USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service engineer Jeffrey C. Wheaton said the federal and the CNMI governments have signed an agreement stating that federal funding will be used for the Kagman watershed project only.
The final plan of the project, he said, included a sequence of installation that the USDA and the CNMI government agreed to maintain — it cannot be used for another purpose.
If the area covered by the project is used for another purpose not included in the project, Wheaton said it will be a violation of the contract between the federal and the CNMI governments.
Wheaton and other USDA officials went to Kagman last week to brief community members and local officials about the continuation of the watershed project, which will address the CNMI’s flood and irrigation problems.
It was proposed in the past that the wastewater treatment plant would be built on the southwestern portion of the Kagman commercial farm plots, where the 70 million gallon reservoir — the final phase of watershed project — would be constructed.
Residents and leaders of the Kagman community have been eagerly waiting for the implementation of the wastewater treatment plan proposed and funded by the federal government years ago.
But the federal funding for the project was reprogrammed last year to fix a power plant.
Instead of building a new sewer treatment plant in Kagman, the CNMI government is now looking at installing a pipe to the Agingan wastewater treatment plant, but some officials think this will be too costly.
