Press Releases
July 22, 2010
Congresswoman Bordallo Issues Statement on the Final EIS
Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo issued the following statement on the Final Environmental Impact Statement briefing conducted by Federal officials.
“I thank Chairwoman Nancy Sutley of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Dorothy Robyn, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Jackalyne Pfannenstiel for coming out to Guam and providing our local leaders and our community an opportunity to participate and voice their concerns on the Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). The fact that these high-ranking officials are visiting Guam is much appreciated and shows the commitment of the White House in hearing our island’s concerns,” Congresswoman Bordallo said today.
“The FEIS has made substantial progress from the initial draft EIS. I appreciate that additional work has been done to address our infrastructure concerns. I continue to urge the Department of Defense to look at provisions I sponsored in this year’s Defense Authorization bill that would also help minimize the burden on our infrastructure. These provisions include providing the Department of Defense with authority to transfer operations and maintenance funding to the Government of Guam to fund and support local infrastructure needs, requiring the Secretary of the Interior to prepare a report on the civilian infrastructure needs for Guam, and granting authority for the Secretary of Defense to establish an integrated water and wastewater system that would be civilian run with the military as a consumer. I will continue to work with the Department of Defense and their interagency partners to continue to identify our needs and ways in which to fund our most pressing infrastructure issues. While the Navy has decided that a transient carrier presence on Guam is necessary, I would urge them to seriously consider the alternatives that myself and our local leaders urged them in our comments on the draft EIS relative to the carrier berthing location. I agree that further study is necessary on the carrier berthing location. I am encouraged to see that the Department of Defense looked favorably on my request to have them more fully utilize the expertise at the University of Guam in this further research on the carrier berthing matter. Furthermore, the adaptive management plan as discussed by the Department of Defense would help to mitigate the effects of the military build-up on our community and could be used as another tool to have our foot on the brake with the military build-up. The adaptive management plan would require the development of a Civil-Military Coordination Council to address issues as they arrive. While this is an innovative way to spread out the timeline of the build-up and an integrated way to solve some of our issues, I know that the devil is in the details of this organization’s structure and make-up. Our local leaders will need to have a voice and influence in this new organization. Finally, I remain concerned that the Navy still has significant work in addressing the selection of the Pagat cliff line as the preferred alternative for a firing range. I still believe that Tinian is a preferred location for this training.”