There are always concerns and complaints when the military stages live fire exercises here in Hawaii. Now the Defense Department is holding Hawaii's experience up as a model for skeptical officials in the Northern Marianas. Details from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.
After DOD published a preliminary environmental impact statement on proposed live fire exercises in the Confederation of the Northern Marianas, the speaker of the House in Saipan wondered whether the sound of artillery, machine guns and bombs might not upset visitors. Joseph Deleon Guerrero asked, "Is there a way to prove that live fire noise will not affect those tourists visiting Saipan?” Craig Wheldon, executive director of the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific told the Saipan Times that the exercises probably won't be held on the Marianas islands of Tinian and Pagan this year, and invited representatives to DOD's facilities in Hawaii to see how live fire works.
A group called change.orggathered more than one hundred thirteen thousand signatures on an electronic petition to oppose what it described as plans to use Pagan as a bombing range. Weldon replied, "It’s a false characterization to liken the military's use of Pagan to Farallon De Mendenilla, Vieques or Kahoolawe”. In the past, each of those islands in the Marianas, Puerto Rico and Hawaii were used as bombing ranges. Wheldon said the military also responded to local concerns, and moved the training area to the northern, more volcanic part of Pagan. “We have demonstrated in many locations around the world how the Department of Defense is a good steward of the environment”, Wheldon added, “we would be so at Pagan as well."
