HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — Yigo resident Jermaine Tenorio, 50, was cutting the grass on his property one day when his bushcutter struck an unknown metal object. It was a bomb.
“I thought it was a water line, then I cleared it up, looked down, and I found one,” said Tenorio, who has lived in the northern village his entire life.
“I’m not no (explosive ordnance disposal) specialist, but it was a bomb,” something that looked like it had been dropped out of an aircraft, he said.
Tenorio is one of about 400 property owners who live within Lupog area of Yigo, immediately south of the back gate to Andersen Air Force Base, which served as a bomb disposal site for U.S. Army forces after Guam was recaptured from the Japanese military in World War II.
This week, officials with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were on island looking to get in touch with residents who live in the area, designated “Area 101,” a formerly used defense site, or FUDS.
At an info booth up at the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church social hall, property owners from Lupog were provided more details about the Army Corps ongoing project to clean up ordnance in the area, and signing off on consent forms for survey teams to enter their property.
Besides having to evacuate his property, Tenorio said that his ordnance discovery went relatively quietly.
Once the bomb squad came in and disarmed the explosive device, things went pretty much back to normal. It was the only time the Yigo resident had ever discovered ordnance on his property, but with his family and his wife’s family all living within the vicinity of the former bomb disposal site, he said he came in on Friday to learn more about the project.
“You’re just wondering, is there any more of these things?” he told The Guam Daily Post.
80% goal
As of Friday, over 70 property owners had signed off on right of entry forms to allow the Army Corps and federal contractors to enter and survey their land, said Iwona Jeanbaptiste, a project manager for the Area 101 project with the Army Corps of Engineers Honolulu district.
Jeanbaptiste said there’s been a large turnout of residents over the three-day informational session, which would hopefully mean more property owners signing up to have their land surveyed for ordnance.
“We know we will not be able to get to 100%. But our goal is to reach about 80%,” she said.
Most of the concerns and questions coming from residents have been about when the project will get off the ground and what sort of work will be performed, Jeanbaptiste said. Though not everyone has been open to signing off on a right of entry form, more may be interested once they see their neighbors getting their land surveyed.
“It’s going to be very easy, it’s going to be non intrusive, there’s going to be constant coordination with the homeowners, they’ll know what’s happening every step of the way,” said Steven Jones, lead of explosive safety for the Army Corps of Engineers Honolulu district.
If they consent to crews coming onto their land, property owners will have the final say over whatever action is taken on the land they own, Jones said.
The actual survey will involve teams clearing a one meter wide strip of dirt through a resident’s property, after which they’ll run an advanced sensor device over the strip.
“It’s essentially a very expensive and advanced metal detectors really what it is, but it gets us extremely good accuracy,” Jones said, and the device will generate an underground map of any metal items or “anomalies” that it detects.
Though hundreds of acres at Lupog have been designated as Area 101, it’s only a “worst case scenario” of where ordnance may actually be found. The known bomb disposal pit is a much smaller part of the total area, he said, and surveyors will be working to determine how far out the area of concern is before they move to dispose of any material. Once the survey is done, more public meetings will be held to inform residents of the intended action.
‘I want more answers’
Surveying is expected to get off the ground early next year.
“The end goal isn’t to tell you what you can and can’t do on your property, it’s to make your property safe for you. Worst case scenario, you don’t let us come on and, years down the road, you’re building and heavy equipment hits a piece of ordnance and somebody gets hurt. That’s what we want to avoid,” Jones said.
Residents can sign off on a right of entry form past Friday, according to Jeanbaptiste, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can be contacted at: [email protected]
There’s no word yet on any cutoff to sign form, as the pace of the project will all depend on how many people are willing to let Army Corps teams on their property, she said.
As for Tenorio, he said he wants to take more time to learn about the project before moving forward with any paperwork.
“I want more answers I just don’t sign anything, you know, I want to know, scope of work and all of that,” he said.
“I’m going to do my homework and, now that I got some pictures of everything, probably just look at it and talk to the family and say, ‘Hey, we’re in the zone, so what’s our next step?'”
Iwona Jeanbaptiste, left, project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers Honolulu district, assists Yigo resident Rebecca Oamil with a document during a presentation on an ongoing project to remove bombs and other explosives from a former military site at the St. Lourdes Church Social Hall in Yigo Friday morning.
