8 Mar 2010

US military plan for sourcing water on Guam appear flawed to local Waterworks Authority

2:46 pm on 8 March 2010

The Guam Waterworks Authority says the United States military's plans to source water on the island for the impending troop build-up lack foresight.

This comes after the Environmental Protection Agency said a lot more consideration was needed by the military to address environmental concerns over its plans to transfer 8000 marines to Guam.

The Authority's Paul Kemp says the military planned that Guam would fund system improvements which the island wouldn't have otherwise needed.

He says the military's plans to source their own water don't take into account the overall impact of the build-up

"There's going to be a lot of people who come here to work to get ready for them to arrive and those people are going to need our water. So we're going to need to enhance our supply. I think we need, we figured, about sixteen additional water wells. If we put the water wells where we need to put them, the water wells that the military planned to put in won't get any water."

Paul Kemp