Psst....he's talking about us!

Saipan Tribune, Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Kudos to those who keep our islands clean

Si Yu'us ma'ase'-Olomwaay indeed to those volunteers who continue to show their sincere care for the welfare of our islands' serene and pristine eco-beauty through many different ways.

This startling revelation is unfortunately not new to us, especially illegal trashing on public lands. The continued occurance of illegal dumping in our islands underscores the unequivocal fundamental problem that we all face and which need immediate solution:

1. Blatant and utter lack of enforcement to punitively punish those who have no regard for our people's health and our islands tourism wealth (people are naturally prone to behaving within the constraints of the law ONLY IF and ONLY IF we get fined, arrested, publicized on TV/newspaper/radio, and be subjected to "public disgrace" that is punitive and strong enough to wake the hell out of the rest of us so that we would not end up being disgraced ourselves, esp. in our small tight knit island community);

2. Lack of convenience centers and/or municipal collection services aimed at capturing the bulk of residential solid waste at the household level in each of our villages, principally those that are frankly "too far" (and too costly in terms of time and gas) from the Lower Base Refuse Transfer Station or the Marpi Landfill.

I remain optimistic that someday, somewhere, someday in my lifetime someone will soon heed the call to (1) ENFORCE and ASSESS PUNITIVE fines and publicly disgrace those "litter-ers" ONCE AND FOR ALL; and (2) consider constructing either convenience centers OR institute municipal solid waste collection services for the sake of our people's health and our tourism's wealth.

Meantime, we need only be and remain individually compassionate and collectively forceful as a small group one day at a time and hopefully someday, somewhere, someday in our lifetime someone hears and does something to spare our children soon.

John O. Gonzales
Via E-mail