THE Commonwealth Ports Authority board of directors on Tuesday signed, with representatives of the Department of Defense, amendments to the $21.9 million land lease agreement for the U.S. Air Force divert airfield on Tinian.
Navy Joint Region Marianas Legal Counsel Harry W. Elliot IV, one of the signatories of the amendments, acknowledged the CPA board’s concern about the lack of proper notice regarding the proposal to amend the 40-year land lease deal.
The two amendments are:
1) To include non-exclusive utility and access easements on two parcels of lot at Tinian seaport. These two sections of easements were “inadvertently omitted” from the divert lease contract signed on May 3, 2019. In signing the amendment, the CPA board and the U.S. “desire to correct the prior error.” The utility easements are for the purpose of constructing, operating, maintaining, repairing and replacing above-ground and below-ground utilities serving the leased premises, including, without limitation, an aviation fuel pipeline.
2) To incorporate in the lease agreement updated environmental baseline surveys or EBS that will be used as reference in determining which soil contamination in the leased premises or easement areas pre-existed the lease agreement. According to DoD, Phase II of the EBS proposed utility easement was completed on March 17, 2023. The updated EBS identified sections of the proposed easement as areas where petroleum products and hazardous substances have been found. The U.S. recommends further investigation prior to or during soil moving activities and waste characterization sampling for fuel and fuel-related constituents, and appropriate management for any soil transportation and disposal.
The Department of the Navy’s Real Estate Contracting Officer C. Hope Marini, in a letter to CPA Board Chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds, thanked the CPA board for its willingness to work together on efforts to secure divert operations on Tinian.
Marini said due to delays with the completion of the EBS documents, “the timing of this request is not ideal; however, we are happy to work through any changes to these documents as needed to make them mutually agreeable.”
Prior to the roll-call vote for the signing of the amendments, King-Hinds asked Elliot, for the record, that any agreement, any action or any proposal that directly impacts CPA be communicated directly to CPA “so that we don’t get into this last-minute conversations with regards to amendments.”
“I think that one of the board’s problems with entertaining this request today, is the lack of proper notice. We understand the urgency and we want to be good partners. But the fact is, I think that everybody knew that this was eventually going to be needed. And the fact that this was not communicated earlier, and that we are now rushed to have this meeting and approve [these] amendments, should not be the standard practice,” she said.
She thanked Elliot for the hard work on his end, adding that she understands that there were some other issues that came along the way, “and so we get it,” she said. But, she added, “please let’s not make this a habit.”
King-Hinds told reporters after the meeting that the deadline for the board to sign the amendments was Tuesday or on the day the board had to discuss the matter for the first time.
CPA board legal counsel Robert T. Torres said the board received the copy of the proposed amendments on Wednesday last week.
He said “because of the timing of the proposal being quite rushed…, it’s going to be my recommendation that for future proposed divert [lease] amendments…there [should] be at least a 90-day notice period….”
He added, “If time is of the essence, then whoever is working on it should have given this to CPA well in advance for us to have enough time for it, and that would be appreciated.”
Elliot, who attended the meeting via videoconference, thanked King-Hinds and the rest of the CPA board members for considering the amendments.
“We fully acknowledge that this is not the ideal way to do business. We hear and understand the request for 90 days, and our commitment to you is, we will work better,” Elliot said.
He personally doesn’t anticipate any near-term amendments forthcoming, “but we will do a better job next time and acknowledge that we should have and could have done better so we are grateful that the board has taken time to execute this.”
Commonwealth Ports Authority Board Chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds, center, listens to board member Ramon A. Tebuteb, left, as other board members read documents during a meeting in the Port of Saipan conference room on Tuesday.
