• Clear as mud • Colony Collapse Disorder concern • Put highway before cars • Special treasure • Car talk • Guarantees no EIS Clear as mud Let’s see if I have this straight: • Representatives of Wal-Mart say that
• Clear as mud
• Colony Collapse Disorder concern
• Put highway before cars
• Special treasure
• Car talk
• Guarantees no EIS
Clear as mud
Let’s see if I have this straight:
• Representatives of Wal-Mart say that the retail giant does not want amendments to the already-approved 1992-93 Kaua‘i County Lihu‘e Master Plan that includes a 185,504-square-foot discount store, a Supercenter.
• Staff members of the Kaua‘i County Planning Department say that they do not want amendments to the Master Plan that provides for the 185,504-square-foot discount store. In fact, they felt so strongly that they recommended that the County Planning Commission deny amendments to the Master Plan.
• In a 6-0 vote on Tuesday, the commission agreed with Planning Department staff and denied amendments to the Master Plan.
So all three entities are on the same page, right? They all advocate no amendments to the Master Plan, which includes provisions for a 185,504-square-foot discount store, a Supercenter, right?
Not quite. According to members of the Planning Department staff, implementation of Phase 1 of the approved Master Plan, the discount store, would require amendments to the Master Plan.
Thank goodness they cleared the air on that issue.
Jack Stephens
Lihu‘e
Colony Collapse Disorder concern
Many people are very concerned with pollination and the deaths of honey bees (and the loss of pollinators of many of our food crops). Unfortunately, local beekeepers seem to keep assuming the wrong cause (mites) and are overreacting about mites. Parasitic bee mites (there are two types, the Varroa mite and the Trachael mite) have been attacking honeybees for decades on the Mainland and beekeepers there manage the mite populations with miticides (such as apistan). Prudent beekeepers do not lose colonies to mites. However, there have been massive bee die offs across the Mainland for a little over a year now in what has been termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The probable cause is the previously little-known Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus. This poses a huge threat to honey bees and pollination of crops as beekeepers and scientists have yet to come up with a “cure” for this devastating disease. Mites have recently been found in Hawai‘i’s honeybees and they are manageable, but thus far our honeybees are free of the more destructive CCD. Hopefully our isolation will buy time for a cure or management tool to be found for CCD just as has happened with the parasitic bee mites.
Chris Webster
Kalaheo
Put highway before cars
It is interesting that two days after Gov. Linda Lingle announces a meager $200,000 allocation for the Kuhio Highway improvement, and a completion date sometime in the distant future, we are told of her mandate to hurry up the funding and the whole process of the EIS for the Superferry. Maybe our governor should try putting the horse in front of the cart. The EIS needs to be slowly and carefully done.
Dane Kirkpatrick
Princeville
Special treasure
Sorry you weren’t invited to the Superferry Security meeting on Sept. 3. I would like to ask Mayor Bryan Baptiste why the Honorable Sen. Gary Hooser, the Honorable Rep. Mina Morita and the Honorable Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura were not invited. Perhaps it was an oversight. I shall be calling their offices.
I would also like to ask the people who are OK with the Superferry coming why they aren’t wishing for the Environmental Assessment process. Do we need the constant refrain that the three county councils rightly asked for it. These are our elected officials. There is possibly just too much at stake for our fragile ecosystem, that is further away from anything in the world, to not be cautious. Please, Kaua‘i needs to be recognized as the very special treasure she is.
Nothing like our state is replicated on our planet.
Ua mau ke ea o ka’aina i ka pono … The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness. Our state motto.
If the United States Navy wants another ship they should just buy it. It is not necessarily in the outer islands best interest to have cars going back and forth on such a regular basis. That is a lot of tire tread at the least to catch seeds and almost always to be moving soil from island to island. In the tropics it could be unwise to be transferring soil microbes.
Families who would like to visit with their relatives, have my full support. Perhaps with the lower air fares, as in the $9 special recently and the $19 fare it might be a plausible and more inexpensive way to go. Perhaps the administration could call upon or inspire the car rental companies to have very good van rates for kama‘aina as they seem to make a good living in our state. This would be a positive way for them to give back to the community. It would also save the outer islands and O‘ahu from the transfer of invasive species.
Just an idea.
I truly thank everyone for their letters to the editor. The breakout of purported violence always saddens me; however, I know it was provoked. What would you do if a motorist threatened to run into sitting and people lying down? And why was an elder of the community maced without the driver of the car being dealt with? There are so many questions.
One last thing — if the courts insist that the environmental assessment is lawful and in the interests of the people and the ‘aina then I surely hope the study and process will reflect the highest standards. Everyone is watching.
Together we can build a model that would be truly sustainable and inspire an aloha world.
Michaela Boudreaux
Kalaheo
Car talk
I am so sick of people complaining about people coming from O‘ahu on the Superferry, bringing their cars, and causing more traffic. Stop and think for a second … if they flew in, they would be renting a car. The only difference is that they are driving a car they own. Big deal.
People of O‘ahu: E komo mai.
Kaman O’Reede
Lihu‘e
Guarantees no EIS
The Superferry can’t/won’t do an EIS because there is a federal loan guarantee for the $190 million used to build the two ships. That guarantee is contingent on there not being an EIS required on the project. That’s why the Superferry is fighting — the investor’s money is in jeopardy.
Steve Benjamin
Koloa
