The Senate committees on Fiscal Affairs and Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications held separate public meetings to address the issues regarding the CNMI\u2019s landfills, particularly the one in Marpi. <\/p>\n
Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chair Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian), said the Department of Public Works has requested the CNMI Legislature\u2019s assistance in the construction of Cell 3 of the Marpi landfill, which would be done in phases.<\/p>\n
DPW Secretary James A. Ada sent a letter to legislative leaders about this.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest thing that we need to focus on right now is to address DPW\u2019s request. It is urgent where they need funding to prepare Cell 3. [DPW would need], their initial assessment, $5.5 million based on their letter,\u201d said Hofschneider.<\/p>\n
The money that DPW is asking for would fund the lining of Cell 3 and would also address the other needs of the Marpi landfill.<\/p>\n
Sen. SIxto K. Igisomar (R-Saipan), who chairs the Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications Committee, said that DPW would take about 21 to 22 months to prepare Cell 3 once they get the funds for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cCell 3 is filling up quickly at a really fast pace. At least an average of 80 to 120 tons of garbage are going to Cell 1 and [DPW] really needs to align Cell 3, so they could start filling up Cell 2,\u201d said Igisomar.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually, the slope coming from Cell 1, the debris would slide down to Cell 2. Cell 3 is urgent, it is an emergency, and they need to get the funding. That\u2019s why we held a meeting so that people can hear what\u2019s happening in our landfill,\u201d added Igisomar.<\/p>\n
He added they called in Ada so they could have a better understanding of the situation and their request for $5.5 million to fund the project.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The project] has three to four phases in there. It has to do with the architecture\/engineering design, then [request for proposals], and the hiring of a construction management [team],\u201d said Igisomar, who added that that would already cost $100,000.<\/p>\n
DPW\u2019s request<\/strong><\/p>\n Ada, in his letter, said they are requesting for financial assistance to prepare Cell 3 of the Marpi landfill with the project to be done in phases. He added the project is an urgent need with the rapid development of Saipan.<\/p>\n \u201cIt appears that Saipan\u2019s economy is moving quickly in a vibrant and positive direction. And with all the proposed hotels in the planning and construction stages, it means more waste will be generated from [construction and designs], tourism, and guests. Eventually, [the trash] would end up at the landfill,\u201d said Ada.<\/p>\n \u201cAs you may be aware of, the present outlook for Saipan\u2019s waste disposal infrastructure capacity, which needs to be expanded for our growing economic activity, is diminishing at a rapid rate, and Cell 1 has reached its final fill stage and in desperate need to expand to Cell 2.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that the need to begin construction of Cell 3 would prevent the migration of leachate or contaminants into the groundwater from Cell 2 to the unlined Cell 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Senate committees on Fiscal Affairs and Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications held separate public…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[16718,1114,1913,1882],"class_list":["post-252018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-communications-committee","tag-dpw","tag-public-utilities","tag-public-works"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252018","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}