*****CIMA CANGALLI TRIP*****Update on FUND to follow.
Time to officially announce that I, Jim Bishop, will not be making the trip to Bolivia. A combination of business, personal, and medical concerns, have made my going next to impossible, and so I must bow out.
In my place we are looking for a replacement, but TT does not want to turn this into a circus, or a competition as to who goes, and GE is not in the eco/adventure travel business. TT and GE are 100% behind this venture.
Seems that we can't convince the press that we are not sending a "team of experts" down, so what the hell, let's oblige them and make it an expert team. Now before everyone starts volunteering and offering their services, there have been a few already, and we thank them for their support and willingness to go, we do want to send someone with the technical background to do us some real good.
I'll mention here that Eric Charters, Claude Cormier, The Fix, The Chief, and a few others have already been contacted. CIMA has also been in contact with several geologists, and will be in contact with more. So far only one has expressed a willingness to head down with CIMA as part of a more expert team, and that is toma.
CIMA's expertise covers the Spanish language, business, government, and cultural side of things. One thing that CIMA hopes to accomplish is making contacts with the heads of the Cangalli Cooperative to find out their feelings of GE, the mine, why give some away to an American company, etc., etc..
toma, I am afraid I do not know, and having been on the road the last few days, I have not even had a chance to read all his posts.
I do know that toma has gained considerable respect here in a real short period of time.
I do know that he is either willing to accompany CIMA, and company officials to the site, or has at least tentatively agreed to depending on finances and timing. More on the finances later.
I'm also told that toma attained a B.S. degree in Geology in 1987, he does environmental consulting, has a Masters Degree in Environmental Science and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines, from the Geochemistry and Chemistry Department.
toma's particular specialty, I understand, is the analysis of data, making sense of the data that comes back from the lab, creating a picture of it, and determining it's limits. He uses the same statistical and 3D modeling packages developed by the mining industry.
toma's expertise would all him to review, for us, Guido's data with a very critical eye. While mining is not his specialty field, geochemical data analysis, and site characterization is, and he has the background and resources to research anything he does not understand.
I am hoping that toma will respond positively to this post, and perhaps fill in any blanks that I have missed.
The next post will concern an update on the CIMA FUND, plus a bit of a plea for more support. If we are sending an expert team, we need to raise a little more $$ to cover two air fares plus a few misc. expenses. Many people had already offered more $$ to help pay my expenses, I turned them all down, but now it appears more $$ are necessary if we want a more technical opinion. If we had to out and out hire someone, it would sure cost a lot more than possibly $3000. We have more time now, so early bookings would save considerably on the air fares.
Regards,
Jim
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