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Tinian’s Pina plateau under assessment
Pina Plateau on Tinian, a site eyed by the Tinian municipality for an island landfill, is also currently undergoing assessment for ordnance and munitions leftover by the U.S. military.
The Pina Plateau is approximately 600 acres, immediately adjacent to a former U.S. military ordnance storage depot known as the Masalog Ridge Area. According to the Division of Environmental Quality, due to its close proximity to the Masalog Ridge area, and as a result of the airstrikes of Tinian during World War II, there is a likely potential of UXOs within the Pina Plateau area as have been found elsewhere on Tinian.
In an interview, Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality administrator Frank Rabauliman said the site is broken down into three sites: the Pina plateau, and the Pina ridge, which hold a “munitions depot site” and the “revetment,” or a storage for UXOs or munitions.
“I believe the part of the ridge, the Pina Site has been looked at as a proposed landfill. The idea is to try and get the assessment going so it in the event that funding for further assessments…studies for a landfill can begin,” he said.
According to Rabauliman, the Department of Public Lands is using the $750,000 awarded years from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the site.
He said BECQ did work, or “Phase 1,” of the plateau assessment and now Public Lands is working on the rest.
Describing the revetment, he said, “If you go down to Tinian and they take you to the revetment site, there are 1,000-lb bombs, 500-lb bombs just lying there, all over,” he said
According to DEQ, with the likely potential of unexploded ordnance and other World War II-vintage explosive components at the Pina Plateau area, the area presents a likely significant health and physical hazards to general public. Additionally, the Pina Plateau is one of the few large public lands available on Tinian for economic development projects, which is also outside of the two-thirds of the U.S. military controlled area, DEQ said.
