Judge to personally inspect CUC projects, facilities

U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge David O. Carter will fly next month from Santa Ana, Calif., to Saipan to conduct another on-site inspection of the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.’s projects and facilities that have concerns or disputes.

Carter, who is a Central District of California jurist, will conduct the on-site inspections on Sept. 20, Sunday, to avoid consuming valuable time for in-court proceedings during the weekdays after the inspections.

According to a minute order issued yesterday, Carter ordered CUC and the U.S. government to identify all projects and facilities over which there are any concerns or disputes.

The judge ordered the parties to file on or before Sept. 8 a joint report cataloguing each and every project and facility over which there is any concern and a joint schedule for the inspections.

Carter said the schedule should minimally include a walk from the terminal to the plant facility to Tank 102, along the Oil Pipeline Project route.

Carter said he will use the joint report and the Sept. 20 inspections to inform his decision on how to proceed with the case.

He notified the parties that he is interested in more than just the progress on the Pipeline Project and Tank 102. Other facilities such as the one on Rota are also subject to inspection during that week.

For the Sept. 20 inspections, Carter ordered the parties to assemble at 8:30am in front of the U.S. District Court for the NMI.

He instructed all participants that they may wear comfortable attire that is appropriate for the walk from the terminal to the tanks.

Carter recently expressed “deep concerns” with the delay in the construction of the Oil Pipeline Project. He pointed out that the pipeline construction has only, at most, preliminarily started.

The oil pipeline is an eight-inch aboveground receiving pipeline that delivers diesel fuel from the Mobil oil facility to CUC Power Plants 1 and 2 in Lower Base. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had stated that until the pipeline is properly repaired or replaced, it poses a threat to the adjacent ocean.

The pipeline project was initiated in 2010 at a cost of $1.8 million. Due to numerous problems that contributed to the project’s delay, the cost ballooned to $6 million this year.

On the Tank 102 Project, EPA is concerned that CUC has not made sufficient progress. The tank project involves a 500,000-gallon diesel fuel tank that will replace Tank 010, which has been found to be a source of pollution and is non-repairable.

In CUC’s report, CUC counsel James S. Sirok reported that both the oil pipeline and Tank 102 projects have been moving forward and that the utilities agency continues to take all steps necessary to accomplish these projects.

The federal court signed the stipulated orders for CUC in 2009, setting the requirements and deadlines for the utilities agency to meet. The orders represent an agreement between the CNMI and the EPA on how CUC will come into compliance with the requirements of the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Due to issue of not complying with judicial deadlines, EPA has strongly considered requesting the court to find CUC, among other things, in breach of the orders and appoint a receiver to oversee aspects of the utilities agency’s operations.