Japan/US: After a preliminary visit to the island of Pagan, part of the US's Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Japanese investors have announced that they are looking to lease roughly 2000 hectares of public land on the island to mine what they consider 'best quality' pozzolan for a period of 10-15 years and to recycle pre-treated tsunami debris that they plan to bring in from Japan. Pozzolan is a siliceous volcanic ash used to produce hydraulic cement.

However, some CNMI residents are already expressing opposition to what they describe as the 'desecration' of Pagan by turning it into a dumping ground. Others have expressed concerns that the eventual use of the island will go beyond pozzolan mining and tsunami debris recycling.

The Japanese investors, aware of these sentiments, are trying to quell public opposition to their project, saying that the tsunami debris will be pre-treated, non-toxic and non-radioactive. They added that Japanese and international laws prohibit the shipment of highly toxic materials from one country to another. They added that at least 80% of the tsunami debris would be recycled on Pagan and brought back to Japan and other destinations. The tsunami debris would come from the Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures, which are both north of Fukushima where the damaged nuclear power plant is located.

One of the Japanese visitors, Oku Shigeharu, who is chairman of Japan Southwest Islands Security Institute, said that depending on the results of further study of Pagan, the investors are interested in mining all pozzolan deposits on the island for a period of 10 to 15 years. He said they do not plan to lease the whole island but only about 2000 hectares of it, including the pozzolan mining area and a site where tsunami debris will be 'disposed of and recycled.' The investors were also keen to highlight that the CNMI will generate revenue from the multimillion-dollar land lease, from royalty fees as a result of pozzolan mining and through securing new jobs for local residents. "In my personal opinion, maybe pozzolan (mining) can help save the CNMI economy," said Shigeharu."There's at least 100Mt of pozzolan on Pagan," said Pagan (CNMI) Development Corp. chair Juan Demapan, citing a previous study.

The delegation said that it would return to CNMI in three weeks, bringing with them engineers, scientists and other experts to further study and assess Pagan.