The mystery of the magic bus on Macheche Street

BY MAUREEN N. MARATITA
Journal Staff

As if by magic, an abandoned bus appeared on Macheche Street in Dededo about a month ago.

The bus features the logo of Country Club of the Pacific clearly visible on its side.

The Journal reached out to CCP to ask if a bus was missing.

At the same time, the paper asked the Dededo Mayor’s office if it knew anything about the bus.

Dededo Mayor Peter John Benavente was going to see if he could locate a VIN number on the bus, but staff at the mayor’s office said that with a previous abandoned vehicle, the VIN number had been scratched off.

For a brief period, the bus was occupied by homeless residents. The paper was not alone in communicating with CCP. The golf course has received calls about the bus and a video.

The CCP logo on the side is an old one according to Jon Cramer, general manager of CCP. In an act of community service, Cramer said the golf course would help by removing the eyesore.
 

“We don’t own it, but we’ll have it removed.”

PHR Ken Micronesia Inc. acquired CCP in January 2007, according to Journal files. The previous owner was Sohbu Development of Japan. PHR had to renegotiate the ground lease with the Shimizu Land Trust, owner of the land in Talofofo according to Journal files. The course originally opened in 1973, and was extensively renovated after the purchase.

Village mayors in Guam are no longer responsible for the removal of abandoned vehicles. That responsibility has been passed to the Guam Department of Public Works.

DPW signed a $2 million Memorandum of Understanding with the Guam Environmental Protection Agency at the beginning of the year. The funding was intended to start a contracted abandoned-vehicle removal program, targeting about 4,000 vehicles a year and seeking a roughly 10-acre staging site for processing and export.

Linda J. Ibanez, deputy director of DPW, acknowledged DPW’s responsibility. However, she said, “We are still waiting on GSA procurement.”

Abandoned vehicles litter the island’s villages and the problem affects all stakeholders.

Naval Base Guam announced in April 2024 it was increasing its efforts to remove abandoned vehicles throughout the installation.

The base deputy security officer at the time said, “In coordination with NBG Security, Navy Exchange Guam, and NBG’s Morale, Welfare, and Recreation, more than 140 abandoned vehicles were identified and will be moved to a designated lot on-base for further processing and potential auction through MWR.”

In 2023, 94 vehicles were towed and as of April 2024 25 vehicles were towed, the officer said.

There are almost a dozen recycling businesses in Guam.

Mayor Peter John Benavente of Dededo told the Journal that only two of them recycle metal, a prime component of vehicles. They are Global Recycling Center in Dededo and SD Recycling in Harmon Industrial Park.

A solution the mayor proposed some time ago at a meeting of village mayors and Government of Guam agency heads was to incorporate members of the Halfway House program — who are looking to return to society — the opportunity to work on removing non-metal parts of vehicles.

Those parts include plastic parts like dashboards, carpeting and seats.

“I can promise you that these individuals — if they had the proper tools — they can take apart 20 cars in a day,” Benavente said.

The mayor said the island should not let the situation with abandoned vehicles and trash continue. “We need to have more enforcement,” he said. One related issue is the landfill, he said. “What is the shelf life there?” As to the Northern part of Guam, Benavente pointed to multiple transfer stations elsewhere in the island, while the larger villages of Dededo and Yigo lack one. “Many, many years ago we had a transfer station,” Benavente said.

The Northern Solid Waste Transfer Station closed in 2015. After it opened in 1984, the 10-acre property served as a waste transfer station for the Northern villages, and as a typhoon debris site. After the site deteriorated and became contaminated it was closed and then decontaminated through the receivership at the time.

The site, which is northwest of Marine Corps Drive and Bartolu Street in Dededo is now allocated for the new Guam Environmental Protection Agency’s new headquarters.

Benavente said that without a Northern transfer station, residents in Dededo and Yigo have nowhere close by the two largest villages on Guam. “That’s probably why we have a lot of illegal dumping in Dededo and Yigo,” he said. While the Harmon transfer station was supposed to act as a location for the North of the island, the Mayor said, it is not a Northern location. “Harmon is considered central.”

The mayor said there are other effects on dumping in the North of the island. “We sit on top of the Northern Aquifer lens. With all this illegal dumping it’s kind of scary.” mbj