NBC Permit to Film at Mahai`ula Allows Use of Site 20 Days Per Month
The state Film Office has issued a permit to NBC to use Kekaha Kai State Park as a site for filming a new series, to be called “Wind on Water.” NBC’s decision to use the Big Island as the location for a series is being celebrated by local businesses and county and state government. According to NBC, the series will inject $12 million into the state economy, serve to promote the Big Island to a vast audience of television viewers, and will result in jobs for more than 200 people.
A group of residents who have worked hard to protect the park as a wilderness area is protesting the decision of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, through its director, Mike Wilson, to approve the permit. Although the permit is issued through the state Film Office, a division of the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, the DLNR had to sign off on the use, since it was within the state park. According to Doug Blake, several options are being considered to discourage NBC’s use of the park area, including legal action as well as on-site protests.
The film permit, which was issued July 15, allows NBC to use the area around the old Magoon house five to 10 days a month in preparation for filming, and five to 10 days a month for actual shooting on location. Starting July 20, the house and surrounding area were to be restored to the condition depicted during filming of the pilot series earlier this year. This, the permit states, will require up to 15 days of work in a one-month period, ending August 20.
Among other things, in the course of filming the series, NBC expects there will be horses on the beach and in the corral. (An attached condition requires all animal droppings to be “picked up promptly and properly disposed of”.) “Talent” — presumably to include Bo Derek, as the matriarch of a Big Island ranching family — will swim in the water and “walk around property.” Vehicles that will be on site during the shoots include 10 equipment trucks, 10 vans, 10 pickups, three motor homes, and two generators.
Conditions that the DLNR attached to the permit limit shooting to three days a week, although “shoot preparation may occur 5 days per week.” No work is allowed on weekends or holidays.
Beach use may be restricted. Condition 2 of the permit requires NBC to hire off-duty officers from the DLNR’s Division of Conservation and Resource Enforcement to monitor onsite shoot preparation and filming. “DOCARE will control access to the areas being used for filming, providing as much public use or access as possible, when areas are not in shoot or shoot prep use.”
One of the more unusual conditions relates to use of a seaplane. “The applicant shall obtain written approval of the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation and the Division of Aquatic Resources for the landing and tie-up of a seaplane at Mahai`ula, should such a vehicle be required,” the permit states. “In addition, the Department of Transportation, Airports Division, must be consulted regarding the operation of a seaplane within and under Keahole Airport flight patterns and approach zones.”
Condition 18 states, “Any temporary toilets provided in open areas of the premises should be posted with ‘public welcome’ signs.” Condition 19 prohibits commercial sales of series-related goods and services at the park. And Condition 20 requires NBC to “erect a temporary tent structure at a location on the park premises determined by the Division of State Parks, from which interim interpretive programs can be conducted.”
(For more on the “Wind on Water” series, see a related item in this issue’s “Board Talk” column. For more information on Mahai`ula, see the April 1995 edition of Environment Hawai`i, cover story and sidebars.)
Pollution Penalty To Go To Nature Center
In May, Environment Hawai`i reported that the state Department of Health was proposing to allow Maui Electric (MECO) to settle clean-air violations by making a donation to the Hawai`i Nature Center — this despite two directors of Maui Electric’s parent corporation, HEI, Inc., also sitting on the HNC board. The donation, of $100,000, was to support HNC’s development of an educational display on the value of clean air — this despite the failure of HNC to evince the least interest in clean-air issues up to this point.
After receiving public comment on the proposed settlement, the Department of Health has decided to approve the arrangement. Wilfred Nagamine, manager of the Clean Air Branch of the state Department of Health, said that, notwithstanding concerns over the HEI directors’ affiliation with the HNC, “we do not think that this disqualifies the HNC. The HNC does an excellent job in educating the public about environmental issues.”
In response to the concerns, the Department of Health has added provisions to the consent decree, Nagamine said, “to ensure that the penalty will not be tax deductible and that MECO cannot use the display as a way of promoting itself.”
Thus, paragraph 22 of the agreement provides that MECO “shall not deduct any SEP [Supplemental Environmental Project] expenditure from its federal or state taxable income and shall not claim any tax credits for any SEP expenditure.” To avoid the possibility of MECO promoting itself through the display, Paragraph 25 states, “Respondent shall not reference implementation of the SEP in any representation to the public, including, but not limited to, advertisements, promotions, or annual reports, without explicitly stating in any such representation that it undertook implementation of the SEP in response to an enforcement action by DOH.”
Meanwhile, the plans of Maui Electric to build a new power generating facility at Waena, near Pu`unene, were given a boost with the decision of the state Land Use Commission to approve addition of the site into the Urban land use district. The LUC petition was the subject of the cover story in the April 1998 Environment Hawai`i.
Hawaiian Electric Unveils Power Line EIS
The long-awaited draft environmental impact statement for a high-voltage power line crossing Wa`ahila Ridge, on the border of O`ahu’s Manoa and Palolo valleys, has been released. The deadline for public comment is August 7.
Long before the EIS was released, the project had generated a great deal of community interest and controversy. Adding to the controversy were the efforts of Hawaiian Electric Co. to copyright the draft EIS. The first print run of both volumes 1 and 2 of the document bear a copyright symbol as well as the warning that “any unauthorized copying, distribution or adaptation is strictly prohibited.” Community members were concerned that this was an effort by HECO to restrict circulation of the draft EIS.
The state Office of Environmental Quality Control informed HECO that the document would not be announced in the OEQC’s publication, The Environmental Notice, unless the copyright were removed. HECO complied, and notice was published in the June 23 issue of the Notice.
HECO argues that the power line is required to improve system-wide reliability and avoid future power outages. The draft EIS reviews a variety of alternatives, including all-overhead, all underground, and a mixture of overhead and underground lines. The preferred alternative calls for placing lines underground from the Kamoku substation on Date Street to roughly the beginning of the East-West Road on the University of Hawai`i campus. The overhead lines would travel up and over Wa`ahila Ridge to the back of Palolo Valley, where they would link up to the Pukele substation.
In 1997, Wa`ahila Ridge was listed as one of America’s eleven most endangered historic places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in large measure because of HECO’s plans to build 19 steel towers, 100 to 120 feet high, along the ridge.
Neighborhood boards that have adopted resolutions opposing the Wa`ahila Ridge overhead option include those for Manoa, Diamond Head/Kapahulu/St. Louis Heights, and Palolo.
Comments on the draft EIS are being accepted through August 7 by the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Land Division (attention: Sam Lemmo), at 1151 Punchbowl Street, Honolulu HI 96813. Copies of the document are available at public libraries in the affected area, at the DLNR, at the OEQC, and at the state library on King Street.
DLNR To Fence Manuka Kipuka
The state Department of Land and Natural Resources, through its Division of Forestry and Wildlife, has drawn praise from regulatory agencies and environmentalists for its plan to fence off a portion of the Manuka Natural Area Reserve, in the Ka`u district of the Big Island. The fence is to prevent pigs from entering the area, which, according to the environmental assessment, contains large `ohi`a trees (100 feet tall, up to 6 feet in diameter), “scattered amongst a closed understory dominated by Olopua (Nestegis sandwicensis) and `Aulu (Pisonia sandwicensis) trees up to 90 feet tall.” This type of forest, the EA goes on to state, “was once common in Hawai`i’s leeward lowlands, but has been almost completely displaced by agriculture, fire, and invasion by non-native plant species. Remnants of this plant community exist elsewhere on Hawai`i and the other islands, but the Olopua forests of Manuka are the most extensive and least disturbed example remaining in the state.”
Animal life in the area includes “a high diversity of native invertebrates,” including native crickets, spiders, flies, bees, wasps, and plant hoppers. Two native birds –`Elepaio and `Amakihi — are “very common in the tall forests in and around the project area.”
Comments on the environmental assessment were consistently favorable. Most had high praise for Byron Stevens, the Natural Area specialist who developed the plan. The late Brooks Harper, of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s ecoregion office in Honolulu, wrote: “The Service applauds NARS [the Natural Area Reserve System] for the development of proactive measures designed to protect Hawai`i’s natural resources.”
Others joining in support for the plan included the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund, the Moku Loa [Big Island] group of the Sierra Club, Frank Howarth of Bishop Museum, and Tim Tunison, chief of resources management for Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.
The area to be enclosed represents less than 1 percent of the entire Manuka reserve. This prompted some who commented on the draft Environmental Assessment to question why more land was not being proposed for fencing.
In response, Stevens pointed out that “most of the NAR is too rocky for pigs or weeds. Most of the few areas in the Reserve that do have soil have been so disturbed that the present vegetation assemblage can in no way be considered ‘natural’. This kipuka is a rare exception, and as such has a higher priority for protection than the rest of the reserve.”
The fencing plan was scheduled for approval by the Board of Land and Natural Resources at its meeting on July 24.
Mahalo to Friends
Environment Hawai`i extends its sincerest thanks to those who have supported us with donations over the last six months. They include:
Paul Alston; Diane Amuro; Eve Anderson; Denise Antolini; Ben Bagdikian; Paul Banko; Carl Berg; Gary and Beryl Blaich; James Brock; Harold Bronstein; Kimo Campbell; Vince Chow; Carl Christensen; Ed Clark; Donald Collado; Mary Cooke; Allen Couture; Joseph Dentry; Laurel Douglass; Leo and Kay Drey; Ellen Dudley; Anne Earhart; David Kimo Frankel; Fraser Felter; Begsy Gagne; Ronald and Claudie Gelles; the Gerbode Foundation; Cynee Gillette-Wenner; Isaac and Dana Naone Hall; Mike Hamnett; Julie Higa; Lela Hubbard;
Virginia Isbell; James and JoAnne Johnson; Michael Jones; Annette Kaohelauli`i; Po`omai Kawananakoa; Yvonne Kearns; Marion Kelly; H. and M. King; Robert Kinzie; Jeanette Koijane and Markus Faigle; Doug Lamerson; David Lassner; Timothy Launhardt; Terrance Llanos; Russell Lloyd; Amy Luersen;
Robert Marr Jr.; T.J. McAniff; John McLaren; Doug and Christine Meller; Lola Mench; Steve Miller and Mabel Trafford; Marie Morin; Mina Morita; William Mull; Jacob O’Connor; Chris and Steve Oliver; William and Marguerite Paty; The Pohaku Fund of the Tides Foundation; Richard Poirier; Thane and Linda Pratt; Robert Pyle; Florence Rice; Sally Rice; Barbara Robeson; Ira Rohter;
Mark Sheehan; Michael Simonds; Bill Stormont; Donald Swanson; Robert Thiel; Peter Thompson; Nathalie Tucker; Thomas Walsh; Deborah Ward; Rick Warshauer; Frederick Wichman; Carol Wilcox; Jim and Doris Williamson; Philip Yu; and Alan Ziegler.
Volume 9, Number 2 August 1998