plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Keany, these robust studies would:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Provide a baseline study of groundwater at sufficient number of sites to make valid statistical inferences.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Be conducted over the course of a year to identify seasonal variations.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Measure groundwater quality in light of EPA exposure thresholds for a variety of chemical that could have infiltrated during World War II use of munitions and from proposed action munitions.<\/p>\n
\u2022 List chemicals in munitions and their dispersal rates to the ground (from similar studies).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Include an analysis of potential chemicals reaching the groundwater based on accepted models or other studies.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Have an analysis of effects to baseline water quality conditions.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Have the resulting potential effects to natural resources and human health over the course of the proposed action (20 years? More?) based on standard epidemiological analysis practices.<\/p>\n
The EPA, for their part, said in October that the highly permeable Marianas limestone, which underlies most of the military project area on Tinian and \u201ccreates high susceptibility to contamination, was not fully considered in the Navy\u2019s earlier studies.<\/p>\n
The EPA withheld a rating of the military plans until further studies were done.<\/p>\n
\u2018Remain cognizant\u2019<\/strong> \u201cWe remain cognizant that any military project on our islands may represent a threat to our economy, particularly, our tourism industry, which is driven by our environment and the natural beauty of these islands,\u201d the Torres administration said. \u201cWe look forward to continued and constructive dialogue with the Navy and are hopeful they reconsider their proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n Defense leaders are expected to sign a \u201cRecord of Decision,\u201d to close the formal environmental review process, in 2018, according to the JRM statement.<\/p>\n Another round of public comment and meetings will follow the release of the draft studies in March 2017.<\/p>\n The \u201cpublic\u2019s input will significantly contribute to the refinement of the proposed activities,\u201d said Joint Region Marianas in its statement.<\/p>\n Military decision makers will also \u201cconsider all alternatives and their impacts before declaring a preferred alternative,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Defense expects to close an environmental review process for training on the…<\/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":[26,497,200,44],"class_list":["post-221296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-joint-region-marianas","tag-military","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221296","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=221296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221296\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said, in statement yesterday, that they are \u201cgenuinely pleased\u201d that the Navy will listen to concerns from \u201cour own people\u201d and agencies.<\/p>\n