• Hawaii doesn’t need more milk • Traffic congestion a major problem and no one is doing anything about it Hawaii doesn’t need more milk The reduction of quality of life to improve the quantity of goods and services has always been
• Hawaii doesn’t need more milk • Traffic congestion a major problem and no one is doing anything about it
Hawaii doesn’t need more milk
The reduction of quality of life to improve the quantity of goods and services has always been a delicate balance. The measure of “need and necessity” has been the main factor in decisions to go with or vote against an industrial development. Coal fired steel mills with belching stacks of certain pollution and dams on free running streams are but a few examples.
In the last 30 years, another example has raised its head destroying thousands of streams, waterways and ocean reefs, much of it permanently. Entire countries such as New Zealand have announced sweeping initiatives to stem this path of destruction.
This destructive force is poorly sited industrial dairies in close proximity of water. Now, Hawaii Dairy Farms has decided to bring its version to (at first) an unsuspecting Kauai. There is no need or necessity for another milk supply. Other than China, there is a glut of milk everywhere. The milk price in Hawaii is the result of powerful agriculture lobbies who have set “can’t lose” price supports on what a farmer must receive for his product and efforts.
While others in Kauai have strained to earn every dollar, two ag side locals farmer/ranchers have been paid total of $1 million of subsidy payments in the last 20 years.
Hawaii Dairy Farms received a $3.1 million tax write off for the year 2014 alone. Last year, in an incredible twist on this subsidy concept, Mr. Whitesides of Big Island Dairy had to ask for an 18 cent per gallon decrease in the wholesale milk price Hawaii had set, so he could sell his milk at a price competitive with that delivered to Hawaii from stateside wholesale milk sources
There is no need or necessity. There must be an accountability to mankind by those who see private enterprise as reduced to one variable — profit. In this case, private greed chooses to ignore the priceless natural, beauty that Kauai offers.
When one speaks in terms of the totality of wealth, lasting well being must be included, not just for the purveyor but to all.
Ronald John, Salt Lake City, UT
Traffic congestion a major problem and no one is doing anything about it
Why, why, why isn’t something being done to ease the traffic congestion that occurs every morning between the hours of 11 a.m. thru to three p.m. on week days.
If the contraflow traffic could be extended on Saturdays until 1:30 p.m. why can’t this be done six days in the week? Instead of two trucks laying and picking up the pylons, this could be reduced to one truck, placing the pylons further apart and saving cost and labor.
It took me 80 minutes from Kapaa to reach Lihue. It is so frustrating; more so because no one wants to do anything about it.
Is the aloha spirit dead to the traffic department in Kauai?
Syd Jacobs, Kapaa
