Legislature's public hearings on DEIS start today
By Laura Matthews • Pacific Daily News • January 25, 2010
The first of the Legislature's weeklong public hearings on the draft Environmental Impact Statement begins today from 4 to 9 p.m.
All the hearings will be held at the Legislature building in Hagåtña.
These hearings will give residents another opportunity to learn about the military buildup and submit their comments before the Feb. 17 deadline.
All comments on the document will be taken into consideration and could affect what actions the military conducts on the island in order to prepare for the arrival of the 8,000 Marines and their dependents.
The draft EIS was released on Nov. 20 for public viewing and has vital information on how every aspect of life on Guam will change during the military buildup.
The Department of the Navy is preparing the draft to assess the potential environmental effects associated with the proposed military activities. The Navy is the lead agency for preparation of the draft EIS.
The Defense Department -- in preparing for the relocation of the Marines from Okinawa to Guam -- will need to provide them with a firing range for practice. Additionally, with an increase in aircraft activities, there will be more noise on the island.
The proposed actions are complex, multiservice projects involving components of the U.S. Marine Corps, Navy and Army, according to the Department of Defense. Each volume in the nine-volume draft EIS evaluates a discrete portion of the proposed actions.
"Don't be afraid to come because you're not familiar with the 11,000 pages. Just come and tell us what your thinking is, and we'll translate it into the proper format," Sen. Judith Guthertz advised residents last week.
Guthertz is the chairwoman of the legislative Committee on the Guam Military Buildup.
Since the start of the year, numerous public buildup hearings have been held by both the Defense Department and local bodies.
Gov. Felix Camacho held two presentations last week where his Advisory Consultant Team broke down the thousands of pages in the draft EIS into simple language for residents within the two-hour periods.
Residents were taught how to write "action" comments that will generate a response from the Defense Department.
The team also highlighted the major developments proposed by the military that will forever change the shape of Guam. The approximately 80,000 off-islanders to come to Guam by 2014 to occupy the jobs from the buildup, will affect all of Guam's sectors such as utilities, public safety and health services.
1 comment:
This is so weird,I live in Guam and If you move thousands of marines it would be too crowed.Your are going to take peoples' homes and make your own Base and somewhere to shoot.You can't force people out of their homes.Guam is a beautiful island and it's already in a little bad shape but by adding more people it would make things go wrong.They would have more traffic and think about the kids getting to school and before the government would help us with our health problems because we couldn't afford it,and now you want to stop paying for us because they might have to much people.Even though Guam is good cause you can send air plains up and they would be there in a few minutes but if you take our island would you defend us to? Not just practice for shooting.By 2014 we will have 79 thousand people on Guam is already a small island.We don't need more people.What will you do for our community if things get worse? How will help people that is loosing their jobs because their is too much people.Think how Guam will end,don't just think about the Military and whats good for yourselves.you people are crazy if you think you can take our island away from us and take our sports and places were we hang out just to build you a spot? and to think our culture would die out too.What about the future? How will our grand kids inherit these kinds of things.And you think our culture doesn't need to be taught in school.But you wrong.Our culture makes us who we are and in matter of fact you people have no right even though its government property just to get what you want.You people don't even know what your doing.Your hoping that this plan will come out very successful but your not even thinking of the negatives.
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