New EIS may stall buildup: Bordallo: Further delays would hurt Guam

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A high-ranking Navy official has told Congress that ongoing discussions with Japan «most likely» will reshape the plan for the military buildup on Guam so the military will need about two years to perform a new environmental impact study.

Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, an assistant secretary of the Navy, told lawmakers on Wednesday that Japan and the United States should reach a new agreement in the «next couple of months» on how to revise the buildup.

«Once the agreement is reached with the government of Japan, we will need — most likely — to redo our environmental analysis,» Pfannenstiel said. «That is a couple-of-year process. And until you have completed that, it’s hard to know with specificity what the construction requirements will be.»

Pfannenstiel was responding to lawmakers who asked if more concrete buildup details will be available in time for the fiscal 2014 military construction budget. She couldn’t say.

The military buildup plan has seen significant revisions in recent months, and ongoing discussions could change the plan even further.

The buildup was initially planned to move about 8,600 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, but that number has since been reduced to 4,700, and at least some of them are expected to be rotational.

It has not been said how many will be rotational, or how this will change the military’s spending plan. These kinds of details will be ironed out during bilateral talks between the U.S. and Japan governments, Pfannenstiel said.

To prepare for the initial buildup plan, the military created an Environmental Impact Statement, which spanned thousands of pages and estimated how a Marine influx would change the island. The EIS went through two series of public hearings and two public comment periods that spanned several months.

The whole process took at least two years. Now it might happen again.

Although Pfannenstiel’s comments suggest a significant buildup delay, she reiterated a military message of commitment to Guam.

Guam is an «important part» of the military’s effort to shift forces in the Pacific, and this year is an «important year» for the Guam realignment, Pfannenstiel said.

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