Hawai’i Deserves Chance to Comment on NEXRAD
Maybe the NEXRAD folks have nothing to hide. Why, then, are they acting as if they do?
Sure, technically they have complied with the disclosure requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. Notice of the Finding of No Significant Impact issued for the Moloka’i NEXRAD was carried by the Federal Register. Notice was also given to the state Office of Environmental Quality Control albeit at a date so late as to preclude, for all practical purposes, meaningful public comment.
Even if the FONSI and Environmental Assessment on which it rests had been widely available for public review, readers would not have obtained – through those documents, at least – any including of the peak exposures to radio frequency radiation that will occur if people are in the path of NEXRAD’s powerful beam. The EA gives only a diluted, “time-average” measurement.
Further, these documents give readers no hint of the legitimate, honest debate over the biological responses to exposures to radiofrequency radiation. To get some appreciation of the extent and seriousness of this debate, one must consult a separate Supplemental Environmental Assessment purporting to be a serious discussion of these issues.
But that document would itself seem to provide an account of the state of scientific debate weighted heavily in favor of the outcome desired by the clients of the consultants who prepared it.
The stated benefits of NEXRAD are not so urgent as to warrant the stifling of discourse. Whether this has occurred as a result of oversight or the desire for expedience matters not at all.
Before the first NEXRAD is built in Hawai’i, the opportunity for comment and discussion should be reopened. And this time, rather than being concerned merely to meet the strict letter of the law, the various federal agencies proposing the system would do well to pay heed to the law’s intent.
There’s Money To Be Made in CDs
Conservation Districts are not supposed to be high-yield investment instruments, but don’t tell that to Michael Rearden, who, in 1992, was on the verge of selling his Conservation District land, with intact permit to build, for $2.8 million – roughly 10 times what he paid for it seven years earlier.
The Board of Land and Natural Resources appears to have been badly used – unwittingly, we hope, but used nonetheless – in what Rearden himself called “a very careful strategy” to enhance the value of land he may, or then again, may not, own.
We understand all too well that the staff of the Department of Land and Natural Resources does not have the wherewithal to verify every statement made by each applicant for a Conservation District Use Permit. In the case of Rearden, however, so many flags had been raised over the life of the permit – changes in names, claims of ongoing litigation, mention of encumbrances, to cite only a few – that at least some superficial investigation would appear to have been warranted. Had that occurred, presumably the vast wealth of the court records would have been available for staff perusal – and (hope springs eternal) the rather perfunctory processing of time-extension requests would not have occurred. One of the conditions of, the permit to Rearden/Reardon/McGonigle provides that if information and data provided by the applicant “prove to be false, incomplete or inaccurate, this permit may be modified, suspended or revoked, in whole or in part, and/or the Department may, in addition, institute appropriate legal proceedings.” The time maybe at hand for the Board to undertake a rigorous, thorough-going investigation of the representations made by Rearden to the Land Board over the last seven years.
Perhaps there’s really no problem. But there is surely enough to go on right now to justify a harder look.
A Pearl of Great Price
The Navy’s shipyards at Charleston, South Carolina, and Mare Island, California, are being closed. This puts them out of the running for indefinite storage of spent nuclear fuel from naval reactors – waste that is highly radioactive and bait for outlaw bomb-makers, to boot.
According to a General Accounting Office report, however, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission found that, when ranked in terms of military value, Pearl Harbor shipyard should have been closed instead of Charleston. Had that occurred, people of Hawai’i would not now be faced with the prospect of spent nuclear fuel being parked at the shipyard for decades to come.
Those who breathe great sighs of relief on news of the Pearl Harbor shipyard retention might ask themselves if indeed Honolulu is better off for the shipyard’s presence. In Charleston, the city will see the shipyard cleaned up and restored to public use, while at Pearl, the dangers of toxic contamination seem to grow greater by the day.
Mahalo
Environment Hawai`i wishes to thank the following for their generous donations: Kay and Leo Drey of St. Louis, Missouri; Don and Pam Lichty of Honolulu; and Jay and Phyllis Hanson of Kailua-Kona.
Volume 4, Number 4 October 1993
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