Guam receives $1 million Defense grant for port modernization study

Guam receives $1 million Defense grant for port modernization study The government of Guam has secured a $1 million U.S. Defense Department grant to help expand the island nation's commercial port to meet the needs of an impending U.S. military build-up.
   Guam Gov. Felix Camacho said Wednesday that the grant, from the Defense's Office of Economic Adjustment, would be used to cover a financial feasibility and community outreach study of the port expansion plan.
   The Defense Department's $13 billion plan to shift its entire force on the Japanese island of Okinawa to Guam — including the relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines and 9,000 dependents — is set to begin in 2010.
   According to Camacho, the feasibility study will analyze financial options available to the Port Authority of Guam for needed port improvements to handle the build-up. A report from Netherlands-based accounting firm KPMG International released in November found that while $1.9 billion in upgrade funding had been identified, funding sources needed to be found to raise and additional $1.1 billion to cover local costs.
   Camacho said the grant will also be used to cover the costs of a program to collect input on the PAG's Port Modernization Program from residents, port stakeholders, and port employees.
   Guam, an organized, unincorporated U.S. territory, maintains policy relations with the United States under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs.