“CUC has just completed an RFP and the related contracting to engage the services of qualified environmental consultants to assist it in drafting a health and safety plan [due May 10, 2009] and other deliverables to address the substantial threat that a used oil discharged poses to the public,” the governor wrote in his latest interim narrative report about CUC to the Legislature.
The governor said CUC will use its earnings from general revenues to cover the cost of safely disposing the used oil.
The Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission increased the water rates in two stages this year, enabling CUC to generate more funds for its projects.
CUC remains under the control of the executive branch after the government renewed for the nth time the state of disaster emergency declaration for the CNMI mainly aimed at exempting from complying on federal environmental rules the U.K.-based Aggreko in operating 15-megawatt containerized generators in Saipan.
CUC has been renting the machines from Aggreko since September last year for $504,000 a month.
The thousands of used oil at the power plant were consumed in previous years and was one of the major environmental concerns of the EPA.
The EPA cited CUC for numerous environmental violations regarding its wastewater facilities, among others.
Both parties entered an agreement this year that resulted in two stipulated orders from the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands.
Part of the orders is a requirement for a regular report from CUC on its efforts to address the EPA’s environmental concerns like the used oil’s threat to be spilled in the Pacific Ocean in case of a bad weather or other natural disaster.
In related news, the CUC said it’s now in the process of establishing an electronic library about technical books and manuals for wastewater operations and maintenance.
This project is also part of the stipulated orders.
“A lot of the information exists, it is merely scattered among many offices and storerooms. We have salvaged many references in storerooms near the Lab, abandoned offices in the La Fiesta Mall,” CUC said in its report.
Unfortunately, CUC said it doesn’t have anymore a depository of engineering design numbers for the existing pumps and wells that the EPA also wants to be properly maintained.
