Letters

SMA Bill’s Defeat Is A Win for Environment

In the fast-moving pace of the legislative session, we should take time to applaud our occasional victories for the environment. The demise of House Bill 2649 is one such victory.

House Bill 2649, the boating interest bill, generated heated discussion in the Committee on Ocean and Marine Resources. Community-based opposition resulted in the bill being held in committee, and showed that democracy can work.

House Bill 2649 would have significantly altered the Special Management Area law. Generally referred to as a “SMA,” Special Management Areas are the beach and adjacent land areas around our islands. This bill would have transferred the authority to approve permits for activities within the SMA from the county planning commissions on Kaua’i, Hawai’i, and Maui to their respective county councils. Deceivingly innocuous, this change would have denied communities the right to challenge SMA permits at the administrative level, and would have prevented the public’s right to oppose permits in a contested case proceeding.

If responsibility to manage SMA’s had been transferred to county councils, council members would have been the sole decision-makers; their decisions would not be subject to citizen challenge or, equally important, to judicial review. By delegating sole legal input and authority to the councils, special development interests could have prevailed in these fragile areas without legal recourse for the community.

On O’ahu, where the City Council is the permitting authority and the Planning Commission is merely advisory to the council, the council’s actions are not subject to judicial review and no opportunity for a contested case hearing is provided. This does not provide maximum protection to the SMA on O’ahu. With the death of House Bill 2649, we have protected the SMAs on our neighbor islands.

Cynthia Thielen
Minority Floor leader
House of Representatives

FAA Seeks Comment On Park Overflights

On March 15, 1994, the Federal Aviation Administration released for public comment an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) with regard to overflights of national parks. The ANPRM spells out a number of options being considered by the FAA as a possible means of dealing with aviation noise pollution in the parks. No specific solution is proposed; rather, citizen input is being solicited until June 16, 1994, on the options under consideration.

The FAA has asked for comment on eight possible options. Because of the very small size of Hawai’i’s parks, not one of the options proposed by the FAA is satisfactory for Hawai’i. The FAA asks in the ANPRM if there are parks where commercial air sightseeing tours should be wholly prohibited and, if so, what criteria should be used in making that determination. The Conservation Council for Hawai’i, Citizens Against Noise, Sierra Club, Hawai’i Chapter, and 10 other environmental organizations have taken the position that commercial sightseeing tour overflights of the national parks in Hawai’i should be absolutely prohibited. Citizens Against Noise asks that people wishing to comment stress the need for a two-mile buffer zone around the entire perimeter of all of Hawai’i’s national park lands.

As to what criteria should be used for determining the appropriateness of a ban on overflights, CAN proposes consideration of the fact that countless sites in Hawai’i’s parks are sacred to Native Hawaiians. Also, the parks are home to numerous endangered bird species whose habits are disrupted by excessive aviation noise. The parks contain vast tracts of officially designated “wilderness” areas, whose pristine character the Park Services is mandated to protect and maintain. In Haleakala, there is also the fact that the crater’s bowl-like configuration amplifies the sound of overflying aircraft.

Comments to the FAA need not be long, brief personal accounts of unhappy experiences with noisy aircraft in Hawai’i’s national parks would be appropriate to include.

People wishing to comment must send their statements, in triplicate, by June 16, 1994 to: Office of Chief Counsel, Rules Docket (AGC-200), Docket No.27643, 8oo Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20591. If possible, please send a copy of your remarks to the undersigned at 2695 Lia Place, Haiku, Hawai’i 96708.

Mahalo.

David Leese
Citizens Against Noise
Haiku, Maui

Volume 4, Number 12 June 1994