Kilili brings drinking water woes to House panel

[B]WASHINGTON, D.C.[/B]—CNMI Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” C. Sablan testified Wednesday before the House Budget Committee about the lack of safe drinking water in the Northern Marianas and to ask for funding in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget to pay for needed infrastructure.

Sablan joined 32 of his colleagues in the House to take advantage of Members’ Day on March 11 (EST) to describe the water problems in the Commonwealth.

“This is the first time is history that a member of the Northern Mariana Islands, since entering the United States Commonwealth in 1978, have a representative in Congress to speak on their behalf before this committee and for this I am grateful, humbled and very privileged,” Congressman Sablan said.

But Sablan said he also felt the great responsibility, as the single voice of the Marianas in Congress to raise awareness about the “great gulf in the standard of living” between his constituents in the Northern Mariana Islands and Americans in the rest of the United States.

“For such a simple thing as turning on the kitchen faucet and having water flow out, anytime of the day or night; water you can put in a glass and drink now, without having a second thought. This is the type of experience that the people I represent mostly do not have,” he said.

Sablan asked the committee to help support the Northern Mariana Islands financially in securing safe drinking water.

At present, a large majority of Northern Mariana residents have to buy their drinking water.

Sablan also called attention to “the other side of the equation”: wastewater.

“On the island of Saipan is a homestead development of about 700 homes. Because there is no sewer system in that part of the island, each of those homes collects its wastewater in a private septic tank, which slowly leach into the land. The problem is that these 700 septic tanks sit over one of the best aquifers on our little island, furthering endangering the limited water supply and putting human health at risk,” he said.

Sablan provided the committee with a list of projects on Saipan, Tinian and Rota, which he said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will vouch for as needed and shovel-ready.

“What is today an infrastructure problem for us, could very soon, in the very near future become a health epidemic for the entire island…My solution is simple. I am asking the committee to accept the list of water and sewer projects that EPA has compiled…and provide the budgetary authority sufficient to permit Department of Interior to meet this need,” Sablam said.

The Committee also heard from Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO), who asked for assistance for farmers in Colorado; from Rep. Philip Hare (D-IL), seeking public transportation funds for his state; request for more money to be spent on science and technology by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), and Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich). [B][I](PR)[/I][/B]