Marine Corps Activity Guam has contested a report which states that complications in the construction of a new base for the U.S. military in Okinawa may delay the relocation of 5000 Marines and their dependents to Guam.
According to an article from the South China Morning Post, the construction of the new facility would allow for the long-planned transfer of the thousands of service members and their families from the vast Futenma Air Station in central Okinawa to Camp Schwab, a base along the prefecture’s coast.
The report says that construction working on reclaiming a part of Oura Bay near Camp Schwab has been halted after engineers confirmed that the seabed was “soft as mayonnaise.”
In addition, the paper says that officials were warned that the seabed was not sturdy enough for construction in surveys conducted between 2014 and 2016, however, the project was still pushed forward.
Engineers now estimate that the extra reinforcement would require four years longer than anticipated and would cost $23.6 billion instead of the initial projection of $3.26 billion.
But according to Don Baldwin, the Deputy Officer in Charge of Marine Corps Activity Guam, the article from the South China Morning Post referencing the delays of the Futenma Replacement Facility impacting Guam is inaccurate.
He said the delays to the Futenma facility are not linked to the Guam build-up.
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