SEVEN thousand two hundred three hectares: either a portion or all of this landholding currently under a 50-year lease to the United States government for military use should go back to Tinian government’s supervision, according the island’s legislative delegation.
Seeing no remarkable economic growth over two thirds of Tinian in the last 24 years of it’s being under the U.S. Department of Defense’s supervision, Tinian lawmakers are one in saying that the local government should be given the opportunity to manage the property and make it economically viable.
Senate Floor Leader Joaquin G. Adriano, the delegation’s chairman, recently requested Gov. Juan N. Babauta to include in the Covenant 902 negotiating panel a task force that will negotiate “a return of some or all of the land presently subject to the control of the U.S. military.”
“The return of such land… encompassing approximately 17,799 acres, will help alleviate some of the negative impacts of the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedy and the subsequent downturn in the CNMI economy,” Adriano, D-Tinian, told Babauta in a recent letter.
