Environmental advocates, members of the media and Taotao Tano talked with Jim Callier, assistant to the director of the Division of Environmental Quality, France Reksit of the Department of Public Lands and John Scott of AMPRO, the contractor conducting the cleanup.
The agency representatives explained that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the Department of Public Lands $550,000 in Dec. 2006 to get rid of unexploded ordnance in the area, which, during the war, served as a depot of bombs readied for the invasion of Japan which did not happen.
The EPA is helping the CNMI government clear the area of unexploded ordnance so the land can be used in the future.
The CNMI government has a plan to build a homestead village in the area.
Callier said 2,700 pieces of ordnance have been removed from the site.
He expects to remove an additional 10,000 pieces of ordnance from the area.
Callier said vegetation is being cleared to allow workers to effectively use the magnetometer that detects ordnance buried underground.
But Callier said the people working at the site are saving mature trees.
As soon as the site is cleared of ordnance, he said it will be re-vegetated.
