By Katie Worth
Pacific Daily News; kworth@guampdn.com
Photos courtesy of Chamorro.com
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These pictures of Pagan were taken during a nine-day excursion to Pagan
organized by the Northern Islands Mayor's Office in October last year
to survey for a proposed airstrip and homestead area.
Photos courtesy of Chamorro.com
TO THE POINT
A
Northern Marianas government agency's commission is expected to decide
this week on a pozzolan mining proposal on one of its islands. Allowing
commercial mining could bring riches to the U.S. commonwealth, but
there are concerns about who gets the contract.
The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
has a card in its hand that, if played correctly, could bring hundreds
of millions of dollars -- and that's a conservative estimate -- to its
coffers.
And tomorrow, a CNMI government agency will decide whether to play that card or hold onto it for a while longer.
The card the CNMI holds is a resource
called pozzolan, a certain type of mineral volcanic ash that's used to
make concrete of extraordinary strength. Pozzolan was used in ancient
Roman structures that still stand, the Encyclopedia Britannica states.
More recently, it has been in demand for use in bridges, tunnels,
skyscrapers and other structures.
And there happens to be so much of
it on the tiny Northern Mariana island of Pagan that even if its value
were half of what it's believed to be, it may be worth enough money to
theoretically make every family in the CNMI multimillionaires.
A company hoping to get a permit to
mine the mineral, as well as an organization that's trying to stop that
company from getting the permit, both stated there to be at least 200
million metric tons of pozzolan on Pagan. They both have estimated the
value of the pozzolan to be at least $50 a ton.
With those numbers, a conservative estimate of the product's worth is about $10 billion.
Not surprisingly, there's a battle
raging over who's going to get to mine it, and who will hold the purse
strings when it happens. Tomorrow, the Marianas Public Land Authority's
commission will meet and is expected to make a decision that could
determine the commonwealth's future: whether to approve a mining
contract that's been on the table for more than two years, or to hold
off and wait for a better offer.
Volcanic island
Pagan, a 38-square-mile island, lies about 300 miles north of Guam in the Mariana chain.
In 1981, when the Pagan volcano
erupted and forced the residents there to be evacuated, millions of
tons of pozzolan rained down and dusted the island and reef.
Most of the planet's pozzolan
resources have already been depleted, as only certain volcanoes produce
quality pozzolan upon eruption, which has driven up the value of the
remaining pozzolan.
Most of the island's residents were
evacuated to Saipan at that time, and now only a handful of residents
remain, though more would return if there was reliable transportation
to and from the islands, and if there was any education available
there.
Few at the time of Mt. Pagan's
eruption anticipated the potential wealth the soot held in store for
the commonwealth -- or the pending controversy.
The island is now public land, and
its fate is at the hands of the Marianas Public Lands Authority, which
plans to decide tomorrow whether to approve a proposal to mine it.
An Arizona-based company, Azmar
International Trading Company, owned by businessman Kenneth Moore, has
for more than two years been lobbying to get the permit to mine the
island of its rich resources.
Azmar's offer is to invest the
millions it will take to get the mining operation up and running and
then give the CNMI government 7 percent of the company's profits, plus
taxes.
However, watchdog groups are
decrying this offer, arguing it shortchanges the territory and citing
concerns about Azmar's qualifications and honesty.
The MPLA commission met on Friday on
Tinian to consider the proposal, but decided to postpone the decision
until tomorrow, to give its members more time to consider the proposal.
Present at Friday's meeting was
Azmar International's spokesman Don Farrell, who served as chief of
staff for Guam's former senator Carl Gutierrez, before Gutierrez became
governor. Azmar's proposal, Farrell said, would bring unprecedented
wealth into the territory's coffers, as well as jobs to its residents.
"We anticipate we will expend $15 million in the first year of the project," he said.
In addition to bringing capital to
the island, he said, the proposal offers the Public Lands Authority 7
percent of the profits, as well as taxes. In total, he said, the
territory will get about 15 percent of the profits.
He said the project will employ at
least 100 people by the end of the year, "and they will be paid at
least federal minimum wage -- $5.75 an hour," he said.
However, critics say the deal Azmar is trying to cut with the commonwealth is an extraordinarily bad deal for CNMI residents.
Peter Pangelinan Perez, a founding
member of PaganWatch, a group advocating for the environmentally and
culturally responsible mining of Pagan, described the offer as "a
stupid, stupid deal" for the commonwealth and said the deal leaves CNMI
residents with only a small percentage of the profits reaped from their
own resource.
Even more concerning, he said, are the concerns about whether Azmar is even qualified to do the mining.
Further, he said, the entire deal fails to take into account the residents and former residents of Pagan.
Former Pagan resident and attorney
Cinta Kaipat, who is president of the United Northern Mariana Islanders
Association and member of PaganWatch, said she is disgusted with the
situation and Azmar's alleged disregard of current and former Pagan
residents.
"Why 93 percent for Azmar and why
only seven percent for CNMI? And mind you, the proposal started out at
3 percent for CNMI, then it climbed to 5 percent, and now, whoopdeedoo,
we're up to 7 percent," the Saipan resident said. "I have to feel the
unfairness of this whole deal. ... This is our resource, after all."
Perez said he would like to see the
CNMI government take the time to do its own studies about the potential
value of the pozzolan on Pagan, and then contract a company to do the
mining for them, in which case the government could assure the
environment and residents would be adequately cared as well as keep the
profits of the business.
"If it's worth something, isn't it
worth keeping as much of the revenue as possible here in the CNMI to
benefit the CNMI?" said Kaipat. "Just because we don't have any
experience in mining doesn't mean we can't do it. We can find experts
in the field to help us with this. Let us form a task force comprised
of experts in the field as well as members of the community.
"Let's do the smart thing about it and not end up destroying our beautiful island in the process," she said.
Azmar's spokesman Farrell said
PaganWatch's campaign to slow or stop the permit process has been a
product of "misinformation" and said those concerned about the permit
comprise a "minority" of residents.
"Misinformation has been given to
certain individuals and they have used it to attempt to smear Mr. Moore
and myself," he said. "We are very confident that as soon as we are
given the opportunity to do what we have claimed we will do, they will
see we have the best intentions.
"The public will come to find that
we are committed to the proper exploitation of the natural resource,
with dire concern for the environment and the people living there," he
said.
Farrell said Thomas Arkle Jr., a
former federal official and reforestation expert, has been signed on as
the environmental reclamation officer for the project, as proof of
Azmar's commitment to mining the island with environmental
considerations in mind.
Farrell said the company has also won the support of many of Pagan's current and former residents.
As for complaints about the deal
offered, he said it is a generous one and would bring money almost
immediately into the CNMI's aching economy without the CNMI government
needing to invest a penny.
Farrell said he believes the market
value of the product will be about $50 per metric ton, and if 200
million metric tons are on the island, that would work out to be a $10
billion business.
"Within a year, the money will be
flowing into the MPLA," he said. "We should have people working,
building the site by January. Maybe earlier. No later than St.
Patrick's day, March 17."
He said Azmar is a brand-new company
"designed purely for this purpose." Azmar would get the larger chunk of
profits, Farrell said, because it would be putting up all the capital
and taking a chance on the project. The business is risky because the
region is hit by typhoons regularly and the island is still
volcanically active.
Further, Farrell said the company's
potential customers have expressed concerns about doing business with a
company in the CNMI because the permit process has been slow and it
makes it appear as if the CNMI government is "unfriendly" to business.
"Pure pozzolan has not been on the
market for 50 years, so Azmar must make a new market for pozzolan," he
said. "We have sent samples of 50-pound bags to potential buyers for
them to test, and they want the stuff. The problem has been getting the
permit."
And getting the permit is what they
were hoping to do on Friday at the MPLA meeting in Tinian. However,
after the commission emerged from behind closed doors in executive
session and announced the decision would be postponed yet again,
Farrell sighed with exasperation.
"Every delay on the action on our
permit adds to the concerns expressed by our potential buyers about the
reliability of doing business with the CNMI," he said.
But that argument is just a
scare-tactic to try to pressure the government into making a rush
decision before checking out all the facts, Perez said.
In fact, he said, the delays have
mostly been associated with Azmar's inability to provide the necessary
financial documents and plans required by CNMI law for the permit,
rather than any unwillingness on the government's part to entertain the
proposal.
He said it's unlikely any potential
customers would draw the conclusion that CNMI was business-unfriendly
if it was slow to grant the permit to Azmar, considering the concerns
that have been raised about Azmar's integrity.
No one with any kind of business
savvy would look favorably at an MPLA decision to grant a permit to a
company like Azmar, he said. "How else could a company with no mining
experience, no business plan, no operation plan, no real money of its
own, and with the community dead set against it, get permission to
bulldoze off a third of Mt. Pagan without even an environmental
mitigation plan?" he asked.
Farrell responded to Perez's comments by saying, "I have no comment as to anything said by Peter Pangelinan Perez."
