Guam EPA Under Scrutiny

GEPA under scrutiny .
Thursday, 06 May 2010 05:05
by Therese Hart
Marianas Variety News Staff

EPA official says environment agency facing high-risk status

REPRESENTATIVES from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are currently on island to look into the Guam EPA’s financial control system, which a report found to be mismanaged.

Enrique Manzanilla, director of EPA’s communities and ecosystems division, earlier told Guam EPA administrator Lorilee Crisostomo that the fiscal mismanagement could place the agency under a high-risk status.

EPA’s 2009 End of Year Program Review Summary found that in the last two years, Guam EPA has been hiring staff without increasing its revenues.

Gerry Cruz, public information officer for GEPA, said yesterday that Crisostomo was off-island and she would have to review the report thoroughly before she could comment.

An administration officer in Adelup, who requested not to be identified, said Crisostomo is likely to be placed on administrative leave once she gets back from her trip.

Manzanilla stated in his letter to the Guam EPA administrator that his staff has discussed the agency’s financial difficulties with Crisostomo over the last two years.

Cruz said EPA officials are working with Guam EPA and discussing all the points made in the report.

Cruz said the problems that GEPA is facing “didn’t just happen overnight.” He said there were some good points EPA mentioned about the progress GEPA is making in spite of its financial woes.

In discussions with Crisostomo, the administrative services office and other Guam EPA managers, EPA stated it was unclear how the local agency prioritizes its work, controls its finances or even whether it can determine if it is able to meet its salary and other operational expenses for the rest of the fiscal year.

The EPA report concluded that Guam EPA has not taken any steps to prevent the cash flow deficit from happening at the beginning of fiscal year 2011.

As an indicator of the difficulty GEPA will have meeting its expenses this year, Guam EPA’s salary expenses alone will total over $3 million. Local mandates require Guam EPA staff salaries to be paid exclusively by the EPA grant.

USEPA’s total consolidated grant for the year is $3.2 million, which is extended to cover salary plus other operational expenses. Because the EPA grant is encumbered for special purposes, less than $3 million of the grant is actually available for GEPA salaries.

“It is unlikely that current EPA funding would cover existing GEPA salaries, let alone contractors, project implementation, other operational expenses, unanticipated expenses, or higher-than-anticipated costs. This is a problem for an agency that is mostly funded by EPA’s grant,” Manzanilla stated in his letter to Crisostomo.

“Clearly there is a pattern of behavior that hardly helps its financial difficulties. The pattern over the last few years has been a ‘boom or bust’ system: funds have been frozen during the beginning of year cash flow “deficit” crisis GEPA experiences. Then an ad hoc hiring and other spending decisions are made after receiving EPA’s first grant award in spring, followed by spending cuts on an as-needed basis as the fiscal year closes,” the EPA report stated.

“This process has contributed to the financial problems described…and it is a fundamental deficiency,” according to the report.

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DEIS Deserves an F

DEIS F grade deserves supplemental effort
Tuesday, 23 March 2010 03:17
by Sen. Ben Pangelinan
Marianas Variety

THE recent grade given the draft environmental impact statement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency merits an extra step in the National Environmental Protection Act process before it goes to final. This is the lowest grade possible and speaks to the inadequacy and technical deficiencies of the document in addressing the impact of the military buildup on our community.
In response, I sent a letter to Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the Council of Environmental Quality, to step in and order a supplemental impact study, which directs the military to develop and commit to changes in their plan to adequately addresses the concerns raised by the USEPA experts, our own local environmental experts and the economic experts who pointed out blatant errors in the technical assumptions and conclusions of the DEIS.


Below, I share my letter to her with you.

“Dear Ms. Sutley:

In November 2009, the Department of Defense completed close to an 11,000 page draft environmental impact statement that attempted to detail the impact on Guam of relocating 8,000 Marines and 12,000 dependents from Okinawa, dredging the only harbor to allow visiting Aircraft Carrier Berthing, and the creation of an Army Air and Missile Defense Task Force.

“During the 90-day comment period, the citizens of Guam, many of them professionals in the environmental field outlined and submitted thousands of comments identifying defects in the analysis of how the proposed activity will impact Guam and her residents.

“On February 17, 2010, the Unites States Environmental Protection Agency issued a ninety-five page report titled: EPA Detailed Comments on the Draft Environmental Impact statement for the Guam and the CNMI Military Relocation.” In the report, USEPA issued a rating of environmentally unsatisfactory; inadequate information (EU-3); the worst rating that the USEPA could assign to the DEIS.

“Review of USEPA’s comments indicate that the DEIS is “unsatisfactory from the standpoint of public health or welfare or environmental quality,” and thus subject to referral by USEPA to the Council of Environmental Quality pursuant to Section 309 of the Clean Air Act. It is also clear that the issues raised are of national importance because of the threat to the national environmental resources or policies.

“In July 2006, the Civilian/Military Task Force established a working group between the government of Guam, federal agencies and the DOD to create a master plan for the proposed buildup and address all the environmental and socioeconomic issues created by this unprecedented peace time troop movement.

“Subject matter experts from government of Guam agencies that signed confidentiality agreements with the DOD were provided an advanced copy of the DEIS before its release in order to identify any gaps or issues that were not properly addressed.

“Between the creation of the C/MTF, the advance review of the DEIS and the official release of the DEIS, the government of Guam has documented its concerns with the scope and severity of the potential impacts of these projects.

“The contents and substance of the DEIS evidences that little or no progress was made in resolving these differences between government of Guam, its agencies, federal agencies, and the DOD. This is further evidenced by the periodic reports by the United States Government Accountability Office on the progress of the DOD projects on Guam over the time period between the scoping meeting and the release of the DEIS. Review of the DEIS makes clear that the potential adverse environmental impacts are extreme in each of the following categories:

(a) Possible violation of national environmental standards or policies.
(b) Severity.
(c) Geographical scope.
(d) Duration.
(e) Importance as precedents.
(f) Availability of environmentally preferable alternatives.

“As a senior member of the Guam Legislature representing over 150,000 U.S. citizens on our island, I am requesting that Council of Environmental Quality be proactive by ordering a supplemental environmental impact statement be performed that addresses the many issues identified by USEPA and the citizens of Guam during the comment period.

“The SEIS must include corrections to erroneous analysis, identification of compatible alternatives and equitable mitigation. In addition, the SEIS must be completed prior to the issuance of the final EIS and the record of decision by the Department of Defense in light of the volume and scope of the DEIS, and in order to allow the citizens of Guam to fully review and comment on the new plans and revised studies.

“Guam continues to answer the call to support the United States with her resources and citizens; however, we are in need of assistance to ensure that the interests of the federal government, especially the Department of Defense are not placed above the vitality, viability and equitable survival of our homeland and our people.

“Thank you for taking an interest in these important matters that affect both our environment and quality of life. It is my sincerest hope that the council will act expeditiously to protect Guam from any unnecessary and irreversible harm resulting from any proposed actions of the Department of Defense.”

Japan Prime Minister Denies Ever Saying 'Move Okinawa Air Base To Guam'

Japan Prime Minister Denies Ever Saying 'Move Okinawa Air Base To Guam'

Tokyo's Top Ministers Need To Get On The Same Page (And Stop Confusing The Issues!)

Written by Jeff Marchesseault, Guam News Factor Staff Writer
Sunday, 06 December 2009 20:19

GUAM - The day after international media reported that Japan Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa was preparing to fly to Guam to assess the island's capacity to absorb the functions of a U.S. air base in Okinawa, his prime minister is saying he issued no such instructions.

That according to UPI and Mainichi News.

UPI reports that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama explained that he remained under the impression that Washington still prefers to stand by a previously agreed plan to move the base to an area near Camp Schwab in Okinawa Prefecture.

Kitazawa: Shall We Expect Him Next Week Or Not?

Kitazawa was reportedly scheduled to arrive as early as this week. No word yet on whether his trip is still on, but UPI quotes the Defense Minister as being very clear about the reason behind his mission to Guam:

"I'd like to examine its capacity and geography as well as the conditions of the deployment of U.S. forces," he said. "Okinawa residents and the Social Democratic Party are demanding that we seek relocation out of the prefecture even if the process takes longer."

The bit about seeking relocation out of Okinawa even if the process takes longer seems consistent with Prime Minister Hatoyama's drawn out, indecisive reluctance to accept the terms of a 2006 bilateral accord with the U.S. The agreement requires the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan City to remote, coastal Camp Schwab in Nago City and the transfer of 8,600 Marines to Guam, where a $15 billion buildup is set to begin between late summer and early fall.

A Real World Wakeup

But Okinawans and others in Japan voted Hatoyama and his Democratic Party (along with coalition supporters like the Social Democrats) into power largely on the platform promise that a new government would fight to move Futenma out of Okinawa prefecture and preferably outside of Japan.

But given the cold, hard realities of international security imperatives, that kind of campaign rhetoric is looking more and more like a pipe dream. And that could put the Prime Minister in a pickle domestically, since he reportedly needs the parliamentary support of junior coalition partners like the Social Democrats to get legislation through the Diet.

But no matter how idealistic the Democrats may have thought they were being on the campaign trail, the reality is that the Okinawa-Guam transfer has been nearly 20 years in the making -- from about 15 years of negotiation to about four years of hard planning and prep work. The reality is that the U.S. military can't spend all that time coming up with a solution that does its best to balance competing interests like 'quality of life' and 'economic opportunity' with social and environmental impacts...and then decide nine months before heavy equipment starts clearing land that it's going to put everything on hold so it can scratch its head and figure out a quick alternative. It doesn't work that way. The U.S. has long since done its homework on the alternatives. And the Department of Defense, which leads security and dominates strategy in the region, says there aren't any.

So it's curious why Japan's Defense Minister would think any differently.

Who's On First?

This is not the first time the Prime Minister and his Defense Minister have appeared to be reading from different scripts. After U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates paid a visit to Tokyo in November and insisted that Nago was the only option, Kitazawa agreed that it might be best to stick to the plan. And Foreign Minister Okada said that Okinawa's Kadena Air Base might be an option, although that idea was dead on arrival when Okada visited Okinawa to proffer the notion and met stiff resistance in the prefecture that bears the heaviest concentration of U.S. bases in Japan.

Since winning office at the tail end of August, Hatoyama has appeared to be nervous, noncommittal, evasive, contradictory and defiant on the Futenma issue. Lately, it is presumed that he will delay the announcement of his alternative plan until January (the previous deadline was before the end of this year).

On the one hand, Hatoyama faces those fiercely opposed to any new bases in Okinawa. On the other, he faces an America that views the base relocation within Okinawa and the Okinawa-Guam troop transfer as a way to relieve pressure on Okinawa's crowded civilian city dwellars while re-fortifying the U.S. defensive posture in the Pacific. From one administration to the next, the U.S. has not wavered in its stated intention to move Futenma to Nago and transfer thousands of Marines and their families to Guam.

At some point soon, Japan's new government must decide whether it's going to insist that Futenma must be moved out of Okinawa or whether it's going to honor a 2006 bilateral accord that is designed to help keep Japan safe and protect the collective interests of that nation, ours and others. Japan must decide and decide quickly. At least then, the U.S. and Guam will know where Tokyo stands. Right now it's not exactly clear.

Read the UPI story, "Japan PM: Guam not being eyed for base", December 5, 2009.

Read the Guam News Factor story, "When Mr. Kitazawa Comes To Guam, Let's Speak With One Patriotic Voice", December 5, 2009.

More Adverse Impacts of the Brown Tree Snake

SCIENCE DAILY....SOURCE OF LATEST RESEARCH NEWS
http://www.sciencedaily.com/
Brown Tree Snake Could Mean Guam Will Lose More Than Its Birds

ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2008) — In the last 60 years, brown tree snakes have become the embodiment of the bad things that can happen when invasive species are introduced in places where they have few predators. Unchecked for many years, the snakes caused the extinction of nearly every native bird species on the Pacific island of Guam.

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A variety of other damage has been directly attributed to brown tree snakes, including large population losses among other native animal species in Guam's forests, attacks on children and pets, and electrical power outages.

But new research by University of Washington biologists suggests that indirect impacts might be even farther reaching, possibly changing tree distributions and reducing native tree populations, altering already damaged ecosystems even further.

"The brown tree snake has often been used as a textbook example for the negative impacts of invasive species, but after the loss of birds no one has looked at the snake's indirect effects," said Haldre Rogers, a UW doctoral student in biology.

"It has been 25 years since the birds disappeared. It seems to me the consequences are going to keep reverberating throughout the community if birds are fundamental components of the forest," she said.

Birds typically make up a small part of the life of a forest, but they are important for pollination, spreading seeds around the forest and controlling insects that feed on plants. Guam, an island 30 miles long and 5 to 15 miles wide about 3,800 miles west of Hawaii, lost most of its native birds after the brown tree snake was introduced by accident from the Admiralty Islands following World War II. The snake has few predators on Guam, so its population density is quite high – estimated at more than 3,000 per square mile – and some individuals there grow to an unusual size of 10 feet long.

Before introduction of the brown tree snake, Guam had 12 species of native forest birds. Today 10 of those are extinct on Guam, and the other two species have fewer than 200 individuals. Though Guam has some non-native bird populations, few other birds moved in when native species died out, and none of them live in the forest. That leaves few birds to consume tree seeds and then drop them away from the trees.

That could have two possible negative impacts on the native forests, Rogers said. First, some plant species need birds to handle their seeds to ensure effective germination. In addition, seed predators and fungi that kill seeds are often found in high density directly beneath a parent tree, so the trees rely on birds to disperse seeds beyond the range of those negative effects. If native birds performed those functions on Guam, tree populations could suffer from the loss of birds. It appears 60 percent to 70 percent of tree species in the native forests are dispersed, at least in part, by birds, she said.

To test the effects of the loss of native birds on seed distribution, Rogers devised seed traps that look a bit like satellite dish receivers, with tubing bent into a circular shape and covered with fine mesh screen-door netting. She set 119 traps beneath and near Premna obtusifolia, or false elder, trees on Guam and the nearby island of Saipan, which does not have brown tree snakes. For each tree sampled, she set two traps directly beneath the tree's canopy, two about 3 feet away, three at 16 feet, three at 33 feet and seven at 65 feet.

On Saipan, Rogers and her colleagues found seeds in nearly every trap at each distance, though more seeds were found in closer traps and fewer farther away. However, on Guam the seeds appeared only in traps directly beneath the canopy. What's more, most of the farther-dispersed seeds from traps on Saipan had the seed coats removed, a factor that could speed seedling germination and the growth of new trees and something that likely could only be accomplished in the gut of a bird. None of the seeds found on Guam had seed coats removed.

In addition, the scientists randomly selected points in native forests on Guam, Saipan and two other nearby islands, Tinian and Rota, searching for seedlings of a tree called Aglaia mariannensis and each seedling's most likely parent, the closest adult of that species. On Guam all seedlings were found within 16 feet of the nearest adult tree, most within 6 feet. On the other islands the nearest adult trees were found two to three times farther away from the seedlings.

"These findings could have global implications, since forests in areas that have had a decline in bird populations instead of outright extinction might show effects similar to those in the forests of Guam," Rogers said.

She notes that recent studies show bird populations are declining worldwide, and that as many as 25 percent of U.S. species face the threat of extinction.

Rogers presents her data August 8 at the Ecological Society of America meeting in Milwaukee. Co-authors are Joshua Tewksbury and Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, both UW assistant professors of biology.

Further research, Rogers believes, could turn up other indirect impacts the brown tree snake has had on Guam. For example, she notes anecdotal evidence that there is a substantially higher spider population on Guam than on other nearby islands, and she speculates that could largely be because the native bird population has been decimated.

But the biggest indirect impact, she said, could be altered seed scattering that in turn might, in the near future, transform the remaining forest from a diverse mixture of tree species to clumps of trees of the same species, separated by open space. That could have serious consequences, including extinction, for plant and animal species that still live in the forests.

"It seems logical that if there are no birds then seeds are not able to get away from their parent trees, and that is exactly what our research shows," Rogers said. "The magnitude of difference between seed dispersal on Guam and Saipan is alarming because of its implications for Guam's forests, and for forests worldwide experiencing a decline or complete loss of birds."


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Adapted from materials provided by University of Washington.

The Ocean's Alarming Acidity

Published on Sunday, December 16, 2007 by McClatchy Newspapers
Oceans’ Growing Acidity Alarms Scientists
by Les Blumenthal

WASHINGTON - Seven hundred miles west of Seattle in the Pacific at Ocean Station Papa, a first-of-its-kind buoy is anchored to monitor a looming environmental catastrophe.

Forget about sea levels rising as glaciers and polar ice melt, and increasing water temperatures affecting global weather patterns. As the oceans absorb more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, they’re gradually becoming more acidic.

And some scientists fear that the change may be irreversible.

At risk are sea creatures up and down the food chain, from the tiniest phytoplankton and zooplankton to whales, from squid to salmon to crabs, coral, oysters and clams.

The oceans are already 30 percent more acidic than they were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, as they absorb 22 tons of carbon dioxide a day. By the end of the century, they could be 150 percent more acidic.

“Everything points to dramatic effects,” said Richard Feely, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle. “There are suggestions the entire ecosystem could change over time.”

Originally, scientists thought the oceans could be one of the solutions to the buildup of greenhouse gases, as they absorb about one-third of the carbon dioxide that’s emitted worldwide. But they now know that the fundamental chemistry of the oceans has changed, and the possible impacts seem to grow more nightmarish as research accelerates.

“It seems like it is a one-way street, and that is alarming,” said Steven Emerson, a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington. “The pH of the oceans could be lowered permanently.”

Emerson was the lead scientist on the team that built the buoy at Ocean Station Papa, where weather measurements have been taken since the 1940s. The 10-foot-diameter buoy is equipped with an array of sensors that, among other things, measure the amount of carbon dioxide that’s being absorbed by the North Pacific and the pH, or acid levels, of the ocean. Anchored in water 5,000 feet deep, the buoy relays its information to onshore scientists via satellite.

Of all the oceans in the world, the North Pacific could be the most vulnerable to acidification.

As the oceans’ deepest waters circulate around the globe, they eventually arrive in the North Pacific, where they rise near the surface before plunging deep again to continue their global journey. When the water arrives in the North Pacific, it’s already acidic from the carbon produced by decaying organic material during its 1,000-year journey from the North Atlantic through the Indian Ocean and across the Pacific, Feely said.

As it surfaces, or upwells, in the North Pacific, the water absorbs even more carbon dioxide from the air. Cold water absorbs more carbon dioxide than warm water does.

“The older water is in the Pacific, the newer water is in the Atlantic,” Feely said. “There’s 10 percent more carbon dioxide in the Pacific than in the Atlantic.”

Corrosive water 600 to 700 feet deep already has been detected off the continental shelf of Washington state, Oregon and Alaska, Feely said.

“It’s butting right up against the coast,” he said. “The concern is when it gets to the continental shelf, what it will do to the fisheries.”

The increasing acidity can eat away at the shells of crabs, oysters, clams and nearly microscopic organisms known as krill and pteropods. It also inhibits calcification, the process in which these animals rebuild their shells. Without shells, most of the animals probably would die.

Krill and pteropods are a major food source for juvenile salmon, herring, pollock, cod, mackerel and other fish.

“When you start messing with the lower end of the food chain, it can dramatically affect the higher end of the food chain,” Feely said.

Squid also are sensitive to higher acidity, which affects their blood circulation and respiration. Colonies of coral, including those in tropical waters and those found deep off the Northwest coast, could disappear.

Feely said that 500 million to 1 billion people worldwide depended on fish for survival. Sharp declines in fish populations would affect their lives.

Eventually, the acidification will reach into inland waters, affecting oyster beds and clamming areas.

Earlier this month, the Senate Commerce Committee passed a bill co-sponsored by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., that would create a comprehensive ocean-acidification research and monitoring program. A similar measure has been introduced in the House of Representatives.

Cantwell said she expected her Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard subcommittee of the Commerce Committee to hold hearings in the Northwest on ocean acidification early next year.

“It’s a little-known fact, not widely understood, but it is clear our oceans are suffering,” Cantwell said.

A San Francisco environmental group, the Center for Biodiversity, has asked 10 states - Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Maine and Delaware - to declare their coastal waters “impaired” under the Clean Water Act because of rising acidity. Such a move could clear the way for the states to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions.

“Though we believe the science is there, the political will may not be there,” said Miyoko Sakashita, a lawyer for the Center for Biodiversity. “At least this will raise awareness among policymakers.”

Though cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions might slow or reverse global warming, scientist say it could take thousands of years or longer to reverse the increased acidity of the oceans.

“For all practical purposes this is permanent,” Emerson said. “That’s not true of temperature. But with ocean acidification the time scales are long.”

McClatchy Newspapers 2007