On June 14, U.S. District Judge David Ezra denied without prejudice the Hawai`i Longline Association’s (HLA) appeal of a January settlement between the National Marine Fisheries Service and environmental groups regarding interactions between the shallow-set longline fishery and threatened loggerhead … Continued
Land Board Fines Eco-Tour Company for Cutting Trail in Conservation District Sam Lemmo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. KapohoKine Adventures, LLC, was arguing that it cut a trail through the Conservation District in Honoli`i, Hawai`i, merely to allow neighboring … Continued
Planning is a good thing. And the 15-year Comprehensive Conservation Plan for the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge is, by our lights, a pretty good one. But the thing about planning is this: it should never undercut its own viability. … Continued
The food irradiator that Michael Kohn of Pa`ina Hawai`i has been planning for years is stalled out once more. Kohn, it will be recalled, obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to built a cobalt-60 food irradiator near the … Continued
Did the storm water that accumulated at the Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill last December and January come into contact with solid waste, thus requiring it to be treated as leachate? This question is at the heart of a dispute between … Continued
Developers of a proposed light industrial park in Lualualei Valley want more time to secure adequate access to the site, since one government official after another has told them that the project will not likely receive the approvals it needs … Continued
Last September, the ADC’s Kekaha Committee gave preliminary approval to PLP’s proposals, in large part, because they included upgrades to the area’s electricity and irrigation infrastructure. The hydropower projects alone would generate 11 megawatts of power, which would be sold … Continued
Alone among Hawai`i’s four counties, Kaua`i is hard at work on developing maps indicating its most important agricultural lands. O`ahu, Maui, and Hawai`i have yet to leave the starting gate, when it comes to developing the “inclusive process for public … Continued
Since the Legislature passed a measure giving landowners incentives to protect important agricultural lands in 2008, the state Land Use Commission has been presented with a total of five IAL petitions. In the first two years after passage of Act … Continued
Like a dagger through the heart, the state-owned Piha tract tears straight through the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge. Technically, Piha is part of Hawai`i’s system of forest reserves, set aside in the early part of the 20th century to … Continued