Ka`u News Briefs April 12, 2011

The county goes to trial in an effort to manage Kawa, with its popular surf spot.

THE COUNTY AND ABEL SIMIONA LUI will go to trial June 22 regarding the county’s effort to take possession of more than 234 acres it purchased to make a public park at Kawa. County corporate counsel Joseph Kamelamela said the county presented its testimony to Judge Joseph Florindo in Kona on March 22, contending that the county has clear title to the land that had been owned by Thomas Okuna and sold to realtor Marsha Johnson and then to the county after a successful community effort to raise money to preserve the Ka`u Coast. In 2002, Okuna himself went to court, and the court determined he had clear title to the property. 

A brackish pond at Kawa is used by the public.

     Kawa is a famous surfing beach, and Lui has lived there for some two decades and claims the property belongs to his family. His protestations include signs along the highway.
     The trial will be held in Ka`u District Court, which is currently taking place in Kona rather than Na`alehu. The Olson Trust, which stepped in to purchase and hold more than 200 additional acres at Kawa for the county to buy for a park, is also in court, with a hearing today in Kona. 

Surfers and other members of the public camp at Kawa, where the Olson Trust has land it wants to sell to the county
to be managed as a park.  Photos by Julia Neal

CONGRESSWOMAN MAZIE HIRONO is speaking out in the thick of the budget battles in Washington, D.C. She recently took on House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, who proposes major slashes in social welfare programs as his fix for the economy. Said Hirono, Ryan “doesn’t propose eliminating tax breaks for the wildly profitable oil and gas industries. He doesn’t consider asking the most fortunate among us to pay a fairer share. In fact, he wants to reduce the top corporate and individual tax rates so that the middle class can pay an even larger share.”
     According to Hirono, Ryan has focused on cutting the safety net programs for seniors and those less fortunate. He plans to turn Medicare into a defined-contribution voucher plan and to dramatically restrict eligibility for Medicaid, Hirono said.
     Hirono also pointed to Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s explanation of the Republicans’ plans for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security when he said, “Listen, we’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that these programs cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.”
     Hirono told Congress that “it is clear whose side Chairman Ryan and Majority Leader Cantor are on. I stand with our nation’s seniors and the working people who are counting on having Medicare and Social Security when they retire. I am tired of these heartless attacks on the most vulnerable members of our communities. How about a little aloha?” asked the congresswoman who represents Ka`u and rural Hawai`i. 

Kamaoa Road is public, but mostly unpaved and bordered
by ranches.  Photo by Geneveve Fyvie

THE REMNANT END OF KAMAOA ROAD is now open to the public with the gate open. The gate had been closed by ranchers for some 40 years to protect their cattle but was opened after it was revealed that the largely unpaved road actually belongs to the county. It travels past several farms and ranches and dead ends at Kahuku pastures. 

RADIOACTIVITY is likely on some of the debris floating from Japan toward Hawai`i. Scientists say, however, that all of the debris that has a half-life of a month or less will lose its radioactivity by the time it gets here. 

     Water itself does not hold radioactivity, which is one of the reasons water is the primary coolant for nuclear reactors. Radioactivity, however, attaches to particles in water. The half-life of Iodine 131, which accumulates in the thyroid, is eight days, but the half-life of cesium-137, which accumulates in human muscle tissue, is about 30 years, the Japan Times reports. Both have been released by the broken nuclear power plant that was damaged by the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima a month ago.
     On Tuesday, Japan time, the Disaster Level for the nuclear catastrophe was raised from a 5 to a 7, the same as Chernobyl.

THIS MORNING AT 10:30 A.M., Na`alehu Public Library invites the public to hear two narratives from the recently published book Talking Hawai`i’s Stories: Oral Histories of an Island People. The program is in celebration of National Library Week.