Project aims to solve San Jose Church flooding

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres, House of Representatives Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez (Ind-Saipan), Sen. Vinnie Vinson F. Sablan (R-Saipan), Public Works Secretary James Ada, and Fr. Rey Rosal lead lawmakers and Northern Marianas Housing Corp. officials in the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the DPW Road and Drainage Improvement Project in Oleai yesterday morning. (FERDIE DE LA TORRE)

Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and officials of the Department of Public Works and Northern Marianas Housing Corp. led the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a road and drainage improvement project in front of the San Jose Church in Oleai that aims to solve the area’s perennial flooding.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funded the project through the Northern Marianas Housing Corp.’s Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery Program. NMHC is the contracting agency, while Yantze Corp. is the prime contractor.

Torres said the project has been over two years in the making and that many parish priests and people in the community have raised concerns about flooding in the area. Torres said they identified the site improvement as a priority and moved to have the project done once they secured the funding and permits.

“I want to thank all the agencies, IRP [Infrastructure and Recovery Program], definitely CDBG-DR, NMHC, DPW, and all those that participated in one way or another for the road project,” he said.

Next up is a sewer project in the area and Torres said that a notice-to-proceed with the project will soon be issued.

NMHC corporate director Jesse S. Palacios said he drives by the area practically every day on his way to work and that, as far as he remembers when there is a steady amount of rainfall, Apengagh St. and Ghilis St. and the surrounding area is always flooded.

“The drainage system wasn’t working over here. So they have to redo everything and so it’s not just to pave the road; that’s the last part,” he said.

Palacios said they were happy when DPW identified this project as one of their list of road and drainage improvement projects in the CNMI.

He said project met the criteria for CDBG-DR funding assistance. “This is a special project for the DR Team because it’s our very first CDBG-DR funded infrastructure construction project,” Palacios said.

He said there’s been a lot of delays in the project because of the weather and especially with the Historic Preservation Office when they discovered ancestral remains and artifacts.

Palacios said the road improvement project costs $369,000 and the second phase—the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. sewerline project—will cost $258,000.

He said it may not be the biggest in terms of total project cost or total project area, but it is probably the most intimate and impactful project to a community that will benefit from the new road pavement and the improved drainage system.

He said the HPO gave them a heads up that the area is a hotbed for historic and cultural artifacts and ancestral remains.

Palacios is thankful to Torres and the IRP for lending them their archaeological team to first address HPO’s archeological monitoring, data recovery, and mitigation work requirements so the project can move forward.

Now that Ghilis St. is complete, the next phase is to continue with the road and drainage improvement project on Apengagh Avenue, and CUC’s sewerline project, he added.