The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sharply criticizes the military’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the buildup in Guam and the Mariana islands. See the Pacific News Center video below and the AP article at bottom. Mahalo to Koohan Paik for these links.
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Statement of the military buildup is “environmentally unsatisfactory”. This comes from a comment paper submitted by the USEPA that is over 100 pages long.
Read the Summary in the Cover Letter of EPA’s Assessment of The Guam DEIS
Read the EPA’s Assessment of The Guam DEIS
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reviewed the 9 volume long Draft Environmental Impact statement of the Guam / CNMI military buildup. Their assessment is that the DEIS is “Environmentally Unsatisfactory”. The USEPA gave the DEIS an EU-3 rating. This is the absolute worst rating that the USEPA could have given to the DEIS.
Here’s some of their reasons for this rating. For the EU rating the USEPA cites the lack of a specific plan to address the wastewater treatment and water supply needs of the construction workers and induced population growth. The USEPA says this may result in “significant adverse public health impacts.”
The second reason is that the “project will result in unacceptable impacts to 71 acres of high quality coral reef ecosystem in Apra harbor.”
Then there are the reasons for the 3 rating. The category 3 rating is also the worst rating that they can give it means that the DEIS is inadequate. The first reason for this is that the DEIS offers no specific workable plan for addressing the enormous increase in Guam’s population. Finally, the methodology used in the DEIS for evaluating the full extent of impacts to coral reef habitat is not adequate. That is the DEIS does not present an adequate plan for mitigating the unavoidable loss of coral reef habitat.
The EPA also listed several primary concerns. First that the DEIS inappropiately excludes the impacts of construction workers and induced population growth. Secondly the military realignment to Guam will result in an immediate island-wide shortfall in water supply. This will result in low water pressure which has a direct result on public health. It could lead to increased exposure to water borne disease from sewage stormwater infiltration into drinking water and low water pressure for fire fighting. It could also result in saltwater intrusion into Guam’s acquifer. Then there is the problems of an already inudated wastewater system. The USEPA says the miltary buildup will result in an increase in raw sewage spills. This means people will be exposed to raw sewage in their drinking water supply, ocean recreation, and shellfish consumption. Finally DOD’s inadequate assessment of the dredging of coral in Apra harbor could lead the USEPA to find them in violation of the Clean Water Act.
Furthermore the USEPA states that “These impacts are of sufficient magnitude that EPA believes the action should not proceed as proposed.”
CCU Chairman Simon Sanchez has read some of the USEPA’s comments and he says they mirror most of what GWA has been saying all along. Sanchez will be meeting with the USEPA and DOD on the second week of March.
Meanwhile the USEPA says that if they are unable to resolve their concerns they may forward the matter to the Council on Environmental Quality.
EPA sharply criticizes military’s Guam plan, cites water and sewage problems
AUDREY McAVOY
Associated Press Writer
February 24, 2010 | 9:55 p.m.
Further, the agency said the military’s plan to build a new aircraft carrier berth at the U.S. territory’s Apra Harbor would result in “unacceptable impacts” to 71 acres of a high quality coral reef.
The EPA outlined the criticisms in a strongly worded six-page letter to the Navy regarding a draft environmental impact statement by the military.
“The impacts are of sufficient magnitude that EPA believes the action should not proceed as proposed and improved analyses are necessary to ensure the information in the EIS is adequate to fully inform decision makers,” the EPA said.
The military’s Joint Guam Program Office said it was evaluating all comments it received on its environmental study and was committed to working with the EPA and other federal agencies to find solutions.
“The issues raised by EPA regarding the potential impacts to Guam from the military buildup are consistent with what we have heard from Guam’s leaders, local agencies and the public,” the military office said in an email statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The military plan includes moving 8,600 Marines, and 9,000 of their dependents, to Guam from Okinawa, Japan. Washington and Tokyo are jointly paying for the transfer, which is designed to reduce the U.S. military’s large footprint on densely populated Okinawa.
The letter said that at its peak, the change is expected to boost the Pacific territory’s population by 79,000 people, or 45 percent, over the island’s current 180,000 residents. The figure includes large numbers of construction workers that will have to move to Guam to build the new facilities.
The EPA’s letter, dated Feb. 17, was first reported by the Pacific Daily News on its Web site Thursday Guam time.
Specifically, the EPA said the military’s plan would lead to the following problems:
— A shortfall in Guam’s water supply, resulting in low water pressure that would expose people to water borne diseases from sewage.
— Increased sewage flows to wastewater plants already failing to comply with Clean Water Act regulations.
— More raw sewage spills that would contaminate the water supply and the ocean.
Regarding coral reefs, the EPA said the military underestimated the effect the aircraft carrier berth would have on a resource that currently provides essential habitats for fish and endangered sea turtles and that supports commercial and recreational fishing.
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On the Net:
EPA National Environmental Policy Act page for the Department of Defense: http://www.epa.gov/region09/nepa/dod.html
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