He said the delegation wants to address the concerns of a new casino investor, Marianas Resort Development Corp., which is asking the municipal government to close and relocate the island’s existing dump, which is located near the project site.
San Nicolas, Covenant-Tinian, said “establishing our own recycling center will be beneficial to our people and the new casino businesses.”
He believes that opening a recycling center with a specialized machine for non-recyclable wastes will cost less than $500,000.
“We will find a building that can be converted into a recycling center so that we can minimize the cost of the project,” he said.
San Nicolas said the island’s legislative delegation members have already inquired from specialists in Manila where they intend to purchase the equipment.
Asked for their funding source, San Nicolas said they may use the federal capital improvement projects money appropriated for Tinian.
He said they may reprogram the “still unused” funding for the island’s waste water project.
“We recognize that relocating the landfill is a major concern for the new casino investors and we’re targeting to address this concern the soonest possible time,” he added.
The Tinian municipality earlier considered shipping recyclable wastes to Saipan.
However, San Nicolas said due to the anticipated “opposition” to this proposal, the Tinian delegation has opted to explore other alternatives.
“We’re still crossing our fingers that the military will allow us to use the original site we identified for the dump site relocation,” he added, referring to the Atigidon area which is within the military zone.
The island’s current open dump poses numerous environmental and health hazards to the public and is near to the Tinian airport.
