Kaʻū News Briefs Dec.16, 2024

Fisherman Santa Comes to Town

Rolling toward Christmas with the theme of fishing for food, Good To Grindz food truck traveled Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade route on Saturday. See more business, school, church and community parade participants, along with coverage of the first Kaʻū Taro Festival, in upcoming Kaʻū News Briefs.  

Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

MAYOR KIMO ALAMEDA has announced the appointments of Hugh Ono for county Director of Public Works, Neil Azevedo for Deputy Director of Public Works, and Corey Stone for county Director of Information

Hugh Ono

 Technology. The Directors appointments are subject to approval by the County Council.
    Alameda said, "Each of these administrators are natural fits for their departments and bring a strong commitment to serving the public. In some cases, the search was extensive, and I couldn't be more confident in the skills and leadership abilities that they bring to the County."
    Director of Public Works appointee Hugh Ono is a professional engineer who served as the County's Public Works Director from 1984 to 1990. Prior to his most recent appointment, he was the Vice President in charge of SSFM International, Inc.'s Hawaiʻi Island Office.

Neil Azevedo

    Ono previously served as Highways Division Administrator for the state Department of Transportation and Hawaiʻi District Engineer for state DOT. He was named Hawaiʻi State Engineer of the Year in 1992 and Hawaiʻi Island Engineer of the Year in 1985.
    Deputy Director of Public Works appointee Neil Azevedo was Highway Division Chief for Public Works from December 2015 until his appointment as deputy director. He has been a conduit for the County's emergency response, assisting Fire, Police and Civil Defense agencies with multiple eruptions, hurricanes, tropical storms, flooding, and brush fires.

Corey Stone

    Alameda said that Azevedo's experiences and knowledge assisted to improve, construct, and repair emergency evacuation routes in Lower Puna, Waikoloa, Puako, and Keaukaha.
    Director of Information Technology appointee Corey Stone worked for the County as an Information Systems Analyst in the Department of Information Technology since 2012. He previously worked for Hewlett-Packard in Colorado and came back home to Hawaiʻi Island in 2004 to raise his family. "Stone enjoys working in information technology because he builds relationships with staff across departments and all over the island," says the Mayor's statement.

To read co

Diyah Ellis-Reyes earns Big Island MVP.
Photo by Kama Reyes Wroblewski

mments, add your own, and like this story, see facebook.com/kaucalendar. See upcoming events, print edition and archive at kaunews.com.

KAʻŪ HIGH TROJAN FOOTBALL STAR Adahdiyah “Diyah” Ellis-Reyes received the Big Island Offense Most Valuable Player Award for his performance in the 808 Senior P.R.O. Bowl football game in O'ahu this past Sunday. The quarterback, who graduates in 2025, set school records at Kaʻū.

    Assistant football coach Mark Peters reports that Ellis-Reyes' MVP award "caps off a stellar high school career with the Kaʻū Trojans where he passed for over 3,200 yards and ran for over 3,100 yards. He totaled 51 touchdowns in his high school career. Ellis-Reyes holds seven individual school records for 11 man football at Kaʻū High School. Congratulations Diyah!"

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THE MAIN VISITOR CENTER STORE AT HAWAI'I VOLCANOES National Park, along with park visitor services, will move to Kīlauea Military Camp for about two years. The move will be a fews days after Kīlauea Visitor Center, across from Volcano House, closes for renovations, starting Feb. 17. 

   An announcement from Hawai'i Pacific Parks Association, the nonprofit partner that operates the store, says that the new venue will be at a welcome center at KMC's Koa Room, adjacent to the lobby for the KMC cottages.

Hawai'i Pacific Park's gift store will move to KMC for
about two years during HVNP renovations. Photo from HPPA

     The statement says, "Hawai'i Pacific Parks Association staff is pleased to keep working alongside NPS rangers to meet visitor needs for the estimated two years of construction. This move is necessary to accommodate upcoming national park facility upgrades and renovations at the visitor center. It will allow HPPA to continue offering retail sales services to park visitors without interruption until the new park visitor center is ready. Proceeds directly contribute to preservation, education, and interpretation initiatives in the park."
    HPPA invites all visitors to continue supporting Hawaiʻi national parks by visiting the temporary location or exploring HPPA’s online store: https://shop.hawaiipacificparks.org. Bookmark this webpage for park construction updates at https://www.nps.gov/havo/planyourvisit/construction-closures.htm.

    Al Galiza, Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park area manager, said, “Change, like the ever-evolving landscape of Kīlauea Volcano, brings new opportunities. We are excited for the upcoming partnership with KMC and look forward to continuing to provide our visitors with memorable keepsakes of their time at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.”

Kīlauea Visitor Center will move to KMC for
about two years. Photo from HPPA

    

    Mel Boehl, HPPA Executive Director, said, “HPPA is excited about the KVC remodeling project as we know the updated facilities will result in an expanded interpretive product line and an enhanced visitor experience. Mahalo nui to KMC and NPS for their partnership in finding a good solution for a temporary visitor center and park store. The use of the Koa Room at KMC will allow us to provide the same level of high-quality interpretive products and visitor services as we have done at the Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park Visitor Center for the past 90 years.”

    HPPA is the nonprofit partner of seven national park sites in Hawaiʻi and American Samoa. Proceeds from its visitor center park stores and online shop have contributed over $26 million in support to parks since 1933.

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KAʻŪ COFFEE FARMERS AND MACADAMIA GROWERS MAY QUALIFY FOR MARKETING ASSISTANCE along with other Specialty Crop Producers. The $2 billion for the nationwide program comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Applications from Specialty Crop Producers, who will share in funding for expanding markets and managing higher costs, will be accepted from Dec.1- Jan. 8.

    Funded by the Commodity Credit Corp. and administered by USDA's Farm Service Agency, eligibility and application processes for specialty crop producers who would like to participate in the program can be found here on the FSA website. Complete the necessary forms and submit them to the FSA County Office in Hilo. Primary contact for submitting the forms is Debby Ann Itchon, DebbyAnn.Itchon@usda.gov or the general Service Center staff line at 808-933-8381

    This program is similar to the CFAP and other programs that provided subsidy payments to growers based on their coffee cherry and macadamia in-shell production. On the form FSA-1140, report the value of crops before adding value such as processing or roasting. That means farmgate values for coffee cherry or macadamia nut-in-shell should be listed under Part C Sales, for example. Contact Farm Service Agency in Hilo, with any questions.
    Also see a Stakeholder Meeting on the funding at FarmersGov YouTube or download the Fact Sheet here.

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Volcano Art Center Gallery inside Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Kaʻū News Briefs Dec.15, 2024

Kaʻū Hospital & East Hawai'i Health Clinic staff and volunteers put together the Da Grinch float for Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade on Saturday. Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

Official Grand Marshall of Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade, Wayne Kawachi, his arms open wide to represent the non-profit 'O Ka'ū Kākou, the truck for the float provided by John Masters and Kaʻū Auto Repair. Photo by Julia Neal

NON-PROFITS AND PUBLIC ENTITIES SERVING KAʻŪ took to the streets of the village for the Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade on Saturday along with businesses, churches, school groups, ranchers and families.

Fire Engine 11 lit up the Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade on Saturday night. Photo by Julia Neal

The Emergency Medical Services ambulance joins the Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade. Photo by Julia Neal

State House of Representatives member Jeanne Kapela meets parade goers in her convertible. Photo by Julia Neal

Ruby Basque-Jordan, office manager for Kaʻū's Representative in the state House, gets ready to drive the Rep. Jeanne Kapela
and her daughter Ualani. Photo by Julia Neal

Riena Kaupu, Sheryl Sebastian, Janessa Jara, Erin Santos, Mark Peters and Jenn Abalos, the CU Hawai'i Credit Union team,
puts finishing touches on their Candyland float prior to the start of the parade. Photo by Julia Neal

Kaʻū Coffee Growers CoopPresident Gloria Camba with Lorie Obra of Rusty's Hawaiian and Kaʻū Coffee farmer Donna Gascon. Photo by Julia Neal

Kaʻū Multicultural Society, which collects historical documents, photos and items from sugar plantation days, ranching and coffee farmers to celebrate the cultural diversity of Kaʻū, joined the Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade. Photo by Julia Neal

Pāhala Hongwanji Taiko drummers, ready to roll through Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade. Photo by Julia Neal

See more on Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade participation by schools, businesses, paniolo and more, as well as the Taro Festival and other holiday events in upcoming Kaʻū News Briefs.

To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see facebook.com/kaucalendar. See upcoming events, print edition and archive at kaunews.com.

INTERFEROGRAMS, THE IMAGES CREATED BY RADAR SATELLITES, are the subject of the latest Volcano Watch, the weekly articlewritten by USGS scientist and affiliates at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory:
Interferograms show how the ground has changed shape, or deformed, over time. Today, we’ll dive into one of the trickiest parts of interpreting interferograms: the perspective of satellites.

    Volcanologists use interferograms to detect unrest by observing how the surface of a volcano is deforming in response to migrating magma beneath the ground. We can see changing subsurface magma reservoirs, their connections, and new paths magma creates as it travels closer to the surface.          While interferograms can be beautiful and informative, they are also difficult to interpret.
A Volcano Watch article from June 2019 discussed how to read the repeating cycles of color, called fringes (which often make bullseye or butterfly wing patterns), to figure out how much ground movement is occurring. To summarize quickly: count the fringes, starting from the outside of the feature towards the inside. Keep track of the sequence the color is cycling: is it red-yellow-blue or blue-yellow-red? Use the figure key to work out which direction the ground is moving, either towards or away from the satellite. The change in distance between the ground and satellite is called “range change”. Multiply the number of fringes by the range change value of a single fringe (also given in the figure key) and you’ve calculated displacement and its direction. Or have you? In reality, it’s a bit more complicated.

Panels A and B show what an interferogram would look like for a simple expanding spherical magma chamber from an ascending and descending orbital perspective. The star shows the true center of the inflating magma source. The arrow and bar denote satellite flight direction and look direction respectively. Each fringe represents approximately 1.55 cm. Panels C and D show the same event in a cross-section view. The black lines and arrows show the displacement as viewed by the SAR satellite in its line-of-sight (LOS), while the grey lines and arrows show the ground displacement physically occurring. The key in panel C gives the scale of the arrows. Notice in the ascending case, the deformation pattern is shifted and skewed west while the descending case shows the opposite. USGS Image

 

   To create interferograms, two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images (separated in time by a few weeks) are combined from satellites orbiting around the Earth. If the ground has moved enough within the timespan of the two images, fringes will be visible in the interferogram. Where this gets tricky is how the satellite looks at the surface of the Earth. SAR satellites don’t look straight down, they look to the side, often about 30 degrees from vertical. What effect does this have on interferogram interpretation?
    If an area on the ground moved exactly upwards by 5 inches, from a SAR satellite’s perspective less than 5 inches of range change will be recorded. But why is this? Let’s pretend someone is shining a flashlight at you. If they shine it directly at you, it’s quite blinding! But if they tilt the light just a bit off-center, the light will still be visible, but not nearly as blinding. If the light is tilted fully away from you, you may see nothing at all. The intensity of the light hasn’t changed, but your perspective has.

   Going back to the example above, a similar phenomenon is happening but instead of light intensity, we’re measuring range change. If the motion of the ground is tilted away from the SAR satellite’s look direction, less of the actual motion will be measured than is physically occurring. If the ground were to move 5 inches directly toward the satellite, then it would indeed record 5 inches of range change. In this manner, the direction of the ground motion is important, as is the orientation of the satellite.
    To illustrate how satellite orientation affects an interferogram, we’ve created a simple model that shows a spherical inflating magma body (like an inflating balloon underground) and its effect on the surface viewed from multiple satellite perspectives. In these models, the magma body is in the exact center (white star), but that’s not what we see. We instead see a bullseye that looks somewhat skewed and shifted either to the West or the East depending on the viewing geometry.

    This is due to the phenomena we just discussed. Since SAR satellites look to the side, the range change that we see as fringes is only a part of the actual motion of the ground if that motion is not in line with the satellite’s line-of-sight. Since inflation results in the ground moving upwards and outwards, there will be some motion that is captured and other motion that is missed or minimized. For example, if motion is perpendicular (or close to perpendicular) to the line-of-sight, the satellite will see barely any motion at all, just like the decrease in intensity as a light is being shined away from you. This results in the entire measured deformation pattern to be shifted, as outwards perpendicular motion away from the satellite will be small while motion towards the satellite will be larger.

    Interferograms posted by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory will provide an arrow denoting the satellite flight direction and a perpendicular bar that shows its look direction. Using this information and your newfound knowledge of SAR perspectives, you can more accurately interpret how a volcano is deforming. In a future “Volcano Watch” article, we’ll discuss how perspective changes more complex signals such as propagating dikes (spoiler alert: it gets even more complicated).

Volcano Activity Updates
   Kīlauea is not erupting. Its USGS Volcano Alert level is ADVISORY.
   Over the week ending last Thursday, earthquake rates beneath Kīlauea summit and upper and middle East Rift Zone decreased and were less than half that of the previous week. About 70 earthquakes were located beneath the summit, and less than 100 were located in the upper to middle East Rift Zone. Ground deformation rates in the summit region showed steady inflation over the past week, while ground deformation rates near the September 15-20 middle East Rift Zone eruption site have slowed. Future intrusive episodes and eruptions could occur with continued magma supply.
    Mauna Loa is not erupting. Its USGS Volcano Alert Level is at NORMAL.
    Two earthquakes were reported felt in the Hawaiian Islands during the week ending last Thursday: a magnitude-3.6 event 44 km (27 mi) SW of Captain Cook at 30 km (19 mi) depth on Dec. 10 at 6:45 a.m. HST and a magnitude-3.3 event 18 km (11 mi) SE of Pāhala at 32 km (20 mi) depth on Dec. 9 at 4:26 p.m. HST.
    HVO continues to closely monitor Kīlauea and Mauna Loa.

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Volcano Art Center Gallery inside Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

Kaʻū News Briefs Dec.14, 2024

The ground crew who expanded and streamlined the second annual Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade
on Saturday, with Mr. & Mrs. Santa and Parade President Shai Lopez-Castaneda. Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

The late Ed Olson helped fund the parade for 
years and is honored with continuation of support
and a place on his Pāhala Coffee Mill float.
Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

PĀHALA TOWN LIGHTED CHRISTMAS PARADE, in its second year on Saturday, drew bigger crowds, much local participation and the honoring of community, enterprise, faith, athletics, education, service and those who passed during
the last year. 
    The late Kaʻū Coffee Mill founder, the late Edmund C. Olson, whose trust and foundation continue to support the parade, was honored on the company float. Friends and families built floats to honor the late Kaʻū Coffee farmer Milton DaCalio; the late longtime steward of county parks Angie Nohealani Avenue, and the late longtime sugar worker and athletic coach at Kaʻū High, Bobby Barba.
    Grand Marshall of the Parade was longtime President of 'O Ka'ū Kākou community service organization, Wayne Kawachi.

   Attending events over the weekend were Judy and Eddie Andrade, who started the annual Christmas Parade in Pāhala more than 40 years ago.
    Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade Committee, comprised of the new generation of events organizers, ensured that living kūpuna leaders and those leaders who passed were recognized, and carried with the community into the joy, the fun of their Christmas Tree lighting and Christmas parade.

A float in Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade honoring the late longtime steward of county parks and Hawaiian
family music entertainer Angie Nohealani Avenue. Photo by Julia Neal

A float in Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade honoring the late Kaʻū High coach and longtine sugar worker
Bobby Barba. Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

A float in Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade honoring the late Kaʻū Coffee farmer Milton Dacalio.
Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

Mr. & Mrs. Santa and Parade President Shai Lopez-Castaneda with manmade snow falling

on the Christmas procession on Saturday. Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

Snowman in the manmade snow falling in Pāhala at Saturday's Town Lighted Christmas Parade.
Photo by Stacyn Sakuma

PĀHALA TOWN LIGHTED CHRISTMAS PARADE GOERS REVELED IN THE SNOW, produced by a machine along the route and drawing keiki to leap and catch it, courtesy of Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade Committee. 

    See more parade and other weekend event photos in Sunday's Kaʻū Calendar News Briefs.

Everyone revels in the manmade snow that came down on the Pāhala Town Lighted Christmas Parade route on Saturday.
Photo by Julia Neal

This Sunday: Kīlauea Military Camp on Crater Rim Drive in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park
offers two seatings for Brunch with Santa.

Volcano Art Center Gallery inside Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.