Somebody senses disaster

Somebody is not telling the truth, and Nosy Tarsee wants to know why.

The world’s biggest maritime infrastructure and dredging outfit was supposed to be the contractor for a major reclamation project of a local conglomerate.

But when word got out that the well-regarded Dutch dredging firm had quietly walked away from the contract, the local giant went silent. No confirmation or denial, just silence and a face-saving line fed to select ears that the Dutch firm was not gone but was merely “downgraded” to consultant.

Sources told Nosy Tarsee the real story was dirtier than a relationship downgrade. The Dutch firm bailed, Nosy Tarsee’s source said, because of the quality of the reclamation, particularly in the use of sand — specifically lahar sand — the volcanic runoff being dredged and pumped into the reclamation site as fill material.

Under a microscope, good reclamation sand is coarse and irregular, with tiny jagged edges that let each grain grip its neighbor and bond into a stable mass.

Sand from river mouths is different. Years of friction round the grains smooth, almost spherical, like tiny ball bearings. It has no grip or bond, which, in short, is not ideal for reclamation.

But lahar sand is worse than river sand. Washed down for decades from Zambales’s volcanic slopes, it comes out nearly as smooth and round as marbles. Pack it, compact it, build on it, it will still want to roll.

Whoever is signing off on permits for “reclamation sand,” Nosy Tarsee was told, either does not understand this or does not care.

Either way, the label fits: criminal negligence, cloaked in a permit stamp, chasing a payday with no thought to what will happen when the ground gives way.

And Zambales, where the sand is sourced, would not be the first place to pay for it.