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CUC asked to deal with millions worth of liability to Coast Guard
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is being asked for “a couple of million dollars” it apparently owes the U.S. Coast Guard for various cleanup activities done in the past years.
CUC legal counsel James Sirok first brought the matter to the board of directors’ meeting last March saying that it was he discussed it with the representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“We incurred from U.S. Coast Guard clean up expenses way back since 2008,” Sirok said.
“Now we’ve been approached again by EPA, their attorneys, to deal with these Coast Guard costs,” he added.
According to Sirok, the assessment of cleanup costs and expenses were basically from 2010 to 2012 and some from 2014 to 2015 and were related to oil contamination on Saipan.
“Those cleanup expenses, which are in the millions of dollars, have been sort of moved on through the years based on waiver we got from the Coast Guard, based on representation that we don’t have the ability to pay for those,” Sirok said.
The board wasn’t aware of such liability and board chair Adelina Roberto said it was the first time she heard it again since last year, which dealt with EPA assessments.
Roberto and the other members raised the question of how much exactly do they need to pay and whether the liability was ever recorded because it was not on their books.
“If it’s not on the books then we don’t know anything,” director Joe Torres said.
Sirok responded that CUC received and official assessment letter for the costs incurred.
“It’s been assessed to us. The assessments were made before I came on board. Last time we dealt with this in 2013 to request to the Coast Guard that we don’t have to pay for this because we don’t have the money,” Sirok said.
Sirok said they were allowed to “forego payment” before board members came on board.
“We have to deal with this issue again,” Sirok said, adding that they will look into asking the Coast Guard “to again defer payment.”
“If we end up having to pay this, it will have to go to the rates,” he added.
