LIHU’E —The project to connect every state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands parcel in Hawai’i via telephone and telecommunication lines will do much more than just wire those communities. It will also help to put more qualified Native Hawaiians on
LIHU’E —The project to connect every state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands parcel in Hawai’i via telephone and telecommunication lines will do much more than just wire those communities.
It will also help to put more qualified Native Hawaiians on DHHL lands, and allow DHHL officials to focus more on supplying DHHL parcels with electricity and water, said a spokesman for the company contracted to lay the wires.
At Kekaha, Hanapepe, Wailua and Anahola, where DHHL owns land on Kaua’i, the wiring being done by Sandwich Isles Communications will provide some of the infrastructure necessary to allow the department to put more DHHL beneficiaries on the land, said Gil Tam, vice president of administration and community affairs for SIC.
Speaking before around 40 people at a recent meeting of the Lihu’e Business Association at Fenton Lee’s Hawaiian Classic Desserts restaurant on Rice Street here, Tam was joined by Dee Crowell, former county planning director now Kaua’i regional manager for SIC.
Tam said any developer has three critical pieces of infrastructure necessary for residential development: electricity, water and telephone. With SIC contracted to supply telephone and telecommunications services to every DHHL parcel in the state, DHHL officials can concentrate on supplying electricity and water to parcels, he explained.
On Maui, even the absence to water and electricity didn’t deter some DHHL beneficiaries, who are building their homes in a remote area with just the telephone hookups supplied by SIC. Water is trucked in, and generators supply electricity, Tam explained.
Back on Kaua’i, phase two of the wiring of DHHL parcels is continuing, with the Hanama’ulu-to-Kekaha work expected to begin next month, to take eight to 10 months to complete, said Crowell.
Night work, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., on the portion of the project between Hanama’ulu and Kalaheo, should minimize daytime traffic disruptions, Crowell said.
In planning phases are projects to connect DHHL parcels on other islands via undersea cables. Where earlier it was reported that Anahola would be a port for the undersea cables, now Kekaha is seen as a potential launching point for the undersea cable.
An environmental assessment has begun for the Kekaha plan, said Crowell.
Statewide, there are 69 DHHL communities, to eventually be connected with 1,500 miles of cable in the $500 million project.
Loans from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service, and money from private investments, are funding the work. That means neither DHHL nor beneficiaries are paying for the cost of getting telephone service to their lots, Tam said.
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
