Massive Guam project advances

[unhappycamper]

Massive Guam project advances
By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, May 16, 2008

A year ago, as military planners looked to add thousands of U.S. troops onto Guam, two critical issues loomed — the island’s aging commercial port and its ability to provide enough workers to fuel the construction project.

Now, a change to an immigration law and a plan for upgrading the port signal progress for the monumental $10.3 billion project, according to retired Marine Maj. Gen. David Bice, the man charged with leading the buildup effort on Guam.

The new immigration law, signed by President Bush last week, allows employers on Guam to hire seasonal workers for the next five years without counting toward the nation’s 66,000 annual limit, Bice said Wednesday.

Guam’s port authority has drafted a plan for $195 million of improvements needed to handle the military’s construction needs — which during peak building could increase cargo loads by six times today’s shipments, according to Bice and Carlos Salas, the interim general manager for the port authority.

"We’re very confident they will be able to meet our requirements," Bice, the executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office, said during a telephone interview from the island Wednesday.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54818