Palau was scheduled to host this major international meeting the first week of December. It brings together hundreds of people from the approximately 30 countries that are members or observers of the commission that regulates fishing on the high seas in the Pacific region.
But a fire in Palau’s Aimeliik power plant in early November forced strict power rationing in Koror and Babeldaob, with many businesses providing their own power from privately owned generators. Since then, power company officials have moved to get reconditioned engines up and running, as well as to overhaul additional engines to pick up the slack caused by the fire.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting was originally postponed with the hope of rescheduling it for March in Palau, according to fisheries officials in Majuro.
But the officials said the meeting has now been rescheduled for the first week of March on Guam as a result of the uncertainty about how quickly Palau can recover from the fire. Officials in Palau indicated repairs to the older Pielstik engines damaged by fire in the Aimeliik plant could take more than a year to repair.
The Marshalls Energy Co. in Majuro is still recovering from a 2006 fire in a power plant built by the same England-based company in the early 1980s.
Three of its four Pielstiks were damaged at the time.
