Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A lawsuit has been filed in the High Court of American Samoa against Am Samoa Power Authority (ASPA) and its CEO, Wallon Fong, concerning a wind farm project that — according to the suit —would have brought significant power cost savings to the people of American Samoa.

The lawsuit was filed by former Assistant AG, Sean Morrison, on behalf of Christian Thunken and American Samoa Renewable Energy and Mobility (ASREM), LLC.  Attorney Morrison is now based in the U.S. state of Louisiana.

Samoa News was told by one of the officials of the ASREM that Mr. Fong and ASPA were served last week, and they are currently awaiting a court date from the High Court.

THE SUIT

The suit alleges that ASPA contracted with Green Globe Solutions American Samoa, Inc. (GGSASI), an American Samoa company founded by Thunken, to collect wind data and build a wind farm for the territory.

It states that Green Globe collected the needed data for over three years, but ASPA withheld key information that could have made the project a success. Ultimately the project was given to a Japanese company, and ASPA decided to move the project to a new, environmentally fragile location, without the necessary wind data. Since then, all progress has stalled.

Green Globe eventually assigned its rights to American Samoa Renewable Energy and Mobility, LLC (ASREM), another renewable energy company founded by Mr. Thunken.

 “We have raised these issues with ASPA and lawmakers many times,” Thunken, CEO of ASREM said in a press release issued by the attorney’s office.

“We brought all of this to the Attorney General’s attention but were completely ignored. Rather than address the concerns and problems and work with us to help lower power costs for the territory, ASPA and its CEO made outlandish personal attacks. It’s sad, because every day you could be paying much less for electricity, but these problems keep happening at ASPA.”

The lawsuit also alleges that ASPA took GGSASI’s intellectual property, including its project designs and wind data, gave it to the Japanese company who used it to create their own designs.

 “Even today the Governor and ASPA are using our wind data to try to sell their different project to investors and regulators,” explained Thunken. “Nobody is buying that bait and switch. If the original project had gone forward, it would already be providing cheap, clean energy to the territory.”

ABOUT ASREM LLC AND CHRISTIAN THUNKEN

ASREM offers consulting and engineering services in American Samoa, Samoa, and other Pacific islands in the areas of wind energy, battery energy storage, renewable energies, residential and commercial EV-recharge infrastructure, and modular building options. 

Christian Thunken is a resident of American Samoa who built his career in the area of production engineering, renewable wind power generation and hybrid smart grid systems.

He was recruited by the late ASPA Executive Director, Utu Abe Malae, in 2018 to move to American Samoa to help develop a wind farm project due to his expertise in the wind energy field and familiarity with the islands power situation gained while running the SKS-Starkist manufacturing plant in Atu’u from the mid 1980s to early 90s.