The Tinian Women Association, Guardians of Gani\u2019, P\u00e5ganWatch and the Center for Biological Diversity\u2014represented by Earthjustice\u2014will continue their fight against the U.S. Navy\u2019s plans to stage live-fire war games on the islands of Tinian and P\u00e5gan in the CNMI as part of the relocation of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam.<\/p>\n
The groups appealed yesterday a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, which found that the Navy did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act when it failed to disclose the impacts of mission-essential training in the CNMI before giving the green light to relocate Marines to Guam.<\/p>\n
The groups have been fighting this proposal since 2013 and filed suit against the Navy in 2016, describing the training proposed for Tinian and P\u00e5gan as \u201cintense and destructive.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWar games would include artillery, mortars, rockets, amphibious assaults, attack helicopters and warplanes and, on P\u00e5gan, ship-to-shore naval bombardment. The training would destroy native forests and coral reefs, kill native wildlife\u2014including endangered species\u2014and destroy prime farmland,\u201d said the groups in a statement yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe proposed training on Tinian would devastate our community, blanketing much of the island in deafening noise and cutting us off from our traditional fishing grounds, cultural sites and recreational beaches,\u201d said Juanita Mendiola of Tinian Women Association. \u201cWe need to keep up this fight to protect our island for our children and our children\u2019s children.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a life or death struggle for the people of P\u00e5gan,\u201d said Cinta Kaipat of P\u00e5ganWatch. \u201cIf the Navy\u2019s plans go forward, they will turn our homeland into a militarized wasteland, and we will never be able to return.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tinian is a small island with a population of just over 3,000. Currently, the only live-fire training conducted there is limited to a sniper target range. No training currently takes place on P\u00e5gan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe respectfully disagree with the district court\u2019s decision,\u201d said Earthjustice attorney David Henkin. \u201cNEPA does not allow the Navy to hide from the public the truth about the highly destructive training in the Northern Marianas that Guam-based Marines would need to conduct. Rather, such information must be disclosed before the Navy makes any decisions about relocation and certainly before the Navy moves forward with implementing the relocation.\u201d (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Tinian Women Association, Guardians of Gani\u2019, P\u00e5ganWatch and the Center for Biological Diversity\u2014represented by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[5040,5810,26,12705],"class_list":["post-284389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-biological-diversity","tag-cinta-kaipat","tag-cnmi","tag-guam-based-marines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284389","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=284389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}