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<\/p>\nMany of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s unpermitted road cutting were done in response emergencies, according to Commonwealth Utilities Corp. acting executive director Betty G. Terlaje in response to the $6.9 million civil fees and civil penalties now being assessesd against CUC by the Department of Public Works.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you wait for a [DPW] permit when you have a water line that\u2019s busted underneath the road that might cause more issues?\u201d asked Terlaje during a short break of the CUC board meeting last Thursday.<\/p>\n
She said when water line on a road is busted and cars are passing, they need to conduct emergency repairs as it\u2019s more detrimental to the safety of the community.<\/p>\n
Terlaje said they are going to discuss the assessment with DPW Secretary Ray N. Yumul.<\/p>\n
Last month, George C. Sablan, the acting director for DPW Technical Services Division, notified Terlaje that, as of June 30, 2023, CUC owes the CNMI government $6.9 million in outstanding civil fees and civil penalties assessed by DPW for about 110 alleged violations that are mainly related to unpermitted road cutting work.<\/p>\n
Sablan said these road-cutting and trenching activities on CNMI roadways were performed by CUC\u2019s Water Division to fix emergency water leak repairs and water connection underground. He said these road-cutting and trenching activities were performed without required permits and permit applications.<\/p>\n
Terlaje said they can\u2019t wait for Monday to get a DPW permit, especially when the water line is busted Friday night and the hole is getting larger.<\/p>\n
She said CUC is forced to go to the road and cut off the water line.<\/p>\n
Terlaje said the problem is when they restore the road, the contractors that make holes, they have to make larger patches on the road.<\/p>\n
She said they have to execute contracts to repair the road.<\/p>\n
Terlaje noted that some of the waterline breaks are caused by DPW\u2019s work on the side of the road and other contractors that perform work for other agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a compilation of other agencies. Remember, our pipes have been in the ground for a while and DPW paved the road over our pipes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Terlaje said they have no other means to access their pipe, but to break the road to get the repairs underneath the road.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Betty G. Terlaje<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.\u2019s unpermitted road cutting were done in response emergencies, according…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397709","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}