The environmental group Prutehi Litekyan: Save Ritidian took its protest of the seemingly imminent start of construction of a military live firing range at the former Northwest Field to Governor Eddie Baza Calvo's office, but the late afternoon demonstration found the governor and lieutenant governor had already left for the day.
The peaceful protest of some 300 surged through the Adelup complex, chanting and bearing signs in opposition the the firing range. NAVFAC Guam announced a contract award for construction of the range to Guam's Black Construction late last week.
About 1,000 acres of limestone forest would be beneath the bullets fired on the range.
Outside the governor's office, petitions in opposition were being signed, calling on Governor Calvo to take all necessary steps to halt the construction of the range complex at Northwest Field on Andersen..
The protestors did find Governor Calvo's Chief of Staff Mark Calvo and Spokesperson Oyaol Ngiraikl still on the job and suggested that the governor had betrayed them by letting the range portion of the Guam military buildup go forward. Said Ngiraikl, "He can't exactly stop the military buildup.He's already pulled back his support of it. And then we had the North Korea incident. That took up a lot of his time, believe me, it did. And I'm not saying you guys are not a priority.
A protestor responded, "We need to put this on pause until we can look at it and address it. Not let the bulldozers go and we'll meet later."
