Guam needs infrastructure to host military buidup

Washington Post:

The infrastructure and social services on Guam in the next five years will not meet the needs of the more than 8,000 Marines and their 9,000 dependents expected to relocate there, even as other U.S. military facilities on the Pacific island are expanding, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Under a 2005 agreement with Japan, the Marines will transfer from Okinawa to Guam by 2014. At the same time, a $13 billion expansion is planned for Air Force bases and Navy port facilities on the island. Together, the changes will increase Guam's population by almost 15 percent and "substantially" tax the island's infrastructure, the GAO said in a report sent to Congress on Friday.

Guam's water and wastewater systems "are near capacity and demand may increase by 25 percent," the GAO said. The island's solid-waste facilities have "reached the end of their projected useful life," and the military construction demands "will exceed local capacity and the availability of workers on Guam," the GAO added. As a result, outside workers will need to move to the island, the report said.

Also citing what could be an inadequate electric grid capacity and an overload for Guam's only two major highways, the GAO called on Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to urge that other government agencies make the island's problems a higher priority in their budgets.

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Perhaps they can used some retired nuclear subs to boost their electric grid. Guam has always had marginal social infrastructure. Will Japan being paying for the bases and infrastructure left behind in Okinawa? If so then that money should be sent to Guam. It does appear that the cost of the move has been underestimated.