The Department of the Navy has seemingly ignored its own studies in its latest plans to build large-scale firing ranges on Tinian, the National Park Service said in a breakdown of the military\u2019s live-fire training project on Tinian this month.<\/p>\n
The latest military plans appear to backtrack and conflict on earlier approved historical protection and mitigation zones that the Navy set forth in a smaller scale project some five years ago, according to the 88-page report, which was tasked by the Advisory Council on Historical Preservation last October after they saw that the latest military studies left many \u201cunresolved issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The impacts in question involves the Ushi Point, North Field, Landing Beaches (North Field) National Historic Landmark District on Tinian, areas historically significant for their role in World War II and as an area with pre-contact Chamorro sites.<\/p>\n
The Park Service has found that the Navy\u2019s \u201cCNMI Joint Military Training\u201d project \u201cwould significantly diminish the integrity and directly adversely affect\u201d this area and \u201cdamage the landmark and would alter the landmark in ways not consistent with\u201d federal standards for the treatment of historic properties. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese impacts are rooted in the proposed design, location, and frequency of the training and related construction, the Park Service said, adding that the defining features of the landmark district would \u201cbe damaged and altered in ways that threaten the landmarks ability to convey its physically character, and therefore to be interpreted and understood by the public.<\/p>\n
These historical features \u201care finite and irreplaceable,\u201d said the Park Service. \u201cShould these historic resources be destroyed, the landscape would no longer exist or could no longer convey its significance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Park Service report is lucid in the description of the historical integrity of the Tinian landmark district, which falls under military leased land, and the report appears to put no faith in military proposals to \u201crelocate\u201d some of these sites.<\/p>\n
The Tinian landmark area has been called a \u201cplayground\u201d for historians.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am quite satisfied with the report,\u201d local historian Don Farrell told Saipan Tribune yesterday. \u201cI am also confident that this will help both local and military planners understand the value of the Tinian North Field National Historic Landmark.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is one of a kind in the world,\u201d Farrell said.<\/p>\n
Past promises<\/strong><\/p>\n The Navy appears to have ignored its earlier assurances to enhance the historical district that were \u201cstipulated\u201d in a 2011 programmatic agreement between Guam, the CNMI, and the Department of Defense for earlier environmental impact studies for the \u201cGuam Buildup\u201d project.<\/p>\n The agreement states that: \u201cDOD will coordinate with the NPS to update the Tinian NHL historic district, based on the results of\u201d the Navy-sponsored historical studies.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has not been addressed,\u201d the Park Service said in its report, <\/p>\n The Navy has also sponsored a \u201ccultural landscape reported\u201d on Tinian that was completed in May 2010 to document the historical and cultural resources on the military leased area on Tinian.<\/p>\n That report, the Park Service notes, identifies zones for \u201cresource protection\u201d and military \u201cactivity mitigation,\u201d among others, to \u201cstrike a balance between\u201d stewardship and military training.<\/p>\n The Park Service argues that given the geographic overlap between areas of potential effect in the earlier military approved project [the Marianas Islands Range Complex study] and the live-fire training ranges in question, the military\u2019s live-fire alternatives \u201cshould have been informed by the findings and recommendations\u201d the earlier Navy cultural report and the resource protection \u201cadopted\u201d by the Navy in its earlier project.<\/p>\n \u201cThis clearly did not occur in a meaningful way,\u201d the Park Service said. <\/p>\n \u201cNot only are the training constraint area[s]\u201d and report recommendations \u201cseemingly ignored by the CJMT proposed undertaking, some of the most significant impacts to historic and cultural resources would occur in training constraint areas, the Interpretation Zone, and\/or would result from actions that go against\u201d the Navy\u2019s own findings.<\/p>\n One example, the Park Service notes, is the high impact hazardous area that were given \u201climited training\u201d designations in the earlier Navy training project.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are other examples in the proposed [live fire project where the cultural report findings] are seemingly ignored and the training constraint areas defined in the [earlier Navy project] non-existent,\u201d the Park Service said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is unclear why this is so,\u201d the Park Service said, since the Navy is responsible for minimizing harm to the landmark district to the \u201cmaximum extent possible\u201d and both the cultural report and training restraint areas were developed to protect the landmark district and other historical sites on Tinian.<\/p>\n Access<\/strong><\/p>\n The Park Service also argues that the Navy has not adequately addressed the impact that intermittent training will have on the access to the historical landmark.<\/p>\n The military wants to use Tinian for 20 weeks of live-fire training and additional 22 weeks of non-live activity, which both involve munitions storage, danger zones, construction, and airspace and seaspace restrictions.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile it is true there are National Historic Landmarks located on active military installations that are not readily accessible, the point here is irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is being assessed here is a change from nearly unlimited access to restricted access\u2026a profound effect on how the landmark is interpreted and experienced,\u201d the Park Service said, noting that visits and recreational and cultural activities would be curtailed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the EIS identifies many of the significant impacts from restricted access that will affect the NHLD visitation, cultural practices and interpretation, none of the action alternatives is designed to avoid or minimize these adverse effects.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is true for most every aspect of the undertaking as it relates to cultural resources,\u201d the Park Service said.<\/p>\n \u2018Layered historical landscape\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The report largely defends the \u201clayered historical landscape\u201d that held some of the most important events in World War II and spells out a total of nine recommendations the military should heed to preserve the integrity of the landmark district, which include, among others, proposals to \u201crelocate or significantly reduce\u201d a grenade and mortar ranges and its high hazard impact area that happens to overlap with the landmark district boundary.<\/p>\n The Park Service also asks that the military eliminate or modify the amphibious assault landing ramps on the historical Tinian World War II landing beaches, among other recommendations<\/p>\n Tinian was a major sugar production center and a vital military interest for the Japanese empire in the late 1930s and early 1940s.<\/p>\n Tinian was assaulted by the U.S. in 1944, marking America\u2019s third stage drive for the Mariana Islands that began with invasions of Saipan and the capture of Guam. <\/p>\n The Park Service notes that these engagement \u201cbroke Japan\u2019s inner line of defense in the Pacific, creating staging areas for aerial bombing raids on the Japanese mainland and led to Tinian serving as the launching point of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to close the war.<\/p>\n When North Field was completed during the war, an airfield that housed bombers that led to obliteration of Japanese cities and thousands of civilian deaths, it was the largest airfield in the world, the Park Service notes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dropping of the two bombs marked a major juncture in the war and in world history, contributing to the Japanese surrender and heralding the start of the nuclear age.\u201d<\/p>\n The Park Service believes that many marks of the battle for Tinian and the construction and use of the airbase there \u201csurvive\u201d and remain \u201crelatively unaltered.\u201d<\/p>\n The Park Service describes the historical features on the northern part of Tinian, where the military holds a lease that extends to 2033, as for the most part obscured by vegetation. <\/p>\n The Hagoi wetland, the largest wetland on Tinian that supports populations of the endangered Marianas common moorhen, is also historically significant as the largest permanent freshwater source on the island.<\/p>\n This area also contains archaeological sites tied to \u201cpre-contact Chamorro use, Japanese colonial settlement, and World War II military use have been recorded there and in many nearby areas.\u201d<\/p>\n The report also notes that numerous pre-contact Chamorro sites exist within the landmark and its surround areas.<\/p>\n The notable sites that may be affected by the military undertaking include \u201ca significant early settlement site on the terrace above Unai Chulu,\u201d and a \u201clatte period site Unai Babui.\u201d Unai Chulu and Unai Babui are U.S. military landing beaches during World War II.<\/p>\n While they may not be directly linked to World War II, the Park Service notes, they play a part in the landmark\u2019s historical setting as points of reference for interpreting the events and \u201clegacies of the war years\u201d among the larger backdrop of historical and environmental change to the Marianas from ancient times to present.<\/p>\n \u201cSurviving in a relatively undisturbed setting,\u201d the Park Service said, \u201cthe varied resources\u2026also speak to the dramatic and lasting impacts of colonialism and war on the Northern Mariana Islands and their inhabitants.\u201d<\/p>\n The Park Service finds that the \u201cintegrity\u201d of the landmark is preserved by the absence of significant non-historic development.<\/p>\n On this ancient site where the Navy wants to construct a surface radar tower, Park Service disagree with the Navy\u2019s assessment of the impact.<\/p>\n \u201cIt does not make sense that a 25\u20195\u201d tall tower constructed within the Latte site would be evaluated as having an indirect effect on that resources,\u201d the Park Service said, rather the proposed tower and its barbed wire fence would have a profound adverse affect on the latte site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of the Navy has seemingly ignored its own studies in its latest plans…<\/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":[9958,9959,687,1377],"class_list":["post-221805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-guam-buildup","tag-report-military","tag-unai-babui","tag-unai-chulu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221805","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=221805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}