Ka`u News Briefs Feb. 25, 2011

Join Ka`u residents for a whale count tomorrow, Saturday, Feb. 26 and again, Saturday, March 26.

THE U.S. CENSUS BUREAU has released numbers on the Big Island showing 185,079 people with 82,324 housing units. Most people are Asian, Native Hawaiian or Latino, while about one third are white. There are a many vacant housing units on the island, reflecting second homes of snowbirds and people working away from here. Vacant houses total 15,228.
     Because the Big Island’s population has grown more than the rest of the state, some political district lines may be changed, and there is a possibility that this island may get an additional state House of Representatives district. The reapportionment commission will come up with proposals.

     The Big Island’s population growth during the last decade was 24.5 percent, more than in Maui County's, which grew 21 percent, and more than Kaua`i County's, which grew 15 percent. O`ahu’s population grew 9 percent, reaching more than 950,000 residents. Ten years ago O`ahu was home to 72.3 percent of the state's popoulation. With slower growth than the Neighbor Islands, O`ahu's population dipped to 70.1 percent of the state total.
     Earlier U.S. Census taking showed that Hawai`i County lost 10.3 percent of its population between 1950 and 1960 during the days when sugar was the big employer, gained 3.5 percent between 1960 and 1970, 45 percent between 1970 and 1980, 30.7 percent between 1980 and 1990, 23.6 percent between 1990 and 2000.

LETTERS OF SUPPORT FOR A RESORT development between South Point and Ocean View, along the Ka`u Coast, have been received by the developers of Nani Kahuku `Aina, also known as Kahuku Villages, according to spokesman Aaron Eberhardt. He said the developers will soon be submitting an Environmental Impact Statement for the 16,000-acre property. He said that support letters have been received from residents in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, Ranchos, Ocean View and Miloli`i after a lot of interaction with the people. He said the developers are “taking into consideration how they want the land to be treated.” The plans include a 300-acre Heritage Village around Pohu`e Bay, a nesting place for hawksbill turtles.
     The owners of the property will need state Land Use Commission classification changes for conservation and agricultural lands plus county zoning changes to implement their plan. They are holding a public meeting next Wednesday, March 2 at Na`alehu Community Center at 6 p.m.

Johnette Llanes-Masters
is a contestant for
Miss Peaberry 2011.

CANDIDATES FOR Miss Ka`u Coffee, Miss Peaberry and Young Miss Ka`u Coffee have started to practice for the pageant coming up on April 23rd at Ka`u High School Gym. Miss Ka`u Coffee contenders are Jaeneise Cuison, Brandy Nicole Eder, Kayla Nishimura, Brandy Shibuya, Diane Pataray and Alina Jerilong. Miss Peaberry contestants are Taylor Kekoa Burgos, Bernadette Ladia, Jayme Kaneshiro, Tatiana Ka`awa, Cherrisse Althea Calumpit, Johnette Llanes-Masters and Rebecca Lynn Kailiawa-Escobar. Young Miss Ka`u Coffee contestants are Aiyana Galletes-Alapai, Dacy Davis Andrade, Dayse Andrade, Malia Nicole Corpuz, Shailei Marie Penera and Alyssa Bivings. 

     They are selling $12 tickets, advertising for the pageant program and an opportunity to donate $5 to the pageant and become a Friend of Miss Ka`u Coffee.

A WHALE COUNT will be held along the coast of Ka`u tomorrow, Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. See sanctuaryoceancount.org or call 888-559-4253, ext. 253. Another whale count will be held on Saturday, March 26.

THE RED HATS, KALAE QUILTERS AND THE KA`U GOLF GROUP are making their final push for this year’s fundraising for Ka`u Hospital’s Emergency Room. They have brought in more than $4,000 so far this year, with baked goods and crafts at the hospital and Punalu`u beach park. Their fourth annual golf tournament will be held at Volcano Golf Club on Friday, March 18. Last year’s tourney brought in over $9,000. A spaghetti dinner fundraiser to support the ER will be held tomorrow night from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center.

Ka`u News Briefs Feb. 24, 2011

Plans for land surrounding Pohue Bay will be explained at a meeting sponsored by the developers.

ELEMENTS OF A COMMUNITY BENEFITS PACKAGE are being promised to community groups in Ka`u at small meetings throughout the district. Aaron Eberhardt, spokesman for the Kahuku Villages, Nani Kahuku `Aina project, has suggested the restoration of Na‘alehu Theatre, building a veterans center, a civic center, a heritage park around Pohue Bay and a rodeo grounds along Hwy 11 near Ocean View. The development group, led by Val Peroff and his daughter, are seeking to build an oceanfront resort with 400 to 600 hotel rooms, 35 to 50 oceanfront condominiums, 250 to 300 golf villas, 75 to 80 one-acre oceanfront, single-family estate lots, 145 to 160 golf estates and another 160 to 200 estates of one acre or larger. There would be a golf course and commercial centers. The development site is between South Point and Ocean View on the 16,000 aces owned by the Peroffs.
     The developers are hosting a communitywide meeting to discuss their plans at Na`alehu Community Center next Wednesday, March 2 at 6 p.m. Everyone is invited to attend.

THE STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE has approved the use of a fungus on coffee trees to fend off infestation by the coffee borer. The fungus, which is already approved in all states on the mainland, is expected to become available within a week at Crop Production Services and BEI in Hilo and will cost between $70 and $130 a quart. The fungus, called Beauveria Bassiana, is naturally occurring in the soils in Hawai`i but may have died back during the recent drought allowing the coffee borers, which are killed by the fungus, to infest coffee farms in Kona. Some of the farms were devastated. Ka`u coffee farms were largely spared of coffee borer infestation, but having the fungus available to fight the borer is seen as a way to protect the precious new Ka`u Coffee industry. 

     The fungus is sold under brand names called BotaniGard ES and Mycotrol O.

HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC INDUSTRIES, which owns Hawaiian Electric Light Co. here on the Big Island, is facing a strike that has been approved by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1260. The union and management met yesterday but with no result. Electric workers are waiting for instructions from the union. The call to strike follows a vote last week in which union members voted against a proposed contract. 

STATE BOARD OF LAND & NATURAL RESOURCES chair William Aila, Jr. is expected to be confirmed in his new position sometime next week. The Senate delayed the confirmation yesterday in reference to examining Aila’s testimony against laws that would ban tropical fish collecting. He held a commercial aquarium fish permit, and his wife has held a commercial fishing license. In respect to remaining fair in his new position, he said, they have both given up their licenses, which have been idle for several years. Sen. Clayton Hee predicted that the former harbormaster on O`ahu will be confirmed when the Senate goes back into session next Thursday, according to a report in the Honolulu Star Advertiser.

TUTU & ME IS COMING TO PAHALA. Registration is now open for enrollment in the traveling preschool’s new program that begins in March at Pahala Community Center. The program, open to grandparents and caregivers of children up to five years old, aims to help children improve on measures of school readiness and literacy and promotes appropriate learning activities and successful caregiving practices at home.
     For more information and to register, call 929-8571.

THE KOHALA CENTER IS OFFERING a Residential Energy Efficiency workshop today from 10 a.m. to noon at Na`alehu Community Center. Workshop participants learn how to understand their HELCO bill, how to use their electric meter to track down energy waste, how to determine the amount of electricity their electrical appliances and devices use, and how to make smart financial decisions to reduce their home energy usage.

Ka`u News Briefs Feb. 23, 2011

Guy Enriques

GUY ENRIQUES is calling for more community input and negotiations with ‘Aina Koa Pono, the company planning a refinery above Pahala and a 13,000-acre energy farm between Pahala and Na`alehu. The former county councilman and founder of the community group `O Ka`u Kakou is calling for a Memorandum of Agreement between the biofuels company and the community and said more local people should be involved. “For a big change as this is, the people of Pahala should be over here making a decision. My first concern is for people who have deep roots in this place that’s going to be here when you do this, that’s going to be here after you’re done and for whatever is coming,” he told representatives of `Aina Koa Pono at the community meeting on Monday. “Too many times I’ve seen other people make decisions for the people who live here. Those guys come and go, but the guys who's got roots deep in this ground are not going to go anywhere. Those are the people who are not being heard,” said Enriques. He also stated that he appreciates the jobs that would be brought to the community.

HAWAIIAN ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. wrote about its agreement to purchase biofuels from ‘Aina Koa Pono in its February newsletter to all its customers. It said the effort “is an important step in reaching Hawai`i’s clean energy goal of supplying 70 percent of the energy needed for electricity and transportation from clean resources by 2030. Under the contract, `Aina Koa Pono would provide 14 million gallons of biofuel per year in 2014, increasing to 16 million gallons per year in 2015, for a total of 20 years.
     While the biofuel would be used primarily at the Keahole Power Plant near the airport in Kona, the contract provides for flexibility in delivery of the biofuel to other generation stations on the Big Island, Maui County and on O`ahu.
     To fund the purchase of the biofuel, electric bills would go up less than one third of a cent per kilowatt-hour to a typical residential customer’s bill. “Because fossil fuel oil prices are expected to continue their erratic climb, in time the cost of ‘Aina Koa Ono biofuel is expected to be less than the oil it displaces,” the newsletter states.
     According to HELCO, the biofuel will comply with sustainable sourcing standards developed by the Hawaiian Electric companies in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Puna Geothermal is a site visit for the governor's cabinet
and state legislators this weekend.

A TOUR OF BIG ISLAND BUSINESSES AND COMMUNITY PROJECTS is on the agenda for public officials this weekend. Sen. Gil Kahele, Department of Agriculture Chair Russell Kokubun and Department of Land & Natural Resources Deputy Chair Guy Kaulukukui are expected to join other members of the governor’s cabinet and legislators on the two-day tour. They plan to visit Puna Geothermal Venture’s power plant to hear a presentation by the Hawai`i Island Geothermal Working Group’s chairs Wally Ishibashi and Richard Ha. They will also visit Ha’s Hamakua Springs Farm, north of Hilo, Greenpoint Nursery and the proposed Hu Honua bioenergy power plant in Pepeekeo. They also plan to visit the Kamuela Vacuum Cooling plant to discuss its role in the future of diversified agriculture and will head up Mauna Kea to look at the site for the proposed Thirty-Meter Telescope. 

Artist's rendering of the proposed
Thirty-Meter Telescope
for Mauna Kea.

THE THIRTY-METER TELESCOPE is on the agenda this Friday for the meeting of the state Board of Land & Natural Resources, which decides whether to approve a conservation use permit to allow the construction of the $1 billion, 184-foot-tall telescope, with its 18,000 square-foot support building. The BLNR will also decide whether to allow a contested case hearing on the issue, which has been called for by some environmental and Hawaiian cultural groups. Mayor Billy Kenoi, the University of Hawai`i, and numerous scientific and business organizations are calling for approval, stating that the project will generate 300 construction jobs for eight years and 140 permanent jobs. The observatory would also put $1 million a year into local education programs as part of its community benefits package. 

HOW IMPACT FEES AFFECT ME is the title of County Council member Brittany Smart’s talk story session tonight at Na`alehu Community Center at 7 p.m. Smart and council member Pete Hoffmann will talk about an alternative to the current Fair Share money contributions imposed on developers during zoning changes and subdivision approvals.

THE COMMUNITY BOOKSTORE at the Kauaha`ao Church in Wai`ohinu is open today and every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.