With Ofu Airport under construction again, water shortage on Ofu being blamed on construction workers

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Ofu Airport is under construction again after part of the airport runway, which was dedicated two weeks ago was damaged by high waives.

This was confirmed by Manu’a #2 Faipule Tiaoalii Fau Sai during a House Session this week.

Tiaoali’i said he received a lot of phone calls from people in Ofu and Olosega complaining that although the airport was dedicated on the day of the Manu’a flag day, unfortunately, the airport is still closed.

According to the Manu’a #2 faipule, he visited the Port Administration office to get an explanation about the problem and he was told that immediately after the dedication, part of the runway close to the ocean was damaged by high waves and the runway currently is not safe for travel.

Tiaoali’i said Port Administration instructed Paramount Construction to send its crew to Manu’a to fix the problem. Paramount began working on fixing the problem this week and was hoping that the work would be done before the end of this week.

Tiaoali’i also said that people from Ofu and Olosega are also complaining about the lack of a water supply for Manu’a.

During the House ASPA committee hearing this week, Tiaoali’i raised the the water issue with the ASPA CEO and representatives who testified before the committee.

According to Tiaoali’i, the water shortage problem for Ofu and Olosega was caused by Paramount Construction workers working on the airport. He received reports from people back in Ofu that there were times the workers failed to turn off the water after they used it for construction work during the day and they left the water running overnight.

The next morning, people woke up and found the airport area flooded with water.

According to Tiaoali’i, it appeared that these construction workers didn’t care about the lives of people living in Manu’a. They did not conserve the water for his people. They just wasted it because they were not paying the bill.

ASPA CEO Wallon Young said his office was aware of the water problem in Ofu and according to reports they received, the water problem was caused by Paramount workers.

Young said when Paramount workers left for the day, they just left the water running.  But that was just one problem.

Another problem, according to Young was the heavy equipment that broke one of the pipelines in the area, but unfortunately it wasn’t reported to their office.

Young said by the time ASPA got the report about the water problem, it was too late. So right now ASPA is working to cure the problem.

Tioali’i believes that Paramount workers must be made responsible for the water problem.