The environmental protection agency for the Commonwealth Of The Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) has reportedly fined the company building the new Grand Mariana Casino And Hotel Resort on Saipan for repeated violations.
According to a report from Radio New Zealand, the CNMI’s Bureau Of Environmental And Coastal Quality has penalized Imperial Pacific International, which is the parent of Best Sunshine International Limited, to the tune of $100,000 for willfully and repeatedly violating permit conditions meant to prevent runoff and contaminants from entering Saipan Lagoon. The agency declared that it had issued numerous warnings, fines and cease-and-desist orders between February and April while stating that construction workers were essentially working out ways to illegally pump waste and discharge and their potential contaminants into the sea through deficient runoff, erosion controls and un-permitted runoff pipes and ponding basins.
The Bureau Of Environmental And Coastal Quality moreover contend that workers excavated grounds outside the permitted construction site and disobeyed orders to stop their activities past extended working hours, despite having these pulled the day before.
“These are flagrant violations of the work-hour stipulation in the major siting permit as clearly outlined in the letter suspending work outside the hours indicated within the permit,” Fran Castro, Director for the Bureau’s Division Of Coastal Resource Management, told the Marianas Variety newspaper. “Imperial Pacific had been warned [before] that continued violations would result in restricted work hours. Work being completed outside the hours specified in the CRM major siting permit would be a violation of the permit.”
Imperial Pacific International hopes to open the new $550 million Grand Mariana Casino And Hotel Resort with its 180,000 sq ft casino in December while all of the property’s 254 hotels rooms are expected to be available from the end of the first quarter of 2017.