Tinian will soon begin the process of contracting a private company to build a new well on the island as part of the efforts to avert potential serious water shortage in the next few years, according to utility officials.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a crisis yet, but it will be if we don’t do it now,” said Gregorio Castro, deputy director of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation for Tinian.<\/p>\n
The new well — an alternative to Maui well which has been the island’s main source of water for decades — will be bidded out starting July 2 to potential contractors.<\/p>\n
According to Castro, this may take a few weeks or months as selection process will be conducted once the offers have been submitted to CUC, but added the government-owned utility firm will try to expedite the procedures in view of the condition of the existing well.<\/p>\n
Pumping more than 1.3 million gallons a day for Tinian residents and commercial establishments, Maui is in need of immediate rehabilitation to ensure constant source of water for the island.<\/p>\n
Unlike Saipan and Rota which now are both experiencing water shortages amid the prolonged dry spell in the CNMI, Tinian still provides 24-hour supply as its reservoir is one of the best source of potable water, Castro said.<\/p>\n
The water situation on Tinian has come under scrutiny in recent months on the heels of inability by local officials to raise revenues to finance the well-drilling and rehabilitation project.<\/p>\n
It has been banking on the two percent developer’s tax due from Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino amounting to $800,000, but the financially-trouble casino has asked for leeway in meeting its obligations to the government.<\/p>\n
Castro said CUC has been assured by the Tinian Legislative Delegation that the money has been identified from the reprogramming of capital improvement projects.<\/p>\n
So far, finance officials have yet to guarantee the availability of funds — a situation that may delay the construction of the critical utility projects. (Benhur C. Saladores)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tinian will soon begin the process of contracting a private company to build a new well on the island as part of the efforts to avert potential serious water shortage in the next few years, according to utility officials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46996","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\/46996","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=46996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}