Environment Hawaii

01/09/2023

“In heavy winds and certain topographic features, fires are kind of unstoppable – they can burn and spread very quickly, especially in 60 mile-per-hour winds. Even if you’ve mitigated, or you’ve reduced, or you’ve mowed, or you’ve grazed, and the vegetation is super short or very short, those embers are being thrown at 60 miles an hour. They can go very far. They can find the spots that are burnable and the fire can spread very rapidly." - Elizabeth Pickett, Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization

Above photo: On the leeward coast of the Big Island, wildfire last month burned the parched grasslands along Akoni P**e Highway. Credit: DLNR The 2023 Legislature considered – and rejected – a bill that would have established a community fuels reduction project. Senate Bill 409, relating to fire...

01/09/2023

"I believed that the level of water in Mahi Pono’s reservoirs was low, given Mahi Pono’s practice of bypassing reservoirs when practical to reduce seepage." - Grant Nakama, Mahi Pono senior vice president of operations

Above photo: Homes burned last month by the Kula fire in Upcountry, Maui. CREDIT: DLNR. On September 15, Environmental Court Judge Jeffrey Crabtree will hold a hearing on the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi’s August 17 motion to amend water permits held by Alexander & Baldwin and East Maui Irrigation. Th...

01/08/2022

Last year, the Office of the Inspector General for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a scathing audit of the way in which the Western Pacific Fishery Regional Management Council (WPRFMC, or Wespac for short) had used monies from its Sustainable Fisheries Fund. The fund is....

01/08/2022

By Patricia Tummons Heʻeia Estuary: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is asking for public comment on a revision of the management plan for the Heʻeia National Estuarine Research Reserve.  As described by NOAA, “this draft revised management plan is a minor update of the prior...

01/08/2022

(Contributed by Sheila Conant) Fern Duvall. Credit: Sheila Conant I met Fern not long after he took over the ʻalalā captive propagation project. He was working and living at Pōhakuloa. Marie Morin and I drove up to Pōhakuloa to meet the new aviculturist. Fern was working outside at a picnic tabl...

01/08/2022

In addition to pueo being the younger sibling of Māui, which connects it to the sea, it is also considered to be the kinolau or physical manifestation of the god Kāne. Stormcrow found references to pueo being called Kānekupahuʻa or Kāneikapahuʻa, which translates to “the man standing at the forest border.”

“It’s interesting when you think about edge habitat and how there’s a higher abundance of prey species. … I think that there’s a ton of evidence indicating that [pueo] do hang out in those places a lot,” she said.

The theme of this year’s annual Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference, held July 18 to 22 via Zoom, was “Pilina Mauli Ola — Connections that Offer Resilience and Hope.” So along with presentations reporting the latest results of various natural resource studies and management efforts, sessions ...

01/08/2022

- Sierra Club Appeals BLNR Decision Over Four East Maui Stream Permits
- Seawall Case Heads to Trial Amid Attorney-Client Rift, Claims of Withheld Evidence
- Work Proceeds on Condo In Koloa Despite Worries Over Blasting
- ICA Appeal of Kahala Hotel Permit

Sierra Club Appeals BLNR Decision Over Four East Maui Stream Permits For now, the four permits granted in 2020 by the Board of Land and Natural Resources to Alexander & Baldwin and its East Maui irrigation Company so they could continue diverting 45 million gallons of water a day (mgd) from East Mau...

01/08/2022

The total value of the cash judgment and seized proceeds from property sales comes to roughly $4.5 million. In addition to that, according to Rudo plea agreement, the government on April 4 seized 45 affordable housing credits; the value of such credits varies but has ranged as high as $60,000 each in the past. At that upper range, the value of the credits would be in excess of $2 million.

But there are other properties that Rudo acquired in recent years that the government has left untouched, so far.

On June 22, Alan Scott Rudo, a former staffer with the Hawai`i County Office of Housing and Community Development, signed a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, admitting his participation in a conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud. That plea agreement, made public in July, was the fir...

26/07/2022

On May 23, the dozen or so members of the state Land Use Commission gathered in a conference room in Kona, just south of the airport most had just flown into, to hear updates on several Hawai`i island projects that, for one or another reason, had encountered hiccups in proceeding with the plans appr...

26/07/2022

It was gratifying to hear U.S. Attorney Clare Connors ackowledge the role we played in spurring the FBI to investigate corruption in the Hawaii County housing agency. Our initial reports date back to 2018, when we were reporting on the Waikoloa Mauka housing development.
It all started here:

On May 23, the dozen or so members of the state Land Use Commission gathered in a conference room in Kona, just south of the airport most had just flown into, to hear updates on several Hawai`i island projects that, for one or another reason, had encountered hiccups in proceeding with the plans appr...

10/06/2022

“We’re already pushing our luck with a hundred-year-old dam,” said Aimee Barnes last month. Barnes was the sole member of the state Board of Land and Natural Resources to vote against a recommendation by the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Engineering Division to give Dole Food Com...

10/06/2022

‘Aina Le‘a Suit Dismissed: The state has prevailed in the efforts of DW ‘Aina Le‘a, LLC, to claim $200 million in damages as a result of the Land Use Commission’s reversion of land it once owned from the Urban land use district to the Agricultural district. DWAL had brought the lawsuit ag...

10/06/2022

Above photo: Ronald Brown When Ronald A. Brown proposed to build 20 affordable rental units on 13 acres of land off Kealaka‘a Street, in Kona, Chris Yuen, then the Hawai‘i County planning director, was willing to let bygones be bygones. In the early 1990s, Brown had built what was then called Cr...

10/06/2022

Photos of grannies making cookies with the kiddos, a grandfather and grandson hand in hand, kicking through fall leaves, and a grandmother reading to a loving child on her lap. These are among the scenes that, the Tenderlycare.org website would have you believe, are playing out in three Big Island d...

10/06/2022

In January of 2015, barely a month after Luna Loa Developments, LLC, was formed, its sole member of record, Rajesh Budhabhatti, signed onto an affordable housing agreement with the County of Hawai‘i. Terms of the agreement called for Luna Loa to develop at least 106 low-income rental units on 4.6 ...

10/06/2022

Above photo: Office of Housing and Community Development administrator Suzan Kunz. Hawai‘i County, like every other county in the state, struggles with the problem of affordable housing. Unlike the others, though, it has a law – Chapter 11 of the County Code – that is intended to spur the deve...

10/06/2022

Hawai‘i County’s affordable housing policy is a disaster. Other counties have their problems as well when it comes to addressing the shelter needs of households who are priced out of market-rate rentals. But on the Big Island, the insanely complicated process by which developers are encouraged t...

10/06/2022

How did a newly minted company get the County of Hawai‘i to purchase 13 acres of land for it? With only $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses the company was able to acquire land valued by the county at $948,200. It later sold off more than half of that acreage for $950,000 and it still owns the remain...

11/05/2022

“Although dams may be able to seep, the seepage must be able to be explained, the seepage needs to be controlled appropriately, [and] the stability of the embankment needs to be evaluated and shown that the embankment is stable under the various loading conditions.” Carty Chang chief engineer, Department of Land and Natural Resources Engineering Division

Waiakalua Reservoir. Credit: DLNR The owners of lands beneath and surrounding the Waiakalua Reservoir in North Kaua`i are facing $65,000 in fines if they don’t steadily progress toward making the sugarcane plantation-era fixture safer. The reservoir is relatively small compared to the Kaloko Reser...

11/05/2022

“Considering that the ecosystems targeted for mining are among the most pristine and biodiverse in the ocean, we must use extreme caution in moving forward with seabed mining," - Craig Smith, oceanographer

A huge area of the open ocean lying between Hawai`i and Mexico could be open to the mining of metallic nodules found on the seafloor as early as the middle of next year. And, at this time, it’s an open question as to whether there will be any meaningful environmental restrictions on how that minin...

11/05/2022

“I did not appreciate your comment that we were, as is typical, taking an adversarial position, like we’re doing with Act 90.” -- Land Board chair Suzanne Case to former state Dept. of agriculture director Scott Enright

Can a Solar Farm Coexist with Cattle Pens? Renewable Energy Company Will Investigate  A renewable energy developer pursuing a project on lands leased by the state’s central slaughterhouse received a right-of-entry permit from the Board of Land and Natural Resources last month to conduct due dilig...

11/05/2022

“We are in a water shortage situation because of Red Hill on the town side,Any further cutbacks in Kahaluʻu-Waiheʻe — they’re our primary water supply for Kāneʻohe, Kailua and Waimānalo — could create a water shortage condition there, too.” -- Barry Usagawa, Honolulu Board of Water Supply

Preliminary groundwater modeling results from the U.S. Geological Survey seem to support what staff with the Commission on Water Resource Management believed when they proposed new interim instream flow standards (IIFS) for He`eia Stream in Windward Oʻahu more than a year ago: That withdrawals from...

12/04/2022

Kihei High Update: “While construction of the two classroom buildings, administration building, and locker rooms is proceeding at a brisk pace, due to some unavoidable construction and material delays, we have been informed that completion of these new facilities will be delayed until January 2023...

12/04/2022

Hawaiʻi County Sued in Federal Court Over Closure of Waipiʻo Valley Road Hawaiʻi County mayor Mitch Roth announced on February 24 that he was immediately closing the only road leading into Waipiʻo Valley to all but residents and farmers for the next three years. He said he based the decision on ...

12/04/2022

High Court Upholds Board Permit For Na Pua Makani Wind Farm After years of strife, the feud over the Na Pua Makani wind farm’s habitat conservation plan and incidental take permit is finally over. In May 2018, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources approved a habitat conservation plan and i...

12/04/2022

“This guy is a very, very bad steward. [It’s] totally uncalled for for him to keep the premises that way. He’s just a bad steward of the ʻāina,” said Agribusiness Development Corporation board member Jimmy Gomes at its March 16 meeting. That day, the board voted to renew its license agreem...

12/04/2022

On February 25, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources finally approved public hearings on proposed for a community-based subsistence fishing area (CBSFA) rules at Miloliʻi that was established nearly 20 years ago. “Miloliʻi and its surrounding coastal areas have become one of the last po...

12/04/2022

Locals have long complained about over-tourism in Hawaiʻi — that vacation rentals are transforming their neighborhoods, that tour helicopters are constantly buzzing over their homes, that their once-favorite hiking trials are now clogged with throngs of visitors wielding selfie-sticks … In the ...

08/03/2022

“He knew what he was doing,” Land Board member Tommy Oi said in support of his motion to approve a $17,000 fine against Lanikai residents Donald and Julianne King for unauthorized work in the Conservation District. The couple, who own a hillside home in the area, constructed a rough driveway of ...

08/03/2022

By Teresa Dawson On February 15, the state Commission on Water Resource Management amended its June 2021 decision in the Nā Wai `Ehā contested case hearing on water use permits. The change means that Waikapū Properties now is responsible for providing water to the South Waikapū kuleana ʻauwai. ...