Pacific Notes
Pacific Notes
Slam Dunking With Style and a Smile
The Colorado-based Harlem Ambassadors slammed dunked their way across Micronesia in May, wowing standing-room-only audiences from Majuro to Koror and every main island in between. Led by the irrepressible Lade Majic — who lived up to her billing as the "Queen of Show Basketball" — the Ambassadors proved they were as good as their name, and then some, as they stayed after games to sign thousands of autographs and chat with well-wishers despite the grind of playing top island teams day-after-day in the grueling humidity of small island gymnasiums.
Lade Majic showed she still has the moves that led to her record-setting college career at the University of Missouri, and her slick dribbling and shooting gave a welcome boost to fledgling women’s basketball in many of the islands. But children clearly enjoyed the Ambassadors antics the most. Plucked from the audience by roving Ambassador players, many kids won prizes during on-court shooting and passing competitions that sparked cheers and laughter from the audience.
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At each island hop, the Ambassadors — whose trip was sponsored regionally by Continental Micronesia, Outrigger Hotels and Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, and by numerous local organizations — visited with local students, delivering a "stay in school, stay off drugs" message.
If they were exhausted after 14 games in 28 days, the Ambassadors picked the perfect island and day — Kosrae on Saturday night — to wrap up the tour, for on Sundays in Kosrae, walking to church is the only exercise allowed.
—Giff Johnson
Lawsuits Threatened Over Saipan
PCB Response
Not even a report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indicating that PCB contamination in Tanapag Village in Saipan is now below the risk level, can pacify residents who continue to call for an independent study to reassure them about the safety of their health and environment.
PCB — or polychlorinated biphenyl — is a highly toxic, cancer-causing chemical that was for many years used in electrical transformers.
Since laboratory testing of samples from Tanapag residents began last year, 17 villagers have already tested positive with PCB contamination. Mainly due to allegations of the federal agencies’ mishandling of the PCB situation in the village, the resident-organized Tanapag Action Group has threatened to file suit against the U.S. agencies.
Residents have reason for concern. Investigations by the CNMI Office of the Attorney General found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA committed gross negligence, including violating U.S. laws, in carrying out the cleanup of PCB in Tanapag village. Federal cleanup standard provides that excavated soil contaminated with PCB must be replaced with soil that contains less than 1 ppm of PCB, but many sites in the village were cleaned up at a 10 ppm level and below. Prior to remediation efforts, PCB concentrations in some locations of the village were in excess of 55,000 ppm. Documents have also shown that the EPA and the Corps of Engineers had been aware since 1992 that groundwater in Tanapag had PCB concentrations of up to 18 times the federal drinking standard.
An EPA document outlining the agency’s clean-up policy called for the evacuation of and restricted access to the area if contamination was near homes. At that time, the PCB-contaminated ground area excavated and remediated was within close proximity to a residential area, church and school. But the area was not evacuated, nor access restricted. The Attorney General’s Office warned that it will take legal action against the federal agencies if the Department of Army isn’t ordered to post signs and fence the 18 areas in the village contaminated by PCB.
—Aldwin R. Fajardo
Election Winners
Lose Court Battles
The winner of a parliamentary seat in Samoa has been disqualified by a Supreme Court ruling, which also has banned him and his main challenger, the incumbent, from running for office for five years. National University of Samoa lecturer Maulolo L.T. Tavita edged out incumbent and ruling Human Rights Protection Party member Muagututagata Peter Ah Him, 814 to 802 votes. After the election, Muagututagata filed suit in the Supreme Court, accusing Maulolo of corruption and bribing voters. After more than a week of testimony, the court found both candidates guilty of bribing voters by offering them money, drinks and food, voided the election results, and called for a new election.
In another decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Tapuai Toese, a winning candidate for the Salega District, was not eligible to run because he had registered his chiefly title after the electoral roll was closed on January 19. The court ordered a by-election to be held to fill the seat. While Maulolo Tavita and Muagututagata Peter Ah Him were banned by the court from running in the by-election, the Samoa court did allow Tapuai Toese to run in the Salega by-election.
Despite these court rulings, the Human Rights Protection Party still maintains tits commanding majority in parliament.
—Fili Sagapolutele
A.Samoa Honored for Ebeye Power Services
The government-owned American Samoa Power Authority’s (ASPA) Ebeye Island project, in the Marshall Islands, earned it an award during the Mayors’ Asia-Pacific Environment (MAPE) Summit 2001 held in Honolulu in May. For the past 18 months ASPA has managed a once-troubled utility company on Ebeye, home to 11,000 Marshall Islanders next to the Kwajalein missile test range.
Sponsored by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the three-day summit was held in conjunction with the ADB’s 34th annual meeting in Honolulu in May. ASPA was one of four case studies or a "snapshot city" for MAPE. In November 1999, ASPA assumed management of KAJUR, Ebeye’s power authority. ASPA’s take-over was part of an infrastructure improvement program financed by the ADB to improve then-abysmal power services on Ebeye. "This award is also the validation of the kind of work American Samoans can do in the region," Malae said. "We do well in other areas such as sports, but we also do well in this area and we share that knowledge through training with others."
—Fili Sagapolutele
