Public hearing set for clean up of Chiget mortar range

The Marine Forces Pacific has set a public hearing on Tinian this July 15 for the clean up of the old Chiget Mortar Range, a military “scar” left closed and fenced off on the island for decades.

MARFORPAC executive director Craig Whelden told Saipan Tribune that they recognize the clean up as an “important issue” for Tinian and the CNMI, one that, he said, they would explore ways to accelerate. However, Tinian historian Don Farrell, chief of staff of the previous Tinian mayor, Ramon Dela Cruz, separately said the request for a clean up was brought to the military almost five years ago.

“That has not happened, nor do we believe it will ever happen,” Farrell told Saipan Tribune in an email.

The July hearing will come more than two months after a public hearing on Tinian for the U.S. military’s proposed live-fire range complexes there.

The military’s proposal for a “high impact area”—as part of their four proposed range complexes on the island—has drawn concern from Tinian officials and people, who point to the old Chiget range as an example of what an “high-impact” area means for their island.

Whelden assures, though, that the Department of Defense has an “obligation to fix” the old mortar range. “As Mayor San Nicholas will attest, when [U.S. Department of Defense Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities Robert M.] Scher visited Tinian last week, our tour of the island was time-constrained because of a scheduled meeting with the Governor. Given the option of visiting the atomic bomb pit or Chiget—I elected to take Secretary Scher to Chiget because of the importance we place on this issue,” Whelden said in an email last week.

“I will do the same with LtGen [Anthony G.] Crutchfield next week to ensure senior leaders in the DoD understand the scar Chiget is on Tinian and our obligation to fix it,” he said.

The public hearing on the Chiget range clean up is set at 4:30pm at the Tinian Public Library.

The Chiget Mortar Range has been closed for 21 years. The old military site sits right near a tourist attraction, a popular Tinian blowhole.

According to Whelden, military studies were completed on this site in 1997 and 2007. However, he explained that work under the military’s “Munitions Response Program” could not fully proceed until the planning efforts for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Relocation in Guam confirmed that Tinian would not be used as part of these plans.

According to Whelden, they started the MRP process last year. “We have been exploring options in recent months to accelerate the clean-up,” he said.

A site survey was completed in April 2015, he said. These survey findings will be presented at the public hearing.

“While we will follow the MRP remediation protocols, we will also continue to explore in parallel ways to accelerate the clean up,” Whelden said.

For Farell, though, it is a “shame” that the issue this only coming to the fore today. “Some five years ago, when [former] Mayor Dela Cruz first reviewed the [Joint Guam Program Office] plan for rifle ranges on Tinian, he requested the cleanup of the Chiget mortar range. That has not happened, nor do we believe it will ever happen,” he said.

According to Farrell, two years after JGPO [plans for Guam relocation] failed to receive Congressional funding, Whelden appeared before the now-dissolved Military Integration Management Committee, and announced the new [CNMI Joint Military Training] plan, which included an artillery range on Tinian.

“Mayor Dela Cruz immediately requested a visit to an active Marine Corps live fire range. Mr. Whelden quickly made the arrangements and Mayor Dela Cruz visited an artillery range in Hawai’i. When the Mayor returned he wrote to Mr. Whelden personally, with a copy to Governor Inos, stating that although he would work with MarForPac on the other range issues incorporated in the Tinian lay down plan, he opposed the artillery range,” he said.

“It was our position then, and remains our position, that an artillery range will create a “dudded impact area” that cannot be cleaned up, just as the Chiget mortar range cannot be cleaned up, and would thus violate the terms and spirit of the original Tinian land lease agreement,” he said.

He noted, though, that while some of the military’s artillery and bombing ranges have created dudded impact areas that cannot be cleaned up, the military has “an exemplary record of maintaining their [federal law]-mandated programmatic agreements on historic properties and agreements on the protection of endangered and threatened species.”