Originally Posted by
Euteanzoic7216
But Guam is going to have an additional 70,000 people once the military, their families, and businesses needed to support them move from Okinawa, as is currently happening.
Good point. Currently, Guam gets 1-1.3 million tourist visits a year (I'm not sure how many more ppl travel to Guam for business, or how many locals leave Guam on business/vacation trips). At it's peak, the buildup will bring 70,000 contract workers to island. However, they will almost all be coming from the Philippines; so, I would estimate that there may be short term increases in Manila-Guam flights.
The transfer of 8,000 Marines and their 16,000 dependents from Okinawa will happen over a course of 5 years, so I don't see that having much of an impact (particularly since they get free flights through military hops).
But, it should be noted that the estimate of 70,000 temporary contract workers is likely too high. The Draft Environmental Impact Study associated with the buildup was an utter disaster (receiving the Federal EPA's lowest possible grade), so it's quite likely that the timeline of the buildup will be spread out over an extra few years in order to lower the peak number of temporary contract workers. It's more likely that we'll see 30-40,000 temporary contract workers at the peak (just my guess, but I've heard similar numbers from both GovGuam and JGPO/DoD people), in order to reduce the strain on the local infrastructure.
Also, there will be an increase in private contractors flying b/w Guam and the States, but I don't think that this number will be significant enough to warrant additional flights.
Lastly, most everyone realizes the buildup is being pushed back a couple years. And, there's the final word coming from the Japanese government this month regarding the definitive plans for the Okinawa move (with the new President, there's been some tensions regarding whether Japan will follow through on the previous troop transfer agreement).
This was probably a bit more info than most people are interested in, but I figured it couldn't hurt to share. :-) FYI, I'm not military; just a concerned local citizen with some connections to info (but who doesn't have mucho connections on this tiny island, lol).