GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios has expressed concern about the National Marine Fisheries Service’s designation of critical habitat for seven threatened corals in the waters surrounding the CNMI.
In his letter to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Janet Coit on Thursday, the governor thanked NMFS for addressing earlier concerns regarding public meetings and making them more accessible to the people of Saipan, Tinian and Rota.
He also commended the agency for adopting different approaches in designating coral critical habitat and giving affected communities the chance to submit comments for the revised critical habitat proposal.
But the governor said he is concerned with the coral critical habitat designation in the immediate vicinity of coastal infrastructure projects in the CNMI.
He said “the cultural and historical ties that our island communities have with the surrounding ocean waters and its resources are undisputable, as the dependency on our coastal infrastructure is to support our quality of life.”
He said this includes the CNMI’s commercial harbor facilities and associated channels, small boat marinas, shoreline protection structures and municipal wastewater outfalls.
The governor said he is not diminishing the importance of the Endangered Species Act, “but our coastal infrastructure is more critical to the island community’s well-being than designating critical habitat around our coastal infrastructure is to the recovery of geographically wide-ranging threatened coral species.”
For the NMFS, Acropora corals are “the most sensitive of all reef-building corals.”
But Palacios said it would not be regulatory prudent to use the Acropora corals as the only metric in designating critical habitat adjacent to existing or proposed coastal infrastructure features, especially harbors, ship channels, marinas and wastewater outfalls.
“This is especially so when you consider never-ending maintenance activities and infrastructure improvement projects,” Palacios added.
The governor also said that with a significant area of Acropora globiceps critical habitat being proposed throughout the Western Pacific, “it appears unnecessary and a federal overreach to designate critical habitat adjacent to existing or future coastal infrastructure projects.”
He noted that Acropora globiceps is presently protected by the Endangered Species Act.
He said requiring a critical habitat consultation every time the CNMI wishes to conduct maintenance activities or improve the coastal infrastructure will only further complicate the consultation process and result in higher costs for implementing conservation measures that will have few measurable benefits that lead to the recovery of listed species.
Palacios said removing specific areas of proposed critical habitat around Tinian Harbor, Rota West Harbor, Agingan Point Wastewater outfall, and the proposed Pagan Harbor and Laulau Bay boat launching ramp is “not unreasonable.”
He provided NMFS with a map of five areas identifying critical habitat exclusion areas that surround some of the CNMI’s important coastal infrastructure.
“I would appreciate any consideration you may give the island communities in this request,” the governor told Coit.
