Sen. Vinnie F. Sablan (Ind-Saipan) supports the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s proposal to bury the power system in key areas on Saipan and Tinian as part of CUC\u2019s resiliency plans after Super Typhoon Yutu.<\/p>\n
Sablan, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communication, said an underground power system is something that is proactive.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we start being proactive as opposed to reactive, I think we can save a lot of money,\u201d he said after CUC\u2019s board meeting last Thursday that he attended.<\/p>\n
CUC executive director Gary P. Camacho discussed the proposal at the recent Saipan Chamber of Commerce general membership meeting.<\/p>\n
He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency is privy to the proposal.<\/p>\n
Camacho said they believe that, by securing the power system underground, CUC would be able to quickly re-energize critical areas.<\/p>\n
Sablan also expressed the need for CUC and the CNMI government to comply with the federal court-mandated stipulated orders for CUC projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to ensure we have some progress in answering those orders,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On the restoration efforts after Yutu\u2019s devastation, the senator is hats off to CUC, its staff and those off-island crews like linemen for making the restoration \u201cvery quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re almost 100 percent power,\u201d said Sablan, citing news reports that CUC is looking at the end of this month to complete the restoration efforts. <\/p>\n
He said one has to also acknowledge that Yutu is not the last storm that will hit the CNMI, so CUC will have to start looking into more effective utility services. <\/p>\n
Sablan said the underground utilities project is going to be a long process and take a lot of funding \u201cbut we need to start to think about it and start moving toward it,\u201d adding that CUC needs to provide consistent power, water, wastewater services.<\/p>\n
The Senate will tentatively have its first PUTC committee meeting on Feb. 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom there, we look at legislation. We\u2019re trying to craft legislation that will improve the services and we can start having a more organized meeting with CUC,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sablan underscored that it is not only the Legislature and CUC and other agencies that should know what\u2019s going on, or what the plans are, but the community should also be kept in the loop \u201cbecause we are all stakeholders. It\u2019s the backbone of our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sablan said he attended the CUC board meeting Thursday to see what their issues are. He said he is aware that CUC is facing a lot of issues and, as the PUTC chairman, he wants to make sure that he gets all the background information and gain more knowledge of what\u2019s going on. <\/p>\n
Sablan said it\u2019s imperative for him as the PUTC chairman to keep an open channel with CUC, its management, the board, the staff as well. <\/p>\n
Sablan was a CUC employee for 10 years. He started as a laboratory assistant in 2000. He eventually became a laboratory technician. He left CUC in 2012. <\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a former CUC employee, I am thankful and honored to be here in my official capacity, to act as a conduit for CUC to the Legislature,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sen. Vinnie F. Sablan (Ind-Saipan) supports the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s proposal to bury the power…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-293739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293739","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}