At a joint oversight hearing convened by Guam senators, residents and local officials described detection of the pesticide dieldrin in water near a military base and in wells serving parts of Jigo and neighboring villages, and they urged faster remediation and clearer communication.

Mayor Frances Lizama said the Guam Waterworks Authority has moved quickly in recent weeks to reduce exposure and to bring interim treatment online. “In a short period of time, we're talking about a month and a half, GWA has progressed in mitigating this situation,” Lizama told the panel.

The finding matters because officials said the contamination touches households, schools and local businesses and requires immediate technical and public-health responses. Residents at the hearing said they remain concerned about the speed of agency action, the clarity of notifications and the availability of home filtration for sensitive households.

Officials and residents gave a mixed account of early community outreach. Conchita Titano, a longtime Jigo resident, said the initial town meeting lacked clear materials and language access and did not convey urgency. “They came in with nothing. Not even a plan,” Titano said, adding that she was “one of the 80 that signed in” at that first meeting.

Titano said that at the town meeting many residents raised health concerns, property-value questions and local food-safety worries, but that agency staff offered little concrete guidance at the time. She urged statutory changes to require faster, immediate public notifications when interim action levels are identified.

Several speakers asked for faster deployment of point-of-entry filters and quicker household assessments. Titano said some households have already spent thousands of dollars out of pocket to obtain filtration systems before Guam EPA issued guidance on approved filter types. She also pressed agencies to conduct assessments while procurement for permanent equipment proceeds.

John Martinez, who spoke as a private citizen and said he normally signs his work as director of the Guam Economic Development Authority, urged cooperation with U.S. and regional partners and cited comparisons with contamination reports from Okinawa. Martinez described dieldrin as long-lived in the environment and said the island should study Okinawa’s experience: “Dildren is definitely a problem. Dildren is definitely a poison,” he said (transcript wording), while the agencies and this article use the chemical’s standard spelling, dieldrin.

Agency officials in the hearing said interim treatment systems are online and that additional testing and procurement are under way, but that some steps remain pending while federal approvals and procurement processes proceed. Mayor Lizama noted that the interim treatment work is “pending EPA lift of the order.”

Senators closed the hearing by emphasizing continued oversight and follow-up. The chair recessed the session to reconvene Dec. 2, 2025, at 2 p.m. in the same public hearing room.

What happened next: the senators said they will continue oversight into December and requested follow-up town halls, with at least one resident asking that the next public meeting be held in Jigo so more impacted residents can attend.