by Ronna Sweeney, KUAM NewsWednesday, May 07, 2008 Subscribe to Ronna's newsfeed
Construction on four new baseball fields could begin soon at the Dededo Sports Complex. That's once the Guam Environmental Protection Agency's Brownsfields Program removes tires left there since 1992. Around 8,000 tires have been left adjacent to the northern athletic facility for the past six years. They were brought there after 2002's Supertyphoon Pongsona, when the area was used as a transition site for debris and waste.Now after obtaining $60,000 in federal Brownsfields Project funding, Tomson, LLC has been contracted to remove them. Brownfields manager Wally Moon told KUAM News, "The reason we're called Brownfields is that we don't want to continue to develop green space and create sprawl, so we have these properties already that have been used before but are sitting idle because of some perceived environmental problem, we want to take that problem away."Tomson has been working for the past five days to remove the tires, but once hauled off the job doesn't end just yet. "Why we're interested is the environmental condition of the site may be hazardous to humans and the kids that will come here in the future. We're going to investigate the soil underneath and make sure the contaminants are gone before they redevelop the property and also if there's any potential danger to the groundwater here, which is used for drinking," Moon continued. So just where are all the thousands upon thousands of old tires going? Tony Cabrera with Tomson said, "We've been gathering all these tires, we're going to move them out. We're going to recycle them and then ship them off-island."Cabrera adds that besides tire collection and recycling, the company also accepts computers and metals for a small fee. For more information call 649-0713.