“Congress is interested in making sure that there’s an assessment of the situations on the U.S. territories — it’s one of the big issues that is generating national and international interests,” said Pula during a news briefing yesterday at the Office of the Governor.
The CNMI, which has several volcanoes in its northernmost islands, has been given assistance to explore geothermal energy on Pagan.
“The exciting thing about the CNMI is that it has some volcanoes in the north which have some potential. We’re looking at this situation holistically not only in the immediate future but also in the long term,” said Pula.
U.S. Interior Department Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs Douglas Domenech and other federal officials toured Pagan before arriving here.
“Pagan has enormous beauty with great potential for geothermal energy at least from preliminary reports. We both look forward to additional study to see if it could produce additional power source for the CNMI,” said Domenech.
Funding from his office was meant to jumpstart the exploratory studies on Pagan, Domenech said.
Dr. James Quick, a retired scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey is leading this study. The Fitial administration hired him as special assistant for alternative energy.
The U.S. military is also interested in using Pagan as a training site for its troops from Okinawa, Japan who will be relocated to Guam from 2012.
“That complicates the issue,” Domenech said. “That’s part of our discussion with the military. Of course, whether they could co-exist on Pagan is another issue. I think there are a lot of unanswered questions and what we’re trying to do is start the conversation.”
Pula said the federal government envisions a private entity to undertake the proposed geothermal energy project on Pagan.
“We have limited resources so we have to be intelligent and smart about it…. We’re not looking at this like the federal government is going to fund this expensive program. We’re looking at the possibility where the private sector can also come in,” he said.
