Northern Island residents have began a petition that calls on the Senate to immediately pass a bill suspending mining activities on Mt. Pagan.<\/p>\n
The group, represented by Cinta Kaipat, asked the upper chamber to pass House Bill 14-204, titled Pozzolan Extraction Act of 2004, which was recently introduced and passed in the House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor many reasons, HB 14-204 is our bill. It protects our Pagan, our island, our home. But it is also a bill for all of the CNMI,\u201d said the group.<\/p>\n
The bill, authored by House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial, aims to suspend any new pozzolan mining activity on Mt. Pagan for lack of a comprehensive study. It said that a comprehensive assessment of pozzolan mineral extraction will ensure that the Commonwealth will receive a fair share of the revenue from the activity and that the potential risks to the environment posed by the mining will be reduced, if not eliminated.<\/p>\n
Kaipat\u2019s group said that surface mining more than 20 percent Pagan\u2019s land mass, \u201cwith its potential environmental and social impact, is not to be rushed into.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group cited a report identifying more than 200 million tons of high-grade pozzolan on Pagan, believed to be worth $45 to $70 per ton at today\u2019s prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one knows the true market value,\u201d said the group, but noted that \u201cthis is not a matter of a few thousand dollars. This is potentially a matter of billions of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
The petition has reportedly been signed by some 40 people.<\/p>\n
It said that the bill does not block mining pozzolan; it merely provides for a short period of time to verify the quality and quantity of pozzolan and investigate its marketability.<\/p>\n
The bill, which also calls for the creation of a task force, wants the task force to determine the qualification requirement of persons and companies applying for permits to extract pozzolan, set permitting procedures, set a fee and royalty schedule, and ascertain potential risks to the environment for mitigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CNMI risks nothing by allowing a short period of time to protect our resource, its value, and our environment\u2026We have nothing to lose but 90 days by educating ourselves about this tremendously valuable resource,\u201d said the group. \u201cWe will never have another opportunity like this one. We will never have another Pagan.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Northern Island residents have began a petition that calls on the Senate to immediately pass a bill suspending mining activities on Mt. Pagan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}