CPA to continue talks with MARFORPAC on proposed Tinian ALP

Talks between the Commonwealth Ports Authority and the Marine Forces Pacific on a proposed airport layout plan inclusive of the military’s aim to build on the Tinian Westfield Airport will continue this month.

According to CPA executive director Maryanna Lizama, the meeting is scheduled on Jan. 29 at the CPA conference room on the second floor of the Francisco C. Ada International Airport. The meeting will include CPA, its stakeholders, MARFORPAC, and Federal Aviation Administration officials, who will probably attend via teleconference, she said.

A time has not been set. The meeting continues the “informal” dialogue began between FAA and military working groups and CPA at a meeting in Seattle, Washington last November.

MARFORPAC would like CPA to submit an airport layout plan to the FAA that includes its plans to build a parallel runway, an air traffic control tower, power and waste management facilities, fuel storage facilities, and other infrastructure at the Tinian airport.

Also being considered is an amendment to FAA rules to allow restricted airspace over the Tinian airport to support live fire training there. FAA restricts military activity from 1,500 feet above and below ground level within three nautical miles of airports or civilian use.

“What goes where” and “where do they want things” have to be learned from the military, according to Lizama.

“We have to address that with our concerns” and “look into it to see what the impacts” are, she said.

On the kind of artillery and guns involved with live fire training, Lizama said the military has not “gotten back to us yet” on this question. She said the question was posed at their meeting in November but the military appeared “hesitant to answer.”

Right now, she said CPA’s position is, “Work with us.” And to “sit down and talk details.”

She said there was the assumption in the November meeting that the authority the military had in siting their proposed ALP at the Tinian airport was due to rights in a leaseback agreement between the CNMI and the federal government years ago.

But this “needs to be clarified on their side,” she said. CPA maintains that the rights to the airport belong to it.

“On our end, the ALP still has to go through CPA,” she said.

Marine Forces Pacific director Craig Whelden—when asked if the question of rights have been clarified—said Tuesday that he did not know the answer to this “fully right now without going back and getting some more analysis.”

“But what I will tell you is we will work with the Tinian leadership, the CPA, the airport itself, to make sure that we have no adverse impacts on Tinian,” he added.

Whelden indicated that military use of the Tinian airport could “bring benefits to the airport that otherwise they would not get through construction of new pavement, and other infrastructure improvements that could be dual use.”

For example, he said, fuel tanks could be used for commercial use. “That’s why we say to everybody, ‘Let the process run its course,’ so we can make sure everybody understand what the potential here is.”

Whelden said that they are “committed to have no adverse impact on the air traffic between Saipan and Tinian, and so is the Air Force,” which looks to have divert activities in the CNMI with only a “few airplanes” like tankers.

He said the additional impact on Saipan, Tinian, or both “would be almost none,” but that “the potential benefits with construction for co-use is huge.”

When asked about co-use of the airport, Lizama clarified that this would be “special use” in that the military could use the airports but CPA would remain as owners.

“Joint use,” on the other hand, would mean the military owns the property, she said.

The proposed ALP and plans for special use airspace are built into the draft environmental impact statement due by the end of April this year. This is part of the National Environmental Policy Act process currently ongoing.

The DOD has proposed two phases for the ALP. The first is an “expeditionary ALP” for a temporary facility from 2016 to 2021. The second is an “end-state ALP” from 2012 and beyond.

Discussions between CPA and the military have been labeled as “informal.”