The Hawai'i chapter of the Society of Professonal Journalists has awarded Environment Hawai'i its top prize for editorial writing in the open print category. (That means we were competing against all other print media.) The winning entry was our editorial last December on the decline of bigeye tuna.

We also took top honors in the category of industry reporting by a magazine. Again, it was for our reporting on fisheries -- specifically, our September 2009 cover story, "Longliners Attempt End Run aroud Bigeye Quotas."

Finally, we were a runner-up in the category of investigative reporting for our work on -- what else? Fisheries management.

The long-stalled plans to build an irradiator on O`ahu have met with another hurdle. In July, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sided with irradiator opponents who claim the NRC staff did not sufficiently consider all environmental risks in the assessment it conducted three-plus years ago.

To read the NRC order, click here: July NRC Order.

To read one of our early reports (February 2007) on the irradiator, click here: Draft EA for Irradiator Is Released.

The right of citizens to sue to enforce the state’s land use law got a huge boost when the state Supreme Court overturned a decision of the Intermediate Court of Appeals. The ICA had declined to hear the case, involving a charter school on Agriculture land near Hilo. A central issue in the case was whether Ala Loop Homeowners had the right to sue to enforce the state land use law. The association objected to the use of land along Ala Loop, a narrow road off the Volcano Highway, by the Waters of Life (Wai`ola) charter school as its campus.

The Supreme Court essentially determined that state land use law is part of the class of laws intended to protect public safety and health -- and, as such, charter schools are not exempt from having to comply. Since the public has a constitutional right to sue to enforce laws relating to health and safety, there was no bar to the neighbors' lawsuit.

Click here to read the 81-page decision: Supreme Court Ala Loop Opinion.

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The U.S. Geological Survey recently published its report on the impacts that stream diversions and other structures to control stream flows have had on Na Wai `Eha, the four major streams flowing down the eastern slopes of the West Maui mountains.

The study, by Delwyn Oki, Reuben Wolff, and Jeff Perreault, is available here: Effects of Diversions on Na Wai `Eha

Our review of this important work follows:more...

In December 2007, the Board of Land and Natural Resources denied the request of owners of vacation rentals in Ha'ena, Kaua'i, to alter the terms of their Conservation District Use Permits so that rentals would be an allowed use. One of the conditions in their CDUPs was that no commercial use of their properties would be allowed.

The owners filed suit in 5th Circuit Court (Kaua'i), where Judge Kathleen Watanabe threw out their claims in November 2008, siding with the BLNR in the state's motion for summary judgment. They then appealed to the Intermediate Court of Appeals, which found that the owners' request for a contested case hearing before the Land Board had been improperly denied.

The ICA remanded the matter back to the Land Board for a determination as to whether the landowners are entitled to a contested case hearing. Although (as our report on the case notes, in our January 2008 issue) the board had gone into executive session to discuss the contested-case issue at its December 2007 meeting, it did not vote to deny the request. Rather, the deputy attorney general stated that the landowners were not entitled to a contested-case hearing on their petition to amend CDUP conditions.

The ICA order may be read here: Ha'ena Hui vs. BLNR and Thielen

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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Charles Chidiac was one of the more mysterious men about town in Honolulu. He was the nephew of a Lebanese president, fancied himself the incarnation of El Cid, and was rumored to have ties to the global arms trade. His vision for a remote stretch of the Ka`u coastline included a resort hotel in the style of `Iolani Palace, a world-class yacht harbor, and a private air strip. And the Land Use Commission bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

A challenge to his project by residents of the fishing village of Miloli`i was upheld in court and the case was remanded to the LUC. Before any further action was taken, Chidiac's Hawai`i empire collapsed, his former partners took over the land, and he returned to his native Lebanon. In 2007, he was an unsuccessful candidate for president of that country.

In light of the September 2009 notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for a new development in the same area, our article on the history of speculation over this property is still relevant today.

Here are three articles from our July 1991 issue, addressing Chidiac's financing, past speculative ventures involving the Ka`u land, and some of Chidiac's other business deals.

Developer Owes Millions to Offshore Bank

Ghosts of Speculators Past ...

The London-Hawai`i-Bermuda Triangle

Chidiac continues to be linked in some intriguing ways to activities involving the U.S. government, as sketched in recent litigation involving Chidiac and two of his children. Read more below. more...

As Hawai`i experiences one extinction after another, the question inevitably arises: What are the scientists in the forefront of conservation biology doing to address this? David Duffy of the University of Hawai`i and Fred Kraus of the Bishop Museum do more than just raise the question: they attempt to answer it. more...