SAIPAN, CNMI -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Honolulu District, announced today that the Edoni Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) cleanup on the island of Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has been successfully completed.
The site, located on Capital Hill, has been cleaned up by the Corps to a level that allows for unlimited use.
The Edoni Site encompasses roughly 1.4 acres and is a former borrow pit where coral aggregate was mined.
The environmental investigation and cleanup of Edoni Site was performed under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program for Formerly Used Defense Sites (DERP-FUDS), a program initiated in 1983 by the U.S. Congress in response to concerns about former abandoned military properties and releases of hazardous substances from those properties.
The purpose of DERP-FUDS is to ensure environmental restoration of formerly used defense sites. The program’s objective is to reduce - in a timely, cost-effective manner - risks to human health and safety and the environment, resulting from past U.S. military activities.
The cleanup project included the removal of 1,537 cubic yards of soil contaminated with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and about 1,800 cubic yards of lead tainted soil to meet the environmental cleanup levels established by the CNMI Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for unrestricted use.
According to Honolulu District FUDS Project Manager Helene Takemoto, “our goal in the FUDS program is to reduce risk to human health and the environment through implementation of effective, legally compliant, and cost-effective response actions done to the highest standards of safety.”
“We are very pleased to be winding up another successful environmental project that will have a positive impact on the people of Saipan. We are fully committed to public health and the safety of our workers and the public,” Takemoto said.
Release no. 12-013