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BECQ lauds help vs illegal dumps
CNMI Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality administrator Frank Rabauliman commended Friday the efforts of some House representatives in cleaning up Garapan.
Rabauliman thanked Rep. Ed Propst (Ind-Saipan) and Rep. Ivan Blanco (R-Saipan) “for going out there and lending additional eyes on where these illegal dumps are and who might be violating the law.”
Propst and Blanco would post pictures of illegal dumps on social media to bring the pollution problem to the attention of the public.
According to Rabauliman, BECQ spends more than 50 percent of its time educating people.
Rabauliman said that littering should not be addressed solely by the government agencies involved, but by the community as well.
He believes the excess waste is related to the rising population of the islands. “A lot more waste is generated—both solid waste and wastewater,” said Rabauliman.
To supplement the anti-littering efforts, the 3rd litter control apprehending officers certification training would be held on Feb. 28.
According to Division of Environmental Quality’s Ray Masga, they aim to certify a hundred anti-littering officers.
The participants would be taken from BECQ and other government agencies such as the Department of Public Safety, Department of Public Works, and others.
This would be the first training that would be held since Public Law 19-53 was signed into law by Gov. Ralph DLG Torres last July. That law provides a sliding scale for littering penalties, with the amount of the fine to depend on the severity of the violation.
