Ka`u News Briefs Monday, August 12, 2013

Ka`ohe Bay, also known as Pebble Beach, is expected to become a Fish Replenishment Area with Gov. Neil
Abercrombie's signature as early as this week. Photo by Julia Neal

THE NEW SCUBA SPEARFISHING BAN for 147 square miles of nearshore waters from South Point up the west side of Hawai`i Island to Upolu Point is headed for Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office for his signature. This and other rules were passed by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources by a 4-2 vote in late June and were sent to the state attorney general’s office for review.

Banning SCUBA spearfishing is expected to reduce the taking of parrot
fish of breeding age. Photo from Western Pacific Regional Fishery
Management Council

      The area covered is the West Hawai`i Fishery Management Area, created in 1998.
      The new rules would make it illegal to carry SCUBA-diving gear along with spears and speared fish on any boat, or otherwise in one’s possession on land or sea along the management area shoreline.
      At community discussions during the last decade, biologists and local residents contended that SCUBA spearfishing is reducing the population of fish that are needed to breed and produce the next generation of such species as parrot fish, bluefin travalley, uhu and omilu. SCUBA spearfishing is already banned in Australia and Palau.

A free diver walks to the Ka`ohe Bay shore to practice her skills.
Photo by Julia Neal

A FISH REPLENISHMENT AREA along 1,500 feet of coast at Ka`ohe Bay, north of Miloli`i at Pebble Beach, is expected to be established with Gov. Neil Abercrombie signing off on the measure that was approved by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources in late June. 

     The bay has received national publicity in USA Today with a travel story on Coral Reefs in Hawai`i that could attract tourists. It said:
      “Ka`ohe Bay in South Kona, located at the end of a steep road in a private subdivision, is one of Hawai`i’s best-kept secrets. Easily accessible via a pebble beach and surrounded by delicate finger reefs, the small bay offers prime examples of untouched, undisturbed coral reef communities. The highly endangered monk seal has been known to loll on its shores while humpback whale families frequent the bay during the winter months.”
      The Ka`ohe Fish Replenishment Area is identified on shore to the north by signage south of Ka`u Loa Point and to the south by signage north of `Au`au Point.
      The Miloli`i Fish Replenishment Area, with similar restrictions, is identified on shore to the north by Makahiki Point and to the south by Kaki`o Point.

Eagle rays would be protected at Ka`ohe Bay. Photo from wikipedia

     The new rules establishing a fish replenishment area would prohibit SCUBA spearfishing and prohibit taking of nine shark and ray species, including eagle sting rays and two invertebrates. Aquarium collectors would not be able to work there without a permit.

NEW AQUARIUM COLLECTING RULES that would reduce the kinds of fish captured to 40 species are also headed to Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s office after state attorney general review and passage by the state Board of Land & Natural Resources. The rules would protect a number of reef fish that are in decline.

      Aquarium fish that could still be collected along the west coast of Hawai`i Island, except for within Fish Replenishment Areas, would be the following: Yellow Tang, Zebrasoma flavescens; Chevron Tang, Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis; Goldring Surgeonfish, Ctenochaetus strigosus; Achilles Tang, Acanthurus achilles; Tinker’s Butterflyfish, Chaetodon tinkeri; Orangespine Unicornfish, Naso lituratus; Forcepsfish, Forcipiger flavissimus; Goldrim Surgeonfish, Acanthurus nigricans;

Yellow tang and other aquarium fish would be protected within
Fish Replenishment Areas. Photo from wikipedia

Potter’sAngelfish, Centropyge potteri; Fourspot Butterflyfish, Chaetodon quadrimaculatus; Yellowtail Coris, Coris gaimard; Ornate Wrasse, Halichoeres ornatissimus; Orangeband Surgeonfish, Acanthurus olivaceus; Bird Wrasse, Gomphosus varius; Eyestripe Surgeonfish, Acanthurus dussumieri; Multiband Butterflyfish, Chaetodon multicinctus; Saddle Wrasse, Thalassoma duperrey; Brown Surgeonfish, Acanthurus nigrofuscus; Flame Wrasse, Cirrhilabrus jordani; Thompson’s Surgeonfish, Acanthurus thompsoni; Peacock Grouper, Cephalopholis argus; Bluestripe Snapper, Lutjanus kasmira; Redbarred Hawkfish, Cirrhitops fasciatus; Psychedelic Wrasse, Anampses chrysocephalus; Hi Whitespotted Toby, Canthigaster jactator; Fisher’s Angelfish, Centropyge fisheri; Hi Dascyllus, Dascyllus albisella; Milletseed Butterflyfish, Chaetodon miliaris; Blacklip Butterflyfish, Chaetodon kleinii; Pyramid Butterflyfish, Hemitaurichthys polylepis; Shortnose Wrasse, Macropharyngodon geoffroy; Black Durgon, Melichthys niger; Spotted Boxfish, Ostracion meleagris; Blackside Hawkfish, Paracirrhites forsteri; Hi Longfin Anthias, Pseudanthias hawaiiensis; EightlineWrasse, Pseudocheilinus octotaenia; Fourline Wrasse, Pseudocheilinus tetrataenia; Smalltail Wrasse, Pseudojuloides cerasinus; Lei Triggerfish, Sufflamen bursa; and Gilded Triggerfish, Xanthichthys auromarginatus. 

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According to The Kohala Center, about 30 percent of the acres designated
in Ka`u for `Aina Koa Pono to grow feedstock to produce biofuel is tillable.
Photo by Julia Neal

ELIZABETH COLE, DEPUTY DIRECTOR of The Kohala Center, has sent a letter to the state Public Utilities Commission regarding the proposed contract between `Aina Koa Pono and the electric companies. 

      “The Kohala Center would like to inform you that students from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies are developing a student-generated study of alternative uses for the Ka`u lands being considered for the production of biofuels by AKP,” Cole states. “Please note that this study is not complete and ready for publication; however the County of Hawai`i wished the Public Utility Commission to be aware that agricultural uses for the subject Ka`u lands were being investigated, and preliminary findings suggest that:

• Approximately 30 percent of the 12,000 designated acres is tillable, with much of the land being marginal, dry, steeply sloped, and rocky. 
• Water availability may be a concern and might result in competition between AKP and future farming interests. 
• Economically feasible alternatives might be suitable and desirable, in terms of resource efficiency, for at least a portion of these lands. 

      “Once we have completed a final draft of the study, we will be sure to send it to you,” Cole concludes.
      This and other testimony is available at puc.hawaii.gov. Docket number is 2012-0185.
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TUTU & ME IS BACK IN SESSION. The tuition-free, early education program for toddlers and their families meets from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays at Na`alehu Community Center as well as Tuesdays and Thursdays at Pahala Community Center. For more information and to register, call 929-8571.

APRIL KEKOA AND TEANA KAHO`OHANOHANO share the history of kalo plus its modern uses Wednesday at 10 a.m. on Kilauea Visitor Center’s lanai in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.

Kalo, or taro, is the topic of a workshop Wednesday.

      The life of Hawai`i’s indigenous people is closely linked with kalo, or the taro plant. According to the Kumulipo creation chant, kalo grew from the first-born son, Haloa. Kalo is believed to have the greatest life force of all foods and is a means of survival for Hawaiians. 

      The free program is part of the park’s ongoing `Ike Hana No`eau: Experience the Skillful Work series. Park entrance fees apply.

A PROPOSED PIPELINE TO CARRY WATER from Old Plantation Spring for ag use is the topic at a public hearing today at 5 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. The Conservation District Use application is available for review at Na`alehu Public Library and at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings.

PUBLIC COMMENT ON AGENDA ITEMS IS WELCOME at Ka`u Community Development Plan’s Steering Committee meeting tomorrow at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center.
      The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices. Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

At last year's Ka`u Plantation Days, Walter Wong Yuen shared history of
Chinese in Ka`u with photos and artifacts. Photo by Julia Neal

KA`U MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY INVITES RESIDENTS to attend a meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Pahala Community Center to plan Ka`u Plantation Days. The event is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 12. 

      For more information, call Darlyne Vierra at 640-8740 or Liz Kuluwaimaka at 339-0289.

SHAKA’S FREE BEACH CONCERT IS SET FOR FRIDAY from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Scheduled to perform are Bruddah Waltah, Randy Lorenzo and Keaiwa with Demetrius Oliveira. There will be games for the kids, giveaways and information on joining the National Guard. Other sponsors are KARMA, Big Island Image and Big Island Top Team.

EVA LEE, OF TEA HAWAI`I & CO., offers a free tea cultivation and production program this Sunday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Pahala Plantation House. The program is for prospective tea growers on Hawai`i Island interested in growing the specialty crop Camellia sinensis tea, producing white, green, oolong and black tea. The purpose is to help individuals and small family farms make greater strides in community production. The program is sponsored by The Kohala Center and funded in part by the U.S.Department of Agriculture Co-op Support program. To sign up, call Julia Neal at 928-9811. 

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.

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PUBLIC NOTICES

                                                                        

Ka`u News Briefs Sunday, August 11, 2013

By 8 a.m., more than 430 people had reported online to the USGS feeling the earthquake from such faraway places as Hana on Maui and Makawao on O`ahu. The most reports came from Kona, Hilo, Kamuela, Pahoa, Kea`au, Mountain View, Volcano and Honolulu.

HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY RECORDED a magnitude 4.8 earthquake this morning at 5:54 a.m. It was followed by several aftershocks, with the largest measuring magnitude 3.4 at 6:06 a.m. The earthquakes were located five miles south of the summit of Kilauea, almost directly below the Kulanaokuaiki campground in Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, at a depth of about 20 miles.

      According to Wes Thelen, HVO’s seismic network manager, “these earthquakes were most likely structural adjustments of the Earth’s crust due to the weight of the island on the underlying mantle. The earthquake likely occurred on a near-horizontal fault plane in the mantle, which has hosted earthquakes in this region before. Despite their location near Kilauea’s summit, it’s unlikely that the earthquakes were volcanic in nature due to their depth, which is below and offset from the volcano’s known magma plumbing system.”

Jim Kauahikaua

      HVO scientist-in-charge Jim Kauahikaua added that the earthquakes had no apparent effect on Kilauea’s ongoing eruptions. “HVO monitoring networks have not detected any significant changes in activity at the summits or rift zones of Kilauea or other Hawaiian volcanoes.”
      The magnitude 4.8 earthquake was felt throughout the Island of Hawai`i, as well as on parts of Maui and O`ahu. The USGS “Did you feel it?” website received almost 400 felt reports within the first hour of the earthquake. Some of the reports follow:

• Volcano – windows cracked, doors opened and a refrigerator slid across the kitchen. 
• Kea`au – table, house, and computer shaking, animals hiding, chicken clucking softly. 
• Hapuna beach – woke up to the hotel bed shaking. 
• Kamuela – little wake-up call. 
• Honoka`a – very loud shaking; house and windows rattled loudly. 
• Honolulu – I woke up due to the feeling of shaking of my bed left and right. 
• Honolulu – Just happened to be awake, and my bed slightly shook for a couple seconds. 

      Visitors staying at Pahala Plantation Cottages said they heard doors and windows rattling and that they thought it felt different than quakes in their California home.
      Kauahikaua said the larger event is only the second earthquake with a magnitude greater than four to occur at this location and depth since the start of Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption in 1983. The first one occurred on February 17, 2000. There were six such earthquakes in the 20 years before Kilauea’s ongoing East Rift Zone eruption began.
      For information on recent earthquakes in Hawai`i and eruption updates, see hvo.wr.usgs.gov.

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Owen Allsopp is a new recruit, teaching first grade at Pahala Elementary.
Photo from Allsopp's Facebook page

PAHALA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHER Owen Allsopp made national news yesterday in an Associated Press story. “The 22-year-old graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is settling into teaching first grade at Pahala Elementary on the Big Island and sharing a house with three new teachers,” the story reports. 

      The story notes that “before the first day of school, he already had a good grasp of Hawaiian names and words. And he’s aware of the pressure to keep him.”
      It quotes him saying, “I know it’s so important because it’s hard to create lasting change if there’s so much transition happening.... There needs to be serious commitment.”
      Allsopp is one of the new teachers that the state Department of Education is courting, hoping to keep them with pay bonuses and training in local cultures and language dialects.
      The AP story, which is headlined on MSN News as Hawai`i Schools Struggle to Keep Teachers from Quitting, states that Hawai`i “has to recruit most of its teachers from the mainland, then struggles to keep them in the face of a high cost of living, culture shock and isolation.”
      The story leads off by writing about Jonathan Sager, who was “an idealistic 22-year-old recent college graduate when he arrived in Hawai`i in 2006, yearning to make a difference in the lives of children in hardscrabble neighborhoods like those on the Waianae Coast.
     “About an hour’s drive from bustling Honolulu, the stretch of unspoiled beaches and looming mountains is home to a high concentration of Native Hawaiians and some of the state’s lowest-performing schools. So Sager learned their culture, bought a condo and planned to stay.
      “After seven years, Sager, now 29, quit, packing up this summer for Texas and becoming the latest teacher Hawai`i could not keep as it tries to fill a seemingly perpetual teacher shortage. He said he was frustrated by constant educational experimentation.”
      The story states that when he first arrived to teach in Hawai`i, “Sager, of Warren, Ohio, took a bus tour along with other new teachers and saw the poverty on the Waianae Coast.
     “Settling in required developing an ear for the pidgin English his students spoke and learning to pronounce vowel-laden names he never heard before. Even as he earned their acceptance, Sager said, he grew frustrated with feeling like he and his students were lab rats for experimental programs.
      ‘We start, and it’s not perfect, so we scrap it and start over,’ he said.”

Owen Allsopp's Facebook cover photo is Green Sands Beach, showing his
immersion into Ka`u.

      AP reporter Jennifer Sinco Kelleher writes that “now, administrators’ efforts to retain teachers have taken on a new urgency as they try to make progress on promised reforms that won Hawai`i a $75 million federal Race to the Top grant. Teacher retention is one of the keys to those reforms.”
      The story notes that the state offers $1,500 bonuses to teach at “hard-to-staff” schools and plans to increase the bonus to $3,000 for the 2014-15 year.
      Remote schools like Ka`u bring bonuses as high as $6,000 per school year, the story states.
      To orient the new teachers, the story reports, “they are also holding classes in Hawaiian culture and language, and teaming new arrivals with veteran teachers to help ease the transition.”

      The article states that the reason the school system is turning to the mainland for teachers is “because local teacher education programs can’t produce enough graduates to fill classrooms across the islands, especially in remote schools. Getting the newcomers to stay is difficult, as they face culture shock, a high cost of living and a vast ocean separating them from their families.”
      The story also reports on teachers who are staying here, sharing the experience of 46-year-old Dennis Tynan, who arrived in Nanakuli ten years ago. He told the AP reporter that he may have stayed longer because he was older when he arrived “from Texas, arming him with more life and classroom experiences. Now that he’s one of two left in that group, he’s starting to wonder about his future.
      “But those doubts are eased by his students, who no longer treat him like an outsider. He feels he owes it to his students to stick around.”
      The story quotes him: “Here is a community of a marginalized ethnic group, and because of the way everything gets structured in a bureaucratic schools system, they just get screwed over and over again.”
      The AP story also deals with the cost of living, giving the example of “Kristen Wong, who left her job teaching special education on the Big Island to pursue a master’s degree at Harvard University.” It says she “met her fiancé in Hawai`i, but the costs of visiting their families on the mainland started to seem more daunting as they looked forward to having children.
      Wong, 29, worked a second job most of her time in Hawai`i to make ends meet. The entry-level salary for the current school year starts at $33,169.
      ‘‘It was really, really hard to make things work,’ she said. ‘I have student loans. I have a car loan.... I’m actually pretty fiscally responsible.”
      See more at news.msn.com/us.hawaii-schools-struggle-to-keep-teachers-from-quitting.

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Ag use of water from Old Plantation Spring is the topic of a meeting
tomorrow. Photo from Conservation District Use Application to DLNR

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY regarding a proposed pipeline to carry water from Old Plantation Spring for ag use at a public hearing tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. The Conservation District Use application is available for review at Na`alehu Public Library and at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings. 

KA`U COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN STEERING COMMITTEE meets Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at Ocean View Community Association Center. Public comment on agenda items is welcome.
      The meeting focuses on recently released additional draft Ka`u CDP appendices. Appendix V4B: Community Building Analysis focuses on land use, infrastructure, services, design and redevelopment strategies for Pahala, Punalu`u, Na`alehu, Wai`ohinu, the Discovery Harbour area and Ocean View.
      Documents are available online at kaucdp.info; at libraries and community centers in Pahala, Na`alehu, Discovery Harbour, and Ocean View; and at Hilo and Kona Planning Department offices.
      To comment on this story or “Like” it, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

KA`U PLANTATION DAYS IS THE TOPIC at a community meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Pahala Community Center. Ka`u Multicultural Society invites residents to attend and help plan the Saturday, Oct. 12 event. For more information, call Darlyne Vierra at 640-8740 or Liz Kuluwaimaka at 339-0289.

THE NATIONAL GUARD PRESENTS A CONCERT AT PUNALU`U this Friday, Aug. 16 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. Called Shaka’s Free Beach Concert, it is sponsored by South Side Shaka’s Restaurant & Bar as well as the National Guard unit in Hilo. Rory Koi, a Shaka’s owner and its manager, is putting together the entertainment, which so far includes Bruddah Waltah, Randy Lorenzo and Keaiwa with Demetrius Oliveira. Koi said this morning that the National Guard is sponsoring $4,000 worth of giveaways. There will be games for the kids and information on joining the National Guard. Other sponsors are KARMA, Big Island Image and Big Island Top Team.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.

SUPPORT YOUR KA`U BUSINESSES

                                                                    

                                                                        PUBLIC NOTICES

Ka`u News Briefs Saturday, August 10, 2013

Ka`u High School is initiating eight-man football and hopes other Hawai`i Island schools follow.

MOLOKA`I ON OCT. 5 is the destination for Ka`u High School’s 18 players who are signing up to help launch an eight-man football league for the small high schools on this island. Fundraising has already started, according to Ka`u High athletic director Kalei Namohala.

      The first school to offer to host Ka`u, Moloka`i High, is already a member of an eight-man football league in Maui County. Ka`u could lead the charge to create a league here, perhaps with such schools as Pahoa, Kohala and some private institutions. Three schools can make a league, and three leagues, perhaps one on O`ahu, one on Hawai`i Island and the existing Maui County league, could create a state championship playoff. Eight-man football, Namohala noted, is particularly appropriate for fast-running athletes and shows off passing and interception skills. There are fewer tackles in the game. It is higher scoring with fewer injuries.
     Ka`u was forced to drop out of full-blown 11-man football when fewer than 30 members signed up to play this year. Thirty is the required minimum for Big Island Interscholastic Federation 11-man football play. Further complicating Ka`u continuing with 11-man play is the risk of weathering fines of $1,600 per each away game should Ka`u be unable to come up with enough players. Reductions in players usually comes from injuries, which are more likely with a small team playing both offense and defense. It can also come from players unable to meet academic standards.
      Anyone wanting to donate to the effort to continue Ka`u Trojan football can call the athletic director at 928-2012.

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AFTER RECEIVING LAST WEEK’S FINAL ROUND OF TESTIMONY, the state Public Utilities Commission has set next Thursday, Aug. 15 as the deadline for parties and participants to notify it of their next courses of action regarding the proposed 20-year contract for the electric companies to purchase biofuel that would be manufactured by `Aina Koa Pono at a refinery that would be built off Wood Valley Road. AKP plans to use feedstock from existing trees and brush it would harvest on land between Pahala and Na`alehu, plus grasses it would grow to feed the microwave units that would be installed at the $400 million refinery. 

      The Commission gives Hawai`i County, Life of the Land, the state Consumer Advocate and the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism three options. The first is to resolve substantial disagreements with the utilities by stipulation. Such an agreement is designed to simplify or shorten litigation and save costs.
      The second is to propose an evidentiary hearing schedule. “If a party or participant states its intent to propose an evidentiary hearing schedule, said party or participant shall clearly explain by supporting legal argument its right to an evidentiary hearing,” the Commission stated.
      The third choice is for the parties and participants to let the Commission know that they are ready for the Commission to make a decision.
      See hawaii.puc.gov for more. Docket number is 2012-0185.
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Presidential Medal of Freedom

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA HAS NAMED the late Sen. Daniel Inouye as one of 16 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honor. The award is presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. 

      This year marks the 50th anniversary of the executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy establishing the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as well as the first ceremony bestowing the honor on an inaugural class of 31 recipients. Since that time, more than 500 exceptional individuals from all corners of society have received the award.
      “It is an honor for all the people of Hawai`i that President Obama has chosen to award Sen. Inouye with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his extraordinary public service, bravery and heroism,” Sen. Brian Schatz said. “There is no better way to recognize Hawai`i’s lion in the Senate than with our nation’s highest civilian honor. This is an occasion of great pride for everyone in the 50th state and across our great country.”
      Find out more at whitehouse.gov.
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HALAU HULA O LEIONALANI is reaching out to the Ka`u community to help carry the hula sisters to Lana`i’s cultural festival in October. The halau of Native Hawaiians from Ka`u practices at the Old Pahala Clubhouse and is a regular participant at the Ka`u Coffee Festival each year, hosting dancers from the other islands and Japan to celebrate Ka`u coffee.

Halau Hula O Leionalani is reaching out to the Ka`u community for help
in attending Lana`i's cultural festival in October. Photo by Julia Neal

      Kumu hula is Debbie Ryder, who became a kumu under the tutelege of the late George Naope. One of the signature hulas of the halau, which they will dance on Lana`i, is Naope’s composition Ka Nani a o Ka`u. 

     Members of Halau Hula O Leionalani are Jamie Kailiawa, Jannalynn “Nani” Kaleohano, Keisha Enitan, Justie “Mona” Wroblewski, Krystalynne Gascon, Kamalani Reyes, Teresa Souza, Kavelle Silva, Amery Silva, Tommy-Jean “TJ” George and Jerilynn Pua.
     To reach Lana`i, the hula sisters must raise money to take the direct flight from Hilo to Kahalui, Maui, the Speedy Shuttle to Lahaina and the ferry to Lana`i. Dinners and accommodations will be provided on Lana`i. The halau is on its own for breakfasts and lunches for the four days on the island. In addition to performing, the halau will walk up Mauna Lai, Lana`i’s only valley where taro is grown, and participate in a chanting ceremony in the nearshore waters, similar to the ceremony held at dawn at Punalu`u during Ka`u Coffee Festival week this year. Mona Chow has volunteered to make lei for the halau to carry to Lana`i.
     To donate, call Keisha Enitan at 339-2423 or 937-7189. The halau is having fundraisers, currently pre-selling tickets for bread from Kamuela – Vierra’s Best Sweetbread – for $7.50 a loaf and Vierra’s cinnamon bread for $8.00 a loaf. See one of the halau members.
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Surface patterns on pahoehoe. Photo from FHVNP

FRIENDS OF HAWAI`I VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK presents its monthly Walk in the Park tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

      Volcanologist Cheryl Gansecki guides a four-mile, round-trip hike along Footprints Trail to Mauna Iki in the Ka`u Desert. The hike is free for Friends members, and non-members can join the organization in order to attend. Call 985-7373 or email admin@fhvnp.org.

MEDICINE FOR THE MIND, Buddhist healing meditation for beginners and advanced practitioners, takes place tomorrow from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Patty Johnson offers the free program at Volcano Art Center’s Ni`aulani Campus in Volcano Village. For more information, call 985-7470.

THE PUBLIC IS INVITED TO SUBMIT TESTIMONY regarding a proposed pipeline to carry water from Old Plantation Spring for ag use at a public hearing Monday at 5 p.m. at Na`alehu Community Center. The Conservation District Use application is available for review at Na`alehu Public Library and at hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/meetings.

THE FOURTH ANNUAL VOLCANO RAIN FOREST RUNS are a week from today. The half marathon, 10K run and 5K run/walk are held in Volcano Village. This event traverses the native rain forest in Volcano Village and the ranches near Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park. All distances are open to runners and walkers of all ages and abilities. The event is a fundraiser for Volcano Art Center and its educational programs.

      Entry fees are $85 for the half marathon, $50 for the 10K run and $35 for the 5K run/walk.

      $500 in athletic equipment can be won by the Ka`u school who sends the most competitors to the event. The equipment can be for track, cross country, volleyball, tennis, football, soccer – any sport. The school with the most students represented wins the $500 gift certificate from Sports Authority.
Competitors can enter any of the races to qualify their schools, which can be elementary, middle or high school. Registration fee is $20 per entry.       

      Registration is available at rainforestruns.com.

OCEAN VIEW EVANGELICAL CHURCH’s first community ho`olaule`a is one week from today on Saturday, Aug. 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The lu`au will include lomi lomi salmon, chicken and long rice, kalua pig and beverages.
      Organizer Mary Wheeler is asking for monetary donations and door prizes. “We will help meet community needs, while getting the opportunity to serve,” she said. For more information and to donate, call 990-3480.

Tea is the topic next Sunday at Pahala Plantation Manager's House.
Photo from teahawaii.com

THERE IS STILL ROOM IN THE EVA LEE WORKSHOP on tea cultivation and production Sunday, Aug. 18 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Pahala Plantation House. The program is for prospective tea growers on Hawai`i Island interested in growing the specialty crop Camellia sinensis tea, producing white, green, oolong and black tea. The purpose is too help individuals and small family farms make greater strides in community production. The program is sponsored by The Kohala Center and funded in part by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Co-op Support program. To sign up, call Julia Neal at 928-9811. See more on Eva Lee at teahawaii.com.

Cane haul truck at last year's Ka`u Plantation Days. Photo by Julia Neal 

KA`U PLANTATION DAYS will be held on Saturday, Oct. 12 at the old Pahala Plantation Managers House with a parade on Pikake Street. Organizers of the third Ka`u Plantation Days chose this year’s theme to be Together Again. The parade will feature horses and riders representing each of the Hawaiian Islands. Both horse and rider will wear lei. A sugar truck representing the last run from the plantation fields to the old mill, which was located across from the manager’s house, will be driven from Pahala Armory to the manager’s house, tooting the horn familiar to everyone who lived in Pahala during sugar days. The parade, followed by festivities, will begin at 9 a.m. There will be ethnic dance and displays from the various communities making up the multiethnic fabric of Ka`u. The sponsoring organization, Ka`u Multicultural Society, plans “a day filled with entertainment, ono food, music and most of all sharing those memorable moments back in time. Bring all of your family and friends to watch the parade, exchange stories, having laughter and establishing additional memories,” says the new flyer for the event. For more information, to donate, sign up for a display or booth, call Darlene Vierra at 640-8740. 

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

ALSO SEE KAUCALENDAR.COM AND FACEBOOK.COM/KAUCALENDAR.

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