“I am not a Pflueger.” That’s the message from Ed Ben-Dor, owner of a five-acre parcel near the Hanalei River. Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday charged that Ben-Dor modified parts of an official wetland without proper approval,
“I am not a Pflueger.”
That’s the message from Ed Ben-Dor, owner of a five-acre parcel near the Hanalei River.
Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday charged that Ben-Dor modified parts of an official wetland without proper approval, and ordered him to restore a half-acre parcel.
But Ben-Dor said that he has done nothing wrong, and that the charges — which were written as a press release yesterday and sent to every news organization in the state — are the result of the EPA’s desire to find another “Pflueger,” as he called it.
“They called me a ‘Pflueger,'” he said. “It’s now an adjective.”
Ben-Dor is referring to the case of retired auto dealer Jimmy Pflueger, who pleaded no contest March 22 in Kaua‘i Circuit Court to 14 violations of the state’s water-pollution laws and now faces up to three years in prison.
Ben-Dor says his situation falls far short of the Pflueger case.
Specifically, the EPA charges that, between 2002 and 2003, Ben-Dor had contractors modify a pond and ditch on his property, which caused the discharge of dredged materials into the Hanalei River.
Most of the area in and around the Hanalei River Valley is officially a wetland.
Also, the EPA officials charged that Ben-Dor buried portions of the remaining wetlands with dredged soils and plants and imported materials.
Ultimately, EPA officials are charging that Ben-Dor violated the federal Clean Water Act. Now they want him to restore the area.
Any dredge and fill work, creation or realignment of any ditch or stream in a wetland area or open water requires a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to EPA officials.
Ben-Dor admitted that he did not know he needed approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to fulfill the Clean Water Act.
But that’s his only mistake, he said.
Ben-Dor said that he widened by 10 feet the mouth of a ditch connecting a pond on his property to the Hanalei River. He said that he took that soil, along with a small amount of compost made from hau brush he cleared from the land, and spread it nearby, lifting the edge of the pond by about six inches.
“It’s beautiful now,” he said. “There’s a nice lawn there now, and more wetland than before, as well as less soil lost from erosion.”
Ben-Dor said he’s spent nearly $10,000 over the last year and a half conducting independent environmental impact studies, and that a local engineering firm reported to him that the modifications to the property were fine.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he said.
But the EPA said those modifications could harm the wetland ecosystem.
The order requires Ben-Dor not to discharge any additional dredged or fill material into wetlands and other waters without a permit and — to Ben-Dor’s consternation — to restore the wetland area in the flood plain of the Hanalei River below Princeville.
Ben-Dor said that EPA officials have told him not to return the soil or hau brush he removed. In other words, he said, “I don’t know what they want me to do.
“If anyone out there knows someone who can tell me how to do this, give me a call,” he said.
Restoration work will include replanting the wetland with native plant species to be recommended by officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The order requires Ben-Dor to choose a contractor for the EPA’s approval by July 6.
Ben-Dor said that he had made plans to travel to New York today, and that he wouldn’t return until July 3.
“I’m leaving this in the hands of my attorney,” he said.
The EPA officials said Ben-Dor has 45 days to submit a removal and restoration plan that restores the area into a “functional wetland habitat, with a maintenance program to preserve the wetland.”
EPA spokesperson Dean Higuchi said that the Pflueger case has heightened public awareness to modification activities, particularly those where permits are in question.
“I’ve noticed an increase in the reports of this kind of situation,” Higuchi said. “In fact, I just got a call from Kaua‘i about someone dumping rocks into a water source, then filling it with concrete.”
Higuchi said that heightened awareness should motivate people to get all the necessary permits before making any modifications.
In the Pflueger case, a cut was made in a mountain of his Pila‘a property that resulted in a vertical face about 40 feet tall, according to state Deputy Attorney General Colleen Chun. Mud washed down a hill between Oct. 1 and Nov. 30, 2001, onto a neighboring property and into the ocean. Pflueger faces a maximum three years in prison and a $50,000 fine on each count when sentenced Sept. 9.
