The Department of Transportation has got religion — and a peculiar one it is, at that.
We’re not talking about any orthodox faith here. It’s not shared by the traditional advocates of the tourism industry, whose high priests and bishops embrace the credo that bigger airports mean bigger planes mean bigger and bigger numbers of tourists.
It’s certainly not a faith inspired by belief in the sanctity of state and federal laws on environmental impact statements. The DOT’s draft environmental impact statement for proposed expansions of the Kahului airport on Maui is a kick in the teeth to those statutes.
Most assuredly the DOT’s religion is not informed by the same values that inspire those concerned with protecting Hawai`i’s natural wonders and cultural heritage, even when those qualities run up against the push for greater economic growth, as they inevitably do.
Unorthodox it may be, but religion it surely is, and its tenets and dogma are expressed, in nearly every page of the DEIS, in the claim that no matter what occurs by way of expansion of the Kahului airport, there will be no impact on the number of people who fly into and out of Maui.
A Higher Good?
The DOT does not set forth serious arguments to support this claim. One simply believes, or one does not. But even for believers the question remains: If the airport is adequate to handle all projected traffic through the year 2005, and if it is safe (as the DOT insists it is), why bother to expand it?
Only the DOT knows for sure, but our guess is: to keep business booming for the consultants, engineers, architects, and the like who over the years have established a cozy, symbiotic relationship with the DOT. The Department of Transportation, whose airports division is but one of the many contracting branches, has become the employer of first resort for this group. Contracts are routinely awarded without bids being sought. The possibility that jobs are linked to campaign contributions cannot be lightly dismissed, especially when the most cursory glance through the reports of the Campaign Spending Commission suggests that the political war chests of the state’s most powerful elected officials would be hugely diminished if contributions from consultants were disallowed.
Consider just the one contract that Belt Collins & Associates has received for work related to the Kahului airport. The contract is worth almost $1.3 million already, and may well increase. The DOT has not been able to show that the terms of the contract have been met — that is, that all of the work products called for have been produced. At the same time, the DOT is engaging other consultants — for example, KPMG Peat Marwick — to undertake work identical to that which Belt Collins was supposed to produce. What work Belt Collins has submitted so far (the draft environmental impact statement) has been so roundly and soundly criticized that the DOT is having it rewritten (by Belt Collins).
If such duplication of tasks and failure to deliver on contractual obligations were the norm in the private sector, capitalism would have come to a screeching halt decades ago. Yet this seems to be business as usual for the DOT.
Scaling Back
For years, the Department of Transportation has been spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Thanks largely to revenue from the duty-free concession, which lately has accounted for approximately 70 percent of all airport concession revenues, it did not have to face the sorts of economic constraints that have impinged on nearly every other sector of state government. The result can be seen in the dizzying indebtedness that the DOT has taken on for its airport projects statewide — indebtedness that now totals more than $1 billion, and which is expected to grow by $1.5 billion more before 1997.
The party is over. DFS, holder of the state-awarded concession to operate duty-free shops statewide, not only over-estimated its revenues, it also did not anticipate the slump in tourist traffic caused by the Persian Gulf War. Consequently, the state has allowed DFS to defer payment on its concession obligations. On top of that, the highways division of DOT, covetous of all the duty-free revenue generated at shops other than airports, has managed to take a substantial bite — more than 80 percent — out of the share of duty-free revenues that, up until now, had been available solely for use for improvements to and around the state’s airports.
To take up the slack, the airports division is negotiating with airport users (airlines, for the most part) to get them to pay the “real costs” of their tenancy of airport premises. It is also likely to impose what amounts to a landing tax on users of the Honolulu airport.
The inevitable result is higher fares, not just for passengers traveling out of state, but for inter-island passengers as well. And, wearing the same dogmatic blinders as it did with regard to Maui air traffic forecasts, the DOT airports division stoutly claims that the airport user fees can rise, fares can go up, and passengers can be dunned every time they come in and out of Honolulu, without any of this having the least effect on airport revenues — and, therefore, without forcing the airports division to get a handle on the free-wheeling, free-spending policies of the past.
As for the Environment
The expansion of the Kahului airport will have direct and indirect impacts on Maui’s environment. Shame upon the Department of Transportation and its minions at Belt Collins, Pacific Planning, and elsewhere for their contorted logic and unconvincing arguments to the contrary.
The impacts are substantial. Any expansion of the airport will further jeopardize the forlorn habitat of the Hawaiian stilt and coot at Kanaha Pond. It will inevitably degrade the quantity and quality of the island’s water. It will increase air pollution, exacerbate already intolerable airport-generated noise, and strain Maui’s already overtaxed sewage treatment systems and roadways. It will do all this and more, as has been pointed out in articulate fashion by the hundreds of people commenting critically on the DOT’s feeble document.
The DOT should go back to the drawing board if, after reviewing the unsparing comments of the public, it continues to have any thought of expanding the Kahului airport. An entirely new draft environmental impact statement is called for, one that meaningfully addresses the far-ranging environmental consequences that inevitably attend undertakings of this scale and scope.
More than that, the DOT needs to drop its religion of convenience and face the real world. No longer is it possible to award contracts like candy. Consultants who deliver products that are unable to withstand public scrutiny or, worse yet, are an engraved invitation to court should be cut out of the loop — regardless of how much, how frequently, and to whose campaign they have contributed.
Volume 2, Number 8 February 1992