• Be aware of DOW plans • Consider the facts • On Kimo and tongue-and-cheek Be aware of DOW plans Nearly $100 million of taxpayer money is slated for the Department of Water plans: First is the Kahili Horizontal Directionally
• Be aware of DOW plans • Consider the facts • On Kimo and tongue-and-cheek
Be aware of DOW plans
Nearly $100 million of taxpayer money is slated for the Department of Water plans: First is the Kahili Horizontal Directionally Drilled Well Environmental Impact Statement. Its name change: Kahili Well energy saving project EIS. Secondly: the DOW’s $8 million plus, lavish new building.
At 2 p.m. Tuesday, a special board meeting (the Board of Water Supply) will be held to discuss the $60 million plus EIS for drilling into sacred Waialeale watershed. Taxpayers usually are diligently working at that time; as well traffic is bumper-to-bumper. Clearly, taxpayer money continues to be plundered as taxpayers struggle to make ends meet. Then crawl home in traffic, burning high-priced gasoline; stressed out!
Plans of sacrilegious devastation and defilement of the revered headwaters/watersheds of Waialeale must stop.
Taxpayer monies can be spared. Rational and practical solutions: Development of Policies on Water Conservation, which do not exist in the DOW 2013, Kauai is behind the times!
Numerous large corporate landholdings have irrigation spraying water which is wasted along the highway, streams of water run along the highway and parking lots. Reservoirs (Kauai Ranch, Grove Farm and etc.) stockpile and re-route water.
The DOW in conjunction with the state Department of Health can establish a state-level Greywater Administrative Rule. Greywater alternative would not only reduce total potable water consumption, but also recharge the aquifer and increase the efficiency of wastewater treatment, according to Heacock.”
Climate Change is recognized worldwide. The Garden Island, (8/12/2013) published an article that quoted Stephen Gingerich, a research hydrologist at USGS. “The long-term average at Waialeale has been dropping every year since 1990, “Since 1990, only three years have been above average.”
Cease and desist the EIS process; implement water conservation best practices – saving precious resources and millions of dollars.
Bonnie Bator
Anahola
Consider the facts
In order to get the facts concerning Bill 2491, I did a little research on the Internet and found out some interesting facts. The two most named herbicides by those in favor of the bill are atrazine and glyphosate. Forbes Magazine ran an article on atrazine on Aug. 19, 2013 that is very comprehensive. It says that most of the attacks on atrazine are the work of Tyrone Hayes, a herpetologist at UC Berkeley. His research has been completely debunked by other scientists.
After an extensive review of the latest scientific studies, the World Health Organization moved in 2011 to raise the allowable levels of atrazine in drinking water by 50fold.
The emerging scientific consensus is that restrictions placed years ago on atrazine in response to anti-chemical campaigns were too stringent rather than not tight enough. The writer ends the article by noting that Hayes has led the international regulatory community on a wild goose chase for more than a decade, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. In a world where public research funds are limited and dwindling, that borders on criminal.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in RoundUp, which is available at Home Depot, Walmart and many other outlets on this island. Wikipedia reports that the EPA considers glyphosate to be noncarcinogenic and relatively low in dermal and oral acute toxicity. The EPA considered a “worst case” dietary risk model of an individual eating a lifetime of food derived entirely from glyphosate sprayed fields with residues at their maximum levels. This model indicated that no adverse health effects would be expected under such conditions.
I recently shared some of this information with Councilman Hooser.
Bill 2491 affects only five large companies on Kauai, but does not have any effect on how small farmers or gardeners use these chemicals. I submit that the seed companies and Kauai Coffee have highly trained employees who use these chemicals properly. This bill does not regulate misuse by those users who are not properly trained. Large companies are very commited to employee safety. Workman’s compensation claims are very expensive and OSHA has severe penalties for safety violations.
I would highly encourage everyone to consider the unintended consequences of passing this bill. If those affected companies decide to abandon Kauai, who will replace them? For those who believe that others will step right in, take a look around at all the former sugar land laying fallow.
George Corrigan
Princeville
On Kimo and tongue-and-cheek
I read with some interest Ms. Jane Taylor’s Sept. 9 opinion letter “On Kimo and Kapaa.” Kimo Rosen would have one more of his signature letters published by TGI, and on Sept. 4, in which a story by Forbes Magazine highlights Kapaa Town as one of the prettiest towns in the U.S. Kimo Rosen’s letter is titled, “Kapaa, Da Prettiest Town.”
Kimo took this headline of Forbe Magazine’s, and put his signature “Rodney Dangerfield” writing style to his LTE — coming to one of Kimo’s usual tongue-and-cheek letters that “Kapaa Town is ‘unique and different.’”
But pretty?” Kimo Rosen concludes — that “as the saying goes, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and maybe Kapaa Town should have won Miss Congeniality, instead of Prettiest.” This is where the audience hears the drum roll.
Not to worry, Ms. Taylor, please take Kimo Rosen’s letter to Kapaa as one meant in humor. I know that Kapaa is close to Kimo’s heart. And, let’s face it, Kimo dressing his pup, Obama Girl, in a pale yellow dress for the photo shot in a story for dakinetalk, makes it perfectly clear that this was no story to be taken seriously. Every female — pup or human — knows that yellow female fashion attire is put away once summer arrives, and certainly never worn in September — no matter the longitude or latitude or story.
Deborah Morel
Brisbane, Australia
