Ka`u News Briefs June 23, 2012

Ka`u Coffee farmer Godofredo Miranda surveys trees with burnt leaves and green beans as Ka`u Coffee Growers
Cooperative president Gloria Camba assesses damage. Photo by William Neal

WAS THE PAHALA FIRE started by someone last Monday? This is a major question by fire investigators, landowners, farmers and ranchers, as trees still smolder, the fire still travels makai of the village and residents hope that winds stay calm and avoid another flare-up. Some residents talked about putting together funding for Crimestoppers to give a reward for turning in evidence. Others talk about keeping gulches clean near agriculture and residential areas.

Gloria Camba examines healthy green coffee beans among
singed leaves. Photo by William Neal

      Coffee farmers are looking for help to repair their farms, and ML Macadamia, LLC is looking at heavy losses with as much as total loss on some 150 acres of trees makai of Hwy 11, plus huge costs in rebuilding irrigation systems after pipes and tubing melted in the flames.

      Gloria Camba, Ka`u Coffee farmer and president of Ka`u Coffee Growers Cooperative, traveled to the farm of Godofredo Miranda yesterday and saw green coffee beans in the midst of brown and blackened, singed leaves. She said she was told that as long as the branches of the trees are more yellow than brown, “they should make it.” Farmers were offered help from Rep. Bob Herkes, the county and Ka`u Coffee Mill founder Edmund C. Olson.

Norfolk pine windbreaks for coffee farms were singed by
the fire. Photo by William Neal

      Conservationists are planning to visit the coastal area makai of the fires early next week to assess possible damage to the Kamehame Preserve.
      Hawai`i County Fire Department reports that the mauka fire is 95 percent contained and under control, while the makai fires are 60 percent contained. Pahala Fire Captain Shawn Hayashida told Hawai`i Tribune-Herald that it was expected to burn itself out. He said it would be unlikely that the fire would be more than 60 percent contained because of the difficulty in reaching some areas to create a fire break.

Trees still smoldered Friday at Pear Tree.
Photo by William Neal

DANIEL ORODENKER has been named executive officer of the state’s Land Use Commission, which is responsible for preserving and protecting Hawai`i’s lands and encouraging those uses to which lands are best suited. Orodenker represents the state’s interests and concerns in decisions about land use. He has a law background, has held a variety of government positions and has experience in nonprofits and environmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy. Orodenker said his first focus will be “to improve communications on all issues, and to ensure that all viewpoints are fairly represented to the Commission.”

Ua Alencastre-Galimba with her Grand Champion 4-H steer.

UA ALENCASTRE-GALIMBA, OF KUAHIWI RANCH, won top honors with her Grand Champion 4-H steer at last Saturday’s Hawai`i County Livestock Show at Mealani Research Station in Waimea. About a dozen 4-H members from Ka`u participated, including Kaile Aickin, McKella Akana, Grant Galimba, Gavin Galimba, Brandi Hashimoto, Donald Mello-Waiwai`ole, Kaleo Mello-Waiwai`ole, Keani Mello-Waiwai`ole, Leah Mello-Waiwai`ole and Shavon Mello-Waiwai`ole. Club Leader is Guy Galimba.

      4-H strives to help young people “make the best better” through programs that emphasize learning by doing. Approximately 35,000 young people participate in its varied programs annually throughout the state of Hawai`i. To learn more, visit ctahr.hawaii.edu/4H.

A FEMALE NENE GOOSE died Tuesday evening after being struck by a vehicle on Chain of Craters Road near Pauahi Crater in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. Her mate of 13 years escaped unharmed, but remains in the area. The female, known as Green DU, was hatched in captivity in the park in December 1991 and released in March 1992. She was a consistent breeder who successfully raised 24 goslings. Green DU was what wildlife biologists call a rare “double-clutch” breeder who once reared two goslings to fledglings and then re-nested and raised an additional four goslings in a single breeding season.

Motorists are cautioned to watch out for nene. A male lost his mate when
she was hit by a car Tuesday. Photo from Jessica Ferracane/NPS

      “It is a shame that a nene with such a long and productive life had to die so tragically,” said Dr. Rhonda Loh, the park’s chief of resource management.
      Nene are quite active in the late evening and early morning, and their grayish coloring makes them difficult to see during those hours. Park officials urge motorists to slow down and watch out for the endemic and federally endangered nene while driving and also caution visitors not to feed geese because birds seeking handouts fall prey to oncoming vehicles.

BIG ISLAND BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION invites raw honey producers to participate in the third annual Hawaiian Natural Honey Challenge to be held in November. The Challenge showcases the quality of unprocessed, unfiltered honey produced by local beekeepers statewide and consists of a formal judging and a public tasting. Top scorers by category in the formal judging receive awards, and in the public tasting people vote for their favorite, which wins the People’s Choice award. The complete Challenge invitation is posted at http://bibahawaiibees.org. For more information, contact Pattie Rechtman at 990-4943 or pattier@aol.com.

MARLENE HAPAI, candidate for state House District 3, visits Pahala tomorrow at Holy Rosary Catholic Church from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. The public is invited to hear her speak and share their concerns for the area. Refreshments will be served.

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Ka`u News Briefs June 22, 2012

Green sea turtle basks on the shore of Kamehame near what appears to be an old hawksbill nest. Conservationists
worry  about smoke and ash from the fires between Pahala and The Nature Conservancy coastal preserve.
Photo by Will Olsen, Hawai`i Island Hawksbill Sea Turtle Recovery Project 2011.

KAMEHAME PRESERVE is a major concern of firefighters and conservationists still worried about fires that started Monday and are still meandering toward the coast through gulches below Pahala. Managers from the Hawksbill Sea Turtle Recovery Project and The Nature Conservancy, which owns the 26-acre property, plan to visit the site to assess smoke and ash conditions at the beach, where hawksbill turtles nest and green sea turtles and monk seals rest.

The Nature Conservancy's Kamehame Preserve Photo by Geneveve Fyvie

      Lauren Kurpita, coordinator of the Turtle Project, said this morning that turtles are nesting there. The fires, which started in ML Macadamia orchards, are considered 50 percent contained as they spread makai into the Ka`u Desert away from the village and farms. 

HOT SPOTS GOT MORE DOUSINGS yesterday as crews cleaned up from the mauka and makai fires around Pahala and owners made damage assessments to agriculture. With more than 5,200 acres burned since Monday, it will take weeks to examine all the macadamia, coffee and eucalyptus trees and months to determine which ones will recover and when they could become productive. Last night, Dayday Hopkins, of the county Department of Research & Development, promised full support in helping coffee and other farmers recover.
      The cost of the fire was not only to the future of agriculture. Fire fueled by wild brush in Pa`au`au Gulch moved mauka and jumped Hwy 11, engulfing Ka`u Hospital in smoke, shutting down its long-term care facility, clinic, emergency room, laboratories and pharmacy - some of them for days. The hospital moved its patients to Na`alehu and required extensive cleaning of ash, removal of smoke and purifying the air, which is ongoing. “The air quality is still not great,” said administrator Merilyn Harris. “The good news is that there was no damage to the facility.” Extra costs include overtime for staff and extra food.

Pa`au`au Gulch makai of Pahala cleared of brush by
wildfire. Photo from Hawai`i County Fire Department

      Other costs were to home and business owners and church groups who suffered smoke and ash in their buildings and to those who left Pahala and rented hotel rooms to get out of the smoke. Some volunteer firefighters took off work to help out. Some employees of area businesses and public agencies were sent home during the fire.
      The volunteer and county Fire Departments are adding up bills for hiring water trucks and bulldozers, the cost of fuel for the fire trucks and support vehicles and the cost of transportation for firefighters coming from around the island to Pahala.
      Regarding the cost of water drops by helicopter, County Council Finance chair Brenda Ford said Chopper One cost the county $1.5 million to purchase in 2010 and that a second helicopter used during the first day of the Pahala fire was contracted from a private owner and pilot.
      Ford said there is not only an expense from fires that spread from gulches but a possible liability. If someone dumps rubbish, agricultural or yard waste into a stream, drainage-way or floodway, causing a fire to burn onto another person’s property, the perpetrator could be held liable for damages. Ford, who also chaired the County Council Public Works Committee, said that county ordinance also requires private landowners to clear obstructions in the waterways and that members of the public can call the Department of Public Works to make a complaint. The county can clean the waterway and charge the landowners, should they not respond to the request to remove obstacles within 30 days. Ford described gulches and waterways as natural firebreaks when kept clean.

BIDS HAVE BEEN OPENED by the county for erecting garages for volunteer fire fighter trucks and equipment in Pahala and Na`alehu. The county estimated the combined cost at $75,000, much lower than all the bids: Central Contracting with $154,740;  Isemoto Contracting Co., Ltd. with $141,141 and Stan's Contracting, Inc. with $133,700.  Low bid came from Site Engineering, Inc., of Honolulu, with $97,300.

REOPENING KULANI PRISON may not happen soon, if at all, according to news reported in a Hawai`i Tribune-Herald story by Tom Callis this morning. The story quoted state Sen. Josh Green as saying Kulani was considered but “too expensive” for now. However, Kulani is included in discussions on long-term planning to save money by bringing prisoners held on the mainland back to Hawai`i for incarceration. Also being considered long-term is building new prisons on Hawaiian Home Lands. 

Kulani Prison is considered "too expensive" to reopen for now.

      Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed a package of bills this week that could save money in the prison system by reducing sentences of non-violent offenders. Following recommendations from a 40-member working group for the Justice Reinvestment Initiative, second-time felony drug offenders could have probation, and probation could be reduced to four years for second and third degree felonies. The legislation also adds more staffing to victim services and makes prisoners pay more restitution money to victims through work while incarcerated.
      According to the Tribune-Herald story, housing 1,700 inmates – about a third of its prisoners -- on the mainland costs the state some $45 million annually. Former governor Linda Lingle shut down the 123-bed Kulani in 2009, saying it was too expensive to operate.

REMOVAL OF HIGHLY FLAMMABLE fountain grass from roadsides in Ocean View takes place tomorrow. Volunteers are invited to work with Ocean View Community Association and Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park staff from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Meet at Ocean View Community Center at 9 a.m. For more information, contact ecologist David Benitez at 985-6085 or david_benitez@nps.gov.

OCEAN VIEW COMMUNITY CENTER’S monthly BBQ takes place tomorrow at 2 p.m. Normally scheduled on the third Saturday of each month, it was changed from last Saturday to accommodate a previously scheduled graduation party.

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Ka`u News Briefs June, 21, 2012

 Pahala and its farmers woke up this morning to rain washed skies and fires surrounding the village almost
entirely contained.  Photo by Julia Neal

CLEAN AIR GREETED PAHALA residents this morning as rains put a lid on fires fought more than two days across 5,200 acres of wildlands, coffee, eucalyptus and macadamia farms. While rain calmed flames, smoke and ash cleared, and villagers threw open windows to breath fresh air, firefighters and medics took a break last night. Still in their work clothes, some sought solace at a Hawaiian falsetto concert with Kai Ho`opi`i and hula at Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.

A burned out Pa`a`au Gulch below Ka`u Hospital is
 testimony to the danger of gulches full of dry brush
surrounding Pahala, its coffee farms, macadamia
 orchards, eucalyptus plantings and ranches.
Photo by Julia Neal

     Among the most relieved around Pahala, was Ka`u Coffee grower Berta Miranda who Monday afternoon clutched her Bible, standing by helpless farmers fearing the worst after fleeing wind driven flames. Miranda and her Ka`u Coffee Growers Cooperative colleagues escaped when fires burned some of their windbreak trees and grass at Pear Tree, but spared most of the coffee.

     Edmund C. Olson, founder of Ka`u Coffee Mill and a major sponsor of the annual Ka`u Coffee Festival, promised to help coffee farmers with funding to prune, replant and rebuild damaged coffee farms. Co-op President Gloria Camba said she will ask the state Department of Agriculture to help assess and plan for recovering damaged farms. She said the co-op’s crop insurance may help some growers.
     Ka`u Hospital brought back long-term residents late yesterday from Na`alehu Community Center where they stayed for two nights, along with their hospital beds. The Ka`u Rural Health Clinic and hospital laboratories reopened this morning. The hospital’s Long’s Pharmacy reopened yesterday, and the Emergency Room reopened Tuesday night.

     Guy Enriques’ youth camp for the Southside Volleyball team going to competition on the mainland resumed practice in the old Pahala Gym after the smoke cleared. The free school lunches for children resumed today after being shut down during the fire emergency.

 Hwy 11 is open but the remnants of the
fires smolder both mauka and makai.
Photo by Julia Neal

     Brush and burned trees still smoldered this morning on mauka and makai sides of Hwy 11 near homes of Lisa and Jimmy Dacalio and Ann Fontes. The blackened Pa`au`au Gulch and singed macadamia trees, just makai of houses and Ka`u Hospital, stood as stark reminders that dry brush around villages and farms pose a real hazard to life and livelihood. 

     Hawai`i Civil Defense and Hawai`i Fire Department yesterday afternoon closed command center operations set up to coordinate the battle against the fires that broke out Monday in a eucalyptus farm along the cane haul road above Pahala and in the macadamia orchards below the town. Operations to kill the fires included water drops from two helicopters, crews from county and volunteer fire departments islandwide, and private and public operations with heavy machinery to build firebreaks around farms, pastures and such installations as diesel tanks used for macadamia machinery. The command center also coordinated road closures along Hwy 11 when the fire jumped the main thoroughfare around the island and at Wood Valley Road when smoke severely diminished air quality.      

     The Fire Department proclaimed the mauka fire as 95 percent contained yesterday afternoon and the makai fires were still burning in hot spots on both sides of the highway this morning.      

 Pahala Volunteer Fire Captain Ron Ebert hopes to upgrade
the volunteer fire truck on loan from the U.S. Forest Service.
 Photo by Julia Neal

     Pahala Volunteer Fire Captain Ron Ebert responded to a front page photo of the unit’s fire truck in Hawai`i Tribune Herald by saying it is “a surplus U.S. Forest Service truck on loan...If we had more and better equipment, less property damage would have occurred.” Ebert also sent out a call for more and younger people to become volunteer fire fighters in Pahala and the other units around the island. He noted that Discovery Harbour, Na`alehu, Pahala, Ocean View and Volcano volunteer firefighters helped with this week’s battle.

THE AXIS DEER LAW is likely to go into effect today. Sen. Gil Kahele said he expects Gov. Neil Abercrombie to sign the bill this morning, making it illegal to intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly transfer, transport, and release after transport through interisland movement, any live, wild or feral, deer unless permitted by the state Department of Land and Natural Resources or other state agency. The act will also establish penalties and fines for violators. Kahele introduced SB3001 - Relating to Wildlife - during the 2012 legislative session to address the problem of the invasive axis deer on Hawai`i Island. Kahele, Vice-Chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, has been a strong proponent of the swift removal of invasive axis deer. The introduction of axis deer to the Hawaiian Islands, in 1868, has been devastating to Moloka`i and Maui.

DLNR recorded the first official kill of an axis deer in
Ka`u in April.
Photo from Big Island Invasive Species Committee

     Kahele said, "I am extremely pleased that the Governor has decided to sign this important piece of legislation into law. Axis deer have been devastating to our precious environment and our agricultural industry. This law will send a clear message to those that attempt to transport the axis deer to Hawai`i island that this Administration, the Legislature and the residents of our state will not tolerate this conduct. Just this past April the Department of Land and Natural Resources recorded the first official kill of an axis deer in Ka`u. I applaud this effort and will continue my mission to completely eradicate the axis deer from Hawai`i Island. This law reaffirms that message."

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY STROLLS, led by wildlife biologist/photographer Jack Jeffrey, takes place tomorrow at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. from Volcano Art Center Gallery within Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. The hour-long easy strolls take visitors along the rim of Kilauea caldera as Jeffrey communicates the ecology and geology of the region and offers tips on how to capture it on camera. Sign-ups are on a first-come, first-served basis. The strolls are free and donations are appreciated. Park entrance fees apply. Call 967-8222 or visit volcanoartcenter.org for more.

PUBLIC COMMENTS are due tomorrow for Ka`u Forest Reserve Draft Environmental Assessment. The plan calls for fencing a portion of the 61,000 acres of state forest between Na`alehu and Pahala. The fencing would be mauka of 4,000 feet. 

An ariel view of the Ka`u Forest Reserve. Photo by Rob Shallenberger

     The plan is to restore and maintain key watersheds within the area and to protect native species from the negative effects of invasive animals, particularly ungulates. Once invasive threats are under control, the DLNR hopes to release the `alala, native Hawaiian crow, from captive breeding after being extinct in the wild since 2002. The plan includes public access for hunters, gatherers and hikers and stresses the importance of many native forest species for Hawaiian cultural use. The plan would be implemented over a 15-year time frame. 

     Copies of the plan’s Draft EA can be read at Pahala and Na`alehu Public Libraries and online at http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/dofaw. 

     Send original comments to Ron Terry at Geometrician Associates, PO Box 396, Hilo, HI 96721. Copies should be sent to Tanya Rubenstein at Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife,1151 Punchbowl Street, Room 131, Honolulu, HI 96813.

     For information regarding the plan, contact Mililani Browning of DOFAW at 933-3171 or mililani.browning@gmail.com. For information regarding the Environmental Assessment, contact Ron at (808) 969-7090 or rterry@hawaii.rr.com. 

Fountain grass, an invasive species in Hawai`i,
increases fire potential. Photo from hawaii.hawaii.edu

IN AN EFFORT TO PREVENT DEVASTATING FIRES IN OCEAN VIEW, volunteers are invited to work with Ocean View Community Association and Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park staff to remove invasive fountain grass from roadsides in Ocean View Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Fountain grass, Pennisetum setaceum, is a highly flammable bunch grass native to North Africa. “This fire-promoting plant spreads quickly, and is one of the few invasive species that can colonize young lava flows that would otherwise serve as natural firebreaks, said HVNP ecologist David Benitez. “It aggressively chokes out native plants and increases fire potential in natural areas.” Volunteers meet at Ocean View Community Center at 9 a.m. Bring lunch, water, a hat and sunscreen. For more information, contact Benitez at 985-6085 or david_benitez@nps.gov.

Art by Patti Pease Johnson.

A BACK TO BASICS YOGA WORKSHOP is offered at Volcano Art Center’s Niaulani Campus in Volcano on Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Athena Engelman and Rachelle Castillo teach the fundamentals of basic yoga, including breath control, body awareness and anatomy, proper alignment and injury prevention. The class is $65 for the general public and $59.50 for VAC members. For more, call 967-8222.

FROM THE EARTH, a daily art exhibit at Volcano Art Center Gallery within Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park begins Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit displays an exaggeration of natural forms in ceramics, silk, cement, pastel and natural plant materials by Karen Hagen, Patti Pease Johnson and Margaret Lynch. An opening reception will be held that evening, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and an Artist’s Lecture will be held Friday, June 29, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Gallery entrance is free and park entrance fees apply. For more, visit volcanoartcenter.org or call 967-7565.

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