The Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality as well as the Micronesia Islands Nature Alliance have expressed concerns regarding the possible abolition of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as previously stated by President Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n
EPA has been providing invaluable funding for government agencies across the nation and the CNMI is no stranger to EPA-funded grants. <\/p>\n
BECQ administrator Frank Rabauliman told Saipan Tribune that BECQ receives grants from several grantors, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Office of Insular Affairs, and the EPA.<\/p>\n
According to Rabauliman, BECQ receives about $2.1 million in grants a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith these funds, we are available to implement the Clean Water Act and regulate pesticides, solid waste, septic systems, and a lot of different programs that EPA has,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that funding is either reduced or seized, we would have to look at reducing the number of employees [BECQ] has, depending on the amount of money we end up getting, if any,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Rabauliman said defunding the EPA would have a tremendous impact on public health as well as the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201c[BECQ], through EPA funds, do daily sampling of our beaches. We routinely let the people know if there is contamination or not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rabauliman said if there is no money to pay for laboratory processing, sample collecting, and the sample analyzing, then the people of the CNMI could very well be trapped within their own beaches, not knowing when it is safe to take a swim or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough small, I like to believe these are very important to protect public health,\u201d said Rabauliman.<\/p>\n
MINA executive director Becky Furey shared the same concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cMINA relies on the support of our local partners such as BECQ as well as federal partners to do our work. BECQ\u2019s work is critical to maintaining the marine and terrestrial environments of the CNMI that our communities rely on everyday,\u201d said Furey in an email.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough I am not familiar with the specific challenges in respect to the new administration\u2019s impacts to our environmental regulations, anything that might jeopardize BECQ\u2019s ability to do their work is certainly a cause for concern and makes the role community members play in taking care of our islands that much more important,\u201d said Furey.<\/p>\n
The EPA provides over $4 billion in funding for grants and assistance projects and agreements to both government and non-government agencies across the nation and its territories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality as well as the Micronesia Islands Nature Alliance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[880,26,352,55],"class_list":["post-246930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-becq","tag-cnmi","tag-epa","tag-health-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246930","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}