House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial reiterated his concerns yesterday over Pagan mining in view of the Marianas Public Land Authority\u2019s impending decision on the issue.<\/p>\n
The Speaker, through House leadership spokesman Charles Reyes Jr., cautioned the MPLA against any \u201cpremature\u201d act of awarding the contract.<\/p>\n
He said Fitial is very concerned about the project\u2019s social and environmental impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they\u2019ve got the best bidder, then we\u2019ll also be in favor of it, but it shouldn\u2019t be done prematurely or hastily awarded [to a company],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Reyes, on behalf of the Speaker, spoke on the matter during yesterday\u2019s board meeting of MPLA.<\/p>\n
Earlier, the House passed a bill, authored by Fitial, which aims to suspend any new pozzolan mining activity on Mt. Pagan without a comprehensive study. The bill authorizes the governor to reprogram any unobligated funds to finance the conduct of the study. The bill calls for the creation of a task force to oversee the assessment project. <\/p>\n
The task force shall be chaired by the MPLA commissioner. Other members would include 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.<\/p>\n
The Senate, however, has not acted on the bill, with some members even expressing support to have the contract awarded to proposer Azmar International.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Senate refused to act on it,\u201d said Reyes.<\/p>\n
Authorities estimate that there are more than 200 million tons of high-grade pozzolan deposits on Pagan, believed to be worth $45 to $70 per ton at today\u2019s prices.<\/p>\n
A local group of Northern Islands residents on Saipan has thrown its support behind the bill, saying it merely provides for a short period of time to verify the quality and quantity of pozzolan and investigate its marketability. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe CNMI risks nothing by allowing a short period of time to protect our resource, its value, and our environment\u2026 We have nothing to lose by educating ourselves about this tremendously valuable resource,\u201d said the group called Pagan Watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will never have another opportunity like this one. We will never have another Pagan,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House Speaker Benigno R. Fitial reiterated his concerns yesterday over Pagan mining in view of the Marianas Public Land Authority\u2019s impending decision on the issue.<\/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-83303","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\/83303","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=83303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}