Chamber assails CNMI’s description as ‘toxic hot spot’

With Greenpeace’s declaration of the CNMI as a toxic hot spot, the Saipan Chamber of Commerce yesterday expressed concern on the label’s possible effect on efforts to revive the island’s ailing tourism economy.

In a breakfast meeting with Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio, Chamber president Lynn Knight said such publicity in the international community will destroy the CNMI’s image as an ideal investment site and tourist destination.

“We need to be very careful and very proactive in handling any problems we have with the environment. We need to handle it locally and not allow such information to be generated internationally,” she said.

Since Asia’s financial crisis begun in July 1997, the CNMI has experienced a continuous decline in tourist arrivals.

Greenpeace, an international environmental group, is highlighting Tanapag as a global hot spot in an effort to bring the issue to the world’s attention. It has asked the U.S. government to clean up Tanapag which has been contaminated with the polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), a cancer-causing chemical.

According to Maureen Penjueli, Greenpeace toxic campaigner, the U.S. government owes it to the people of Tanapag to clean up the mess left from its activities in the Pacific as she lamented the slow remediation effort by the U.S. Army Corps.

Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has criticized the unreasonable delay in carrying out a cleanup. “It should have been done a long time ago. I think ten years is too long for a cleanup of this nature to take,” said Norman Lovelace, manager for EPA Pacific Insular Affairs.

PCB contamination in the village started when an undetermined number of electrical capacitors were left behind by the U.S. military in the 1960s. These were originally purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense and used on Kwajalein Atoll as part of the Nike Zeus missile radar system.

After the missile site was dismantled in 1967, the capacitors ultimately ended up in Tanapag and used as boundary markers, road blocks for driveways, windbreaks for barbecue sites and headstones by residents.

Some residents even used the inner phenolic linings as decorations for rooftops and cemeteries in the village. DEQ was only notified about the presence of these capacitors in 1988.