HONOLULU\u2014The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded $6.4 million to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for wastewater and drinking water infrastructure support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis much-needed funding will help the CNMI provide cleaner, safer drinking water, while protecting its coral reefs,\u201d said Alexis Strauss, EPA\u2019s acting Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. \u201cWe will continue to support CUC\u2019s efforts to ensure safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for the residents of CNMI.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since 2010, EPA has awarded over $49 million to in Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Funds to the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation (CUC), which provides utility services to residents for the design and construction of water and wastewater infrastructure. Past projects include the construction of the Papago drinking water tank and the San Vicente drinking water supply line.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s funding will used for water infrastructure projects to provide 24-hour drinking water service to customers, improve drinking water quality, and prevent water pollution. Targeted projects include a program to detect and repair drinking water pipeline leaks, a water supply line replacement at Finasisu, Saipan sewer lift station renovations and sewer system improvements, and a new water tank near the Northern Marianas College.<\/p>\n
The EPA\u2019s Pacific Southwest Region (Region 9) administers and enforces federal environmental laws in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands and 148 tribal nations and is home to 50 million people. (EPA)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HONOLULU\u2014The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded $6.4 million to the Commonwealth of the Northern…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,352,389,244],"class_list":["post-238086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-epa","tag-pacific-islands","tag-utility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238086","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}