Previous Story
Agencies pool efforts for the environment
|
Posted on Apr 19 2002
The CNMI’s different environmental agencies have been meeting together, in efforts to avoid duplication in addressing an array of environmental concerns, according to Joaquin D. Salas, acting administrator of the Coastal Resources Management Office.
The first such meeting was held earlier this week, and was initiated by the Department of Lands and Natural Resources.
Among the agencies that attended, besides the DLNR and the CRMO, were the Division of Environmental Quality, the DLNR’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, the Department of Public Safety’s Boating Safety and the Bureau of Environmental Health.
“The meeting was to try and work together and collaborate and discuss many issues out there from what our proposed projects [are, so] we can identify where there’s overlapping, and see also what environmental concerns are there that we need to put together and address,” Salas said.
He said he will be calling for a similar meeting very soon.
“I instructed my enforcement officers to go in the field and take photos of anything that they can see out there, from improper handling of waste oil to areas where they use for dumpsites—trash—to areas where it’s highly eroded – anything that deals with the environment that needs to be addressed,” Salas said.
He said whatever information that may be obtained by the enforcement officers would be shared among the agencies, so that these concerns would be addressed without duplication.
“If one agency is trying to address a particular issue and they have insufficient funding, if our grants allow us to try and work there and help out to whatever is coming that I can give, then the CRMO will exhaust this,” he added.
Salas said the group is also eyeing the private sector to help pool efforts in the government’s campaign.
Among those eyed by the group are the hotel association and the marine sports association, he said.
