A waste of people’s money?

In defending MPLA’s extravagant travel, MPLA Commissioner Ed Guerrero said that members of the MPLA board and staff attended a “pozzolan” seminar in Las Vegas, Nevada and then “a” mine in Reno. I took the time to check for such a seminar, as it might have interests to Azmar. I found that there was no pozzolan conference in Las Vegas. Ms. Castro led her fellow members and staff on a very expensive junket for no good reason and should pay back what they spent of the people’s money.

If Mr. Guerrero would volunteer the name of the mine, we can find out how much they wasted there. There is little doubt that when the Public Auditor finishes his work on MPLA’s travel, we will discover that the MPLA board spent more hours in the air, building OnePass miles, than they did in official board meetings building a better CNMI.

What did happen in Las Vegas in January was the annual World of Concrete convention at the Las Vegas Convention Center from Jan. 17-20. According to its Internet site, the World of Concrete convention has symposiums that will help concrete users “increase sales and keep up with the latest technologies in the commercial construction industry.” It has nothing to do with pozzolan. Sablan Construction might be interested in the availability of new colored blocks for driveways, but the conference had nothing to do with the pozzolan deposit on Pagan.

Had someone at MPLA used one of their dozen or so computers to research pozzolan, cement and concrete, they would discover that pozzolan is only a chemical that can be mixed into ordinary cement. Cement is the powdery mixture of chemicals that you buy in bags at the hardware store. Mix it with sand or gravel and it hardens into concrete. Add a little bit of pozzolan to the cement and it becomes the hardest concrete in the world.

No one at this conference would be having a seminar on pozzolan, because it isn’t used anymore. It will be, after Azmar gets its permit and begins to export it to cement manufacturers around the world. Then it will come back onto the market as Azmar Paganite, the world’s hardest drying cement. It will be distributed around the world, including in the Marianas, of course. The people on Pagan, Saipan, Tinian, Rota and Guam will be able to build their homes with blocks made from Azmar Paganite, that is, when MPLA gives us the permit. Then MPLA can go to the World of Concrete Convention in 2007 and help us sell Paganite. That would be helpful.

Why do we know so much about pozzolan? Because Ken Moore and Greg Whitehorn, using their extensive international contacts, have a working relationship with one of the world’s foremost pozzolan scientists, a Ph.D. chemist who knows how to twist the pozzolan molecule to make it do different things. If MPLA wants to know about pozzolan, just ask Azmar. If they want to see MPLA earn millions of dollars in royalties from the sale of Pagan pozzolan, so they can afford to build new homesteads and pay off claimants, all they have to do is give us the permit to mine pozzolan on Pagan. If they want to help the CNMI earn millions in needed new revenue, all they have to do is complete an agreement with us.

Success, and the end of these letters to the editor, are just a phone call away.

Don A. Farrell
Marpo Heights, Tinian