I just wanted to chime in and present the other side of the story. Everything isn’t always black and white, there’s not always a simple answer that revolves around a feel good sound bite.
The Majuro airport expansion sits on what is called "reclaimed" land, i.e. hard limestone fill from the base of the reef slope close to the shore, most likely ocean side that is cut out of the floor and used to build up the island to expand land mass. This is done on nearly all of the Micronesian airports, Kosrea, Chuuk, Pohnpei, etc.
It’s not practical to have island geometry to match a runways needs for a long strip of land, relatively flat. You have to build it.
These landing strips are kind of surreal to land and take off on. You have water on both sides of the runway on built up land and it seems that you have 50’ of runway surplus coming and going.
For project like this, it’s a double-edged sword when it comes to development in newly formed countries <1986> like the Marshall Islands, population 60,000. You have limited exports like Copra and fishery licensing thus limited GDP somewhere in the range of $120-$150M a year, mostly US government aid based.
With limited cash flow, you don’t have the budgeting for “green” or sustainable construction means. Low bidders like PII win because they understand the financial limitations that are in place. Don’t get me wrong PII does great work, and they are involved in the communities in Majuro and elsewhere in Micronesia, with several ongoing projects.
Keep in mind the numbers of corals you see on the market from the RMI....pretty much none outside of ORA’s facility...live rock, same story. There is an interest to maintain and preserve the reef in the RMI as in most places in Micronesia however the practice of land "reclamation" in remote locations is very common. We have "new" island and "old island where I live. The street I live on is called lagoon road.....the lagoon is a hundred yards from where it was originally in the 50's.
For this project, the practicality of "boating" in fill materials is very costly. Hawaii is some 2300 miles away and you would have to run several dozen barges to get enough fill for this project that would put costs well past what the RMI government could afford.
With this new runway, 767’s can land bringing much-needed Japanese tourism dollars to the RMI, along with other financial benefits.
Don’t get me wrong, I'm not for the destruction of any reef, but Majuro is 1 of 1150 or so islands located in 1 of 34 atolls….most of these islands are pristine and uninhabited with zero development, many islands are protected sanctuaries that you aren’t even allowed to step foot on.
My point is, you have be practical in some areas when it comes to progressing the development of island nations.
I'll step back and put on my flame suit
