HANAMA‘ULU — Armed with cameras and pads and pens, members of the Sierra Club, Hawai‘i Chapter, plan on responding to environmental emergencies, such as situations where polluted runoff and illegal dumping occur. A call to one statewide number, 1-808-537-9019, will
HANAMA‘ULU — Armed with cameras and pads and pens, members of the Sierra Club, Hawai‘i Chapter, plan on responding to environmental emergencies, such as situations where polluted runoff and illegal dumping occur.
A call to one statewide number, 1-808-537-9019, will dispatch a team of trained volunteers to a site where the environment is being damaged.
And those volunteers, about 15 of them, began training last Sunday in Kaua‘i Sierra Club President Judy Dalton’s Eastside condominium.
Laura Hokunani Edmunds, the Blue Water campaign coordinator, trained the community members, some of whom have been county employees and were more knowledgeable in certain environmental areas than she was, in how to respond to community complaints.
The program is expected to be up and running within the next week.
She also took them to a construction site, in Hanama‘ulu at the Kalepa Village county and federal low-income apartment construction site, where members saw what Edmunds described as “maintenance violations.”
Silt fences and dust fences were not keeping the mud on-site, and a stream of red dirt lead to the storm drain. Members said that they would be documenting the violations and sending them into the proper authorities, with Edmunds’ help.
“You’ll be able to get there Friday night or over the weekend when (state Department of) Health inspectors are off,” Edmunds said to perspective campaigners. “The purpose is to put pressure on people violating air and water standards.”
The volunteers, organized into two groups, are looking for “common-sense things,” Edmunds said.
For example, with excessive run-off situations, they should check to see if the containment measures, such as silt fences and caps for storm drains, are working, she said.
Seeing an extensive amount of dirt is running into the ocean would be another solid clue something is amiss, she continued.
“If you see something that you think may be a violation, it won’t hurt to document it,” she added.
Edmunds went over the different ways that operators of construction sites or dumping grounds can violate county, state, and federal environmental laws, and the specific people to call at the state Department of Health, county Department of Public Works, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
She hopes that the teams will alleviate some of the work, rather that create more of it, for the agencies.
Each group will document each situation with video and photos, and fill out a form to fax to the agency that oversees the area of the specific violation, she said.
“A lot of times, the DOH means well, but they are under-staffed,” said Edmunds.
While the Blue Water group “should be able to get to a complaint that day, sometimes by the time a government investigator reaches the site, “the evidence has washed away.”
The training served to teach volunteers how to document evidence of clean-water-law violations without missing things that may go overlooked, she said. Edmunds also explained a code of conduct the volunteers must follow.
“They are just regular common citizens,” she said, so they cannot violate any laws, especially trespassing.
One of the other goals of the program is to increase public awareness of violations.
“We want to educate the public by reaching out to groups who use the areas,” said Edmunds, and help them to report environmental problems.
For example, the team will help give fishermen and canoe-club members a place to turn if they notice an environmentally damaging situation while doing their regular activities.
Edmunds related a story where, a few months ago, a woman was about to surf Velzyland, a surf spot on the Northshore of O‘ahu, when she noticed the water was brown from sediment from a fast-moving stream.
The woman grabbed her camera, walked up the stream bed, and noticed a development without proper containment measures in place, said Edmunds.
She was invited on the land by workers, and documented the run-off.
The woman was a member of the response team on O‘ahu, and knew what to do, said Edmunds. She called the state Department of Health, and DOH officials visited the site.
The developer diverted blame, saying that the run-off was on account of the heavy rain, and the run-off occurred uphill from the property. The situation is still in litigation, she said.
But, Edmunds said, developers must contain all of their soil, even if more undeveloped areas are eroding.
The point is to empower the community to report environmental violations, and, now, they will get an immediate response, she said.
“If they see something happening, we know where to go,” she added.
Teams are already running on Maui and O‘ahu, and Edmunds will be training teams on the other islands within the next month, she said.
The Kaua‘i teams, although still in need of volunteers, will be taking calls within two weeks.
Staff Writer Tom Finnegan may be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 252) or mailto:tfinnegan@pulitzer.net.
