The Joint Guam Program Office and the government of Guam will hold village meetings next week to discuss the increase of U.S. military forces on Guam. The meetings will include a question and answer session, small-group discussions and information displays. Attendees will include retired Maj. Gen. David F. Bice, head of the program office; Capt. Robert Lee, acting director of the program office in Guam; Rear Adm. William French, commander, Naval Forces Marianas; and other Pentagon officials.The Joint Guam Program Office will hold a series of village meetings this month to discuss the newly released draft master plan for the anticipated military buildup on Guam.
The plan contains few new details about the proposed move of 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, a new Army ballistic missile defense unit and a pier capable of receiving an aircraft carrier a few times a year, a military spokesman acknowledged on Thursday.
Marine Corps Capt. Neil A. Ruggiero said the planÂ’s contents are a sign that the military has been as forthcoming as possible during the past two years, since the U.S. and Japan agreed to move III Marine Expeditionary Force from Okinawa to Guam.
“We’ve been keeping the public informed,” Ruggiero said Thursday.
One local legislator disagreed. “I was expecting something a little more definitive,” said Guam Sen. James V. Espladon, a Republican who chairs the island’s Committee on Tourism, Maritime, Military, Veterans and Foreign Affairs. “We waited all this time. We’ve been waiting around for this?”
The 11-page draft plan restates many of the militaryÂ’s objectives for the buildup, including a goal to use existing military-controlled land to absorb the increase in buildings and living spaces.
Most of the future Marine Corps home would be on current Navy and Air Force-controlled land at the northern end of Guam, on Andersen Air Force Base and the Naval and Computer Telecommunications Station at Finegayan.
The possible locations for some training areas have yet to be determined, according to the plan. The military may look for additional land on Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands for both firing and non-firing training areas, the report reads.
No site has been proposed for the ArmyÂ’s air defense unit, the report reads.
The plan is in draft form because the EPA must approve an environmental impact statement before the military can start any construction, Ruggiero said. The military expects a decision on the environmental statement by 2010, according to the draft plan.
A “working-level” master plan is expected out this summer, the plan reads.
The buildup is expected to bring nearly 40,000 servicemembers, family members and workers to the island by 2014. The islandÂ’s current population is about 171,000. The estimated cost of the move is $10.3 billion, with Japan paying about $6 billion of the total.