Adriano: Allow investors in on Pagan

It’s about time that the CNMI makes its “yes” be “yes” and its “no” be “no” when it comes to business opportunities such as the proposed mining project on Pagan.

This in essence was what Senate President Joaquin Adriano said over the apparent opposition by some quarters to Azmar International’s pending proposal to extract pozzolan and basalt from Pagan.

“We’re saying we need investors but when they come we fight them. It’s like ‘Yes, we need you but we don’t need you.’ What’s that? It’s about time that we allow these investors to come in. Let them prove that they can do it,” said the senator.

Adriano and at least two other members of the Senate have expressed support for the granting of a mining permit to Azmar.

Meantime, some members of the House of Representatives have advised the Marianas Public Lands Authority to go slow on the permit application, cautioning about the company’s integrity as well as the project’s potential ill effects on the community and the environment.

The House has, in fact, passed a bill authored by House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, which aims to suspend any new pozzolan mining activity on Mt. Pagan without a comprehensive study.

The bill calls for the creation of a task force to oversee the assessment project, which may last for 90 days.

Under the bill, the task force shall be chaired by the MPLA commissioner and composed of representatives from the Office of the Mayor of Northern Islands, Division of Environmental Quality; departments of Lands and Natural Resources, Commerce, Finance, and Public Works; Coastal Resources Management, and the Commonwealth Development Authority.

The Northern Islands Residents Association has expressed strong support to the House bill, saying that a 90-day assessment would be worth it.

“The CNMI risks nothing by allowing a short period of time to protect our resource, its value, and our environment… We have nothing to lose by educating ourselves about this tremendously valuable resource,” said the group.

The bill had been forwarded to the Senate but the Senate has “sat on it.”

“The Senate has refused to act on it,” said House leadership spokesman Charles Reyes Jr.

Authorities, including Azmar, have estimated more than 200 million tons of high-grade pozzolan deposits on Pagan, believed to be worth $45 to $70 per ton at today’s prices.

But the MPLA, which promised to finally make its decision on Azmar’s application tomorrow, has said that no study has been done yet that would confirm the actual amount of pozzolan deposits on the island.