American Samoa is to benefit from grants awarded by the US Department of Interior, Office of Insular Affairs for regional efforts.
Interior awarded nearly $2.4 million for Fiscal Year 2016 to mostly the Micronesia states with Fee Association and Compacts with the United States as well as the territories of Guam and the Northern Marianas.
A grant of $375,000 has been awarded to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to strengthen the management, accountability, and implementation of Federal health resources in American Samoa Guam , and the Virgin islands.
Palau, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia will also benefit from this grant.
• $50,000 goes to the US Centers for Disease, Control and Prevention for the prevention and control of viral hepatitis infections in the Pacific Region.
• $121,371 is awarded to the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture to identify and improve the capacity of local agro ecosystems to sustain food security and cultural ecosystem services under a changing climate.
Partners will include American Samoa Community College, College of the Northern Mariana Islands, College of the Marshall Islands, College of Micronesia, Palau Community College and the University of Guam.
Under the Maintenance Assistance Program a grant of $225,000 will be used to provide advanced professional and certification training to the power linemen of five U.S. insular areas including American Samoa.
Linemen from the American Samoa Power Authority will participate in trainging provided under this grant which is awarded to the Yap State Public Service Corporation .
Classes will focus on disaster response training due to increasing typhoon and tropical storm activity, basic lineman certification classes, and disaster response planning workshop for utility managers.
The number of storms has increased in the region with 28 “named” tropical storms and typhoons in 2015 alone.
The expertise and resources of those trained under the Pacific Linemen Program has been used in recent natural disasters such as Typhoon Soudelor that hit the Northern Mariana Islands in 2015.
