Running out of options

HA’ENA — North Shore resident Raymond Chuan says that he is looking to promote creating a national park in the Na Pali.

“It’s the only way to save it,” he says. “This place is getting so much attention, it’s going to be killed in five years,” he says.

In May, Chuan and fellow members of the Hanalei-based Limu Coalition started conducting a daily Kalalau Trail usage survey for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources.

During the summer the number of hikers on Kalalau Trail averaged about 500 a day. Over the last year, the number of vehicles has increased by about 25 percent and people by 35 percent, he says.

The number of people who drive to the end of the road is estimated at 2,000 and is bound to reach 3,000 by next summer if the trend continues, the Coalition reports. And with recent travel stories on the Na Pali running in the Los Angeles Times and other national publications, the numbers will only keep increasing by leaps and bounds.

For Chuan, the results were a wake-up call.

“We are in big trouble,” he says. Seeing how fast the numbers are growing and how long it takes government to act, Chuan says make sit doubly critical to do something as soon as possible.

“The trails are going to be dead in three years. In the meantime, nothing has happened and the people keep pouring in,” he says. “This is a major, major crisis.”Chuan adds that the issue of having a national park here will be thrust on Kaua’i because residents are running out of options.

“The state is not going to do anything about the Na Pali because they don’t have the resources and private groups and individuals can only do so much,” he says.

Chuan takes an example from Mt. Whitney in the High Sierras in California.

In the 1960s and ’70s, Mt. Whitney, a national forest reserve, was overrun with hikers and campers by the hundreds. But then when the feds cracked down in the ’80s, only 40 people were allowed in the area. After that, when Chuan went backpacking there in the late ’80s, he saw a totally different picture.

“I didn’t see worn out trails or trash. The park was under strict control and if you were camping you were almost certain to be visited by a ranger. “This is in sharp contrast to the Na Pali and Kalalau trail, Chuan says.

“Here we havea shoddy permitting system and no enforcement,” he says. “If people want to go camping, they go camping.” Chuan says that it would take about 10 years to convert the Na Pali area into a National Park and set up the proper fee system.

Part of the new master plan for the park is to have the end of the road gated off with a new parking lot 200 yards down from the Ke’e Beach, Chuan says.

This would be a perfect opportunity to start charging for park entry, says Chuan. Five dollars to park and another $5 to hike. If visitors want to camp, charge them, say $30 or even more. Locals, Chuan say, could camp for free.

“Now you are looking at money you can really do something with,”he says.

Doing so could generate enough funds to easily have three ranger stations, six rangers, two zodiacs and a helicopter to maintain the 11-miles of precious coastline.

“Nobody who has come 10,000 miles to see this is going to balk at paying a fee,” he says.

Chuan also speaks of a shuttle system to the end of the road, which can be self-sustaining.

Parks on the Mainland have long charged entry and parking fees.

“It is doable and is being done elsewhere. But there is not the will to do it here,” he says.

Chuan adds whenever he tries to talk about this to the higher ups in the state, they give him the same answer: “We have no money.”STATE PARKSBUDGET CUTS: There is little question that the state DLNR Parks Division has faced severe cuts in its operating budget statewide.

Daniel Quinn,assistant administrator for the Parks Division, says that the cuts are part of a trend that started about five years ago.

In that time, Parks saw about a third of its budget slashed. In 1994, Parks had 161 positions. Now they have 140.

But officials say that things will probably get worse before they get better.

“In general, we’ve been told to be prepared for deeper cuts,” says Quinn.

This has had its effect on Kaua’i, too.

“We anticipate cuts for the next three years,” says Wayne Souza, superintendent for the DLNR Parks Division on Kaua’i.

The cuts, state parks officials say, has forced the Division to look at different revenue sources, such as user fees.

Although no park fees are in place at present, Souza adds that a camping fee has been approved for the Kalalau by the Land Board. However, if and when the Parks Division does implement fees, the revenues collected will not go towards maintenance of the park.

Instead, all revenues will go into a special fund used for the most part to create signage for the Park Division’s interpretive program.

Although, the use of the money in the special fund has recently been expanded to include administrative costs, the funds are not going to the places where the Division is getting hardest hit, i.e. the operating budget, which comes out of the state’s general fund.

Charging an entry fee has been approved for only one park in the state: Diamond Head on O’ahu. Quinn says that the Division will likely realize some revenue from the fee schedule, which works out to roughly $1 per person. But at present the agency is looking at ways to pay for the overhead involved in building a collection point and hiring personnel to run it.

Some members in the community say that the fact the state parks system is strapped for cash doesn’t necessarily mean Kaua’i should go running to the feds for help.

Kapa’a resident Ann Leighton says she has concerns with the issue of a national park on Kaua’i. “We have to be careful what we are asking for, because it’s not for free. You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” she says.

The federal government might have money but their sensitivity to the local community might not be all that it could be, she says.

IDEA WITH A HISTORY: Many people on island still remember when the idea of a national park was introduced back in the ’60s, much to the chagrin of the local residents.

“The main reason people were against it is because the national parks system at the time wanted to take over a third of the island, recalls George Kanna, who with his son Stan runs a dentist office in Hanapepe.

Another big reason for the opposition was that many people wanted to pick plums or go hunting in the areas the federal government wanted to takeover.

Politicians like the late U.S. Sen. Spark Matsunaga also were against the proposal because they wanted to build a hydroelectric dam in Koke’e.

Kanna opposed the national park proposal back in 1965. He says he would oppose it today.

“For me, nothing has changed,” he says, adding the idea ofnational parks on the long list of bad ideas for the island.

“The problem is for us and our island is we get too many quick solutions for a problem that has been with us for years and that’s because we are talking about nature and we are talking about people.”While residents in other parts of the state allowed national parks to be created on their islands, Kaua’i resisted. “We were the smartest ones,” Kanna says.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED: Gary Barbano, a planner for the National Parks Service says the way things were done in the ’60s was a lot different than now.

“The ground rules now are that we can’t do a feasibility study unless specifically authorized by Congress,” he says. In the ’60s, a team of planners from the Service Center in Denver came over to Kaua’i and conducted a feasibility study, without the local residents really knowing what was in store.

“The next thing you know you read in the headlines that the National Parks Service is planning to take over a third o fthe island,” Barbano says. The people of Kaua’i didn’t take to the idea of losing huge portions of their island to outside control.

Barbano says that his field office in Honolulu was established in part to prevent that sort of thing happening again.

“Lesson learned. We wouldn’t do that anymore,” he says.

Now the process for creating a national park is done very much in the open, with as much cooperation from all parties involved as possible.

Here is how it would work:* Interested citizens would approach members of Hawai’i’s Congressional delegation with county and state backing to introduce legislation to do a feasibility study of a given area.

* If the legislation is enacted, the National Parks Service would have the authority to send a team to the island to conduct a study of feasibility.

* The team applies three tests to an area to see whether it would be suitable as a national park:1) Test of National Significance. Is the resource naturally or culturally significant? 2) Test of Suitability. Is the resource adequately represented elsewhere in the country? If the answer is no, then there source meets the test of suitability.

3) Test of Feasibility. Is there support from the state and county and local residents for a national park? For this test, the team would interview people on a one-to-one basis, rather than public hearings.

* If it meets all three tests, then the team would recommend the resource as a national park to the House subcommittee onNational Parks, who in turn would hold their own hearings.

* If the findings of those hearings are positive, then legislation would be introduced for the resource to officially become a national park.

It’s a long process, says Barbano. He says that an additional hurdle would be the fact that most of the Na Pali area is state-owned land.

IT’S THE STATE’S LAND: The state has a policy of not simply giving away its real estate, he says. But there have been instances where the state has entered into cooperative agreements with the National Parks Service.

He points to Kalaupapa on Molokai which became a national historic park in 1980.

But Quinn of the state Parks Division says he doesn’t know of any state or local area that was in recreational use prior to being converted into a national park.

Barbano says he took a trip to the Kalalau a couple of years ago and was shocked tofind a large number of feral goats eating up the vegetation.

“It’s tragic what’s happening there. It can only take so much.””The state doesn’t have money or resources to manage the area both in terms of visitor use and to protect natural resource values there,” he says.

But Souza of the Parks Division on Kaua’i says that it would not necessarily be an economically good move to go national.

“For the last 10 years national park budgets have been cut back dramatically,” he says.

He cites national parks in Hawai’i that have been established but have yet to be developed.

Koloko-Honokohau National Historical Park on the Big Island, for example, was established in 1978 and is still lacking park signs and a visitor center.

Barbano says that it’s true that there have been cutbacks nationwide, but that national parks individually have to lobby for funds out of a general parks budget. Some parks fair poorly, but national parks in Hawai’i have faired very well.

“For the last decade, we’ve seen the operating budgets of the national parks in Hawai’i actually go up every year,” Barbano says.

GOOD CANDIDATE: He adds that the Na Pali area would be a good candidate if there was support for it being a national park.

“In my view I don’t think the NaPali Coast would have a problem meeting the tests of national significance and suitability.” He says that he believes were it to be invited, the National Park Service would love to look at the area again.

When asked about a national park, some state and local politicians seem interested enough to at least explore the possibility.

State Rep. Hermina Morita says that she is willling to start looking at going the national park route since the state doesn’t have the resources to maintain the trails.

But Morita adds that past experience with the federal government can be telling.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife presence on Kaua’i sometimes creates a trying relationship between the community and the refuge in Hanalei, she says.

“That’s because we get some managers on career tracks who are not sensitive to the community.

They just do what they want and the people feel threatened,” Morita says of Fish & Wildlife.

“Given the relationship with the federal governmentnow on Kaua’i, they will be hard-pressed to build the confidence of the people.” But Morita says that at present people in the state legislature and administration only pay lip service to doing anything about the environment.

As the chair of the energy and environment committee, Morita says programs concerning natural resources that haven’t been cut already are facing severe cut backs. She says she fights the battle to save these programs every day in the committee.

LACK OF WILL: “There is a lack of political will to make a commitment to the environment in this state,” she says. “Until we change that will, it doesn’t look good for natural resources,” she says.

Ann Leighton would agree. She adds that throwing money at a problem won’t necessarily help until there is also a change of attitude, especially in the state government.

Leighton says that politicians are still dazzled by the notion of getting more tourists to come to the islands. They still haven’t gotten the message that it is also important to manage the natural resources that these visitors are coming to see, she says.

“If you do what you always did, you’ll get what you always got,” she says.

County Council Chair Ron Kouchi says he is interested in exploring the idea of a national park “if it results in getting better facilities for our residents and visitors.” There is no question, however, that there is great concern about the natural resources on island — and not just the Na Pali. Kouchi says this subject is often brought up in the meetings he attends.

Kanna says that the state will eventually turn around, if people are willing to wait.

Wayne Souza says it is the work of volunteers that is keeping his agency going.

“We are only surviving by volunteer help,” says Souza. “There’s no way we could make it without them.”