The United States (U.S.) Marine Corps has prepared a Revised Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is a law that requires federal agencies to analyze the potential environmental impacts of their proposals and provides opportunity for the public to provide input on the environmental analysis. An EIS is the most detailed analysis prescribed by regulations implementing NEPA.
Comments on the Revised Draft EIS and potential effects to historic properties pursuant to Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) are being accepted during a 75-day public review and comment period from June 6, 2025, to August 20, 2025. View the Revised Draft EIS.
The purpose of the Proposed Action is to reduce joint training deficiencies for U.S. Armed Forces in the Indo-Pacific area of operations. The Proposed Action is needed to enable U.S. Armed Forces to meet their individual mandates in federal law (Title 10) to be trained and equipped to protect U.S. national security.
In developing this Proposed Action, the Marine Corps evaluated the changes in the way U.S. Armed Forces currently prepares for future conflicts and carefully considered the comments and suggestions submitted on the 2015 Draft EIS/Overseas EIS by elected officials and government agencies of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), federal agencies, and the public. The Marine Corps’ revised proposed training concept for the Military Lease Area on Tinian fully supports military training requirements and recognizes the importance of minimizing the impacts of military training on the residents of Tinian. First, the training concept was purposefully designed to locate live-fire ranges within the northern portion of the island, away from the village of San Jose, recreational beaches, tourism areas, and cultural and natural resources. Second, understanding that public access to the Military Lease Area was important to the community, the Marine Corps would establish an on-island Training Area and Range Operations Command (Range Control) to foster communication between the community and military and allow access to the Military Lease Area when it may safely be accommodated, even during ongoing training events.
After developing this training concept between January 2020 and September 2024, the Marine Corps engaged the CNMI government in a series of virtual and in-person discussions on a revised training concept and revised environmental analysis. In August 2023, the Marine Corps held public information sharing sessions on the islands of Tinian, Saipan, and Rota to inform the public at large of the revised training concept.
This revised training concept, or Proposed Action, would support land-based expeditionary ground and aviation warfare training for all service components within lands leased by the military in Tinian. New training infrastructure would create a physical and virtual training environment on the island to include two live-fire ranges (Multi-Purpose Maneuver Range and Explosives Training Range), two surface radar towers, improvements to North Field, the development of Landing Zones and a drop zone between runways Able and Baker, and two ammunition holding areas. The former U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) facility on Tinian would be repurposed into an expeditionary Base Camp. The existing communications towers on Tinian and Saipan would also be repurposed to allow communications during training. In addition, subject to CNMI approvals, a biosecurity facility would be constructed at the Port of Tinian and an aircraft shelter would be constructed on U.S. Air Force Divert leased property at the Tinian International Airport. To ensure the safety of military personnel training units and the public during training events, the on-island Range Control would schedule training and coordinate with local officials and the public.
Under Alternative 1, land-based military training on Tinian, including live-fire training at two ranges, would be conducted. The training tempo under Alternative 1 would increase by approximately 15 percent over the No Action Alternative. New training infrastructure would create a physical and virtual training environment on the island.
Alternative 2 would include the same land-based training on Tinian as described for Alternative 1, but the training tempo would only increase by 5 percent over the No Action Alternative. The same infrastructure proposed under Alternative 1 would be constructed.
Under the No Action Alternative, land-based military training on Tinian would continue at the current tempo and intensity identified for actions previously analyzed under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). No construction is associated with the No Action Alternative.
Please review the Revised Draft EIS for the impact analysis for each resource. Also, a copy of the Revised Draft EIS is available for review at the following local libraries: Tinian Public Library; Joeten-Kiyu Public Library, Saipan; and Antonio C. Atalig Memorial Rota Public Library.
