Environment Hawai'i

EH-XTRA! EH-XTRA! READ ALL ABOUT...

In the grand old tradition of the New York Times, we would love to publish all the news that's fit to print. Alas, with just 12 pages a month, we end up with a surplus of goodies.

EH-xtra is where you'll find the news that we just couldn't squeeze into our print edition or come up after we have gone to press. It's also where you can catch glimpses of our archives -- going back to July 1990 -- for free!

NMFS Is Sued over New Rules for Swordfishing

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced new rules for the longline swordfish fishery on December 10. Six days later, the agency was sued by a coalition of conservation groups, who allege that the rules violate the Endangeed Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The rules lift the limits on effort that had been in place since the swordfish fishery was opened up after a judicial closure in the early part of the decade. The limits were intended to protect loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles. Now that effort is no longer limited, the fishery can "take" (including injure or kill) up to 46 loggerheads a year -- up from the 17 previously allowed. (The hard limit of 17 leatherbacks remains in place.)

To see the full complaint, click here: more...

Laupahoehoe Advisory Council

In October, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources unanimously approved a recommendation by the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Forestry and Wildlife to create a Laupahoehoe Advisory Council to provide guidance to DOFAW and the U.S. Forest Service on activities within the Laupahoehoe Unit of the USDA’s Hawai`i Experimental Tropical Forest. The council’s 10-14 members will be appointed by the Land Board chair and will include experts in scientific research, cultural and historical resources, natural resource management, hunting, recreation and public access, education, and additional community members at large.

The council will be a “means to consistently manage both units of the HETF as a whole,” according to DOFAW’s report to the Land Board.

A Council Member's Dissenting View on Bigeye Issue

Peter Young, appointed by the governor to represent Hawai’i on the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, has voiced his strong disagreement with the council’s action on bigeye tuna in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke.

Read Young’s letter:
Peter_Young_statement.pdf

Environmental Council Goes on Strike

The state Environmental Council has had it with the Lingle administration’s lack of support. In a letter August 17 to deputy director of Health Laurence Lau, council chairman Gail Grabowsky announced that the council would not be meeting again until certain conditions had been met:

more...

NMFS Reporting Requirements Give Council Broad Leeway Over Spending

From Volume 18, Number 12 -- June 2008

In partial response to a Freedom-of-Information-Act request by Environment Hawai`i filed last November, the National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Regional Office in March delivered 254 pages of records relating to Western Pacific Fishery Management Council activities. This is the second bolus of documents coughed up by the council and the agency in response to the request.

Included in the recent shipment were copies of the council’s budgets for 2005 through 2009, which are presented to NMFS in the form of a five-year grant application. The budget was just shy of $5 million for the 2005 calendar year ($4.963 million). Increases of 5 percent were anticipated for each of the listed years, with the 2009 budget pegged at $6.159 million. The current year’s budget is given as $5.848 million. Totals for the five-year period come to $27,770,862.

Salaries and fringe benefits make up the largest chunk of the council budgets. For 2009, around 23 percent of the overall spending falls into this category ($1.416 million).

But the budgets represent only a projection and not necessarily what the council actually has spent or will spend in future years. At a NMFS website showing all grants (including those for the regional fishery management councils), the five-year umbrella budget for the Western Pacific council shows up as $14,572,465. Scott Bloom, grant program manager for the NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office, said he believed this amount reflected funds that NMFS has paid to the council since the inception of the award in 2005. However, details of the grant (award NA05NMF4411092 on the NOAA website, grantsonline.rdc.noaa.gov) do not support that interpretation.

Bloom also noted that the actual amounts received depend on year-to-year congressional appropriations as well as internal NMFS formulae that determine how lump-sum budget amounts are to be allocated among the regional councils.

So how much does the council really get and spend?

The question may be simple. Answering it is anything but.

more...

Yellow Light on Biofuels

The nation’s premier professional association for ecologists, the Ecological Society of America, has weighed in with a statement on biofuels that urges policy-makers and planners to go slow in converting lands to biofuel crops.

“Supplying the emerging biofuels industry with enough biomass to meet the U.S. biofuel energy target – replacing 30 percent of the current U.S. petroleum consumption with biofuels by 2030 – will have a major impact on the management and sustainability of many U.S. ecosystems,” reads the policy statement from the society, which represents some 10,000 ecological scientists.

“Current grain-based ethanol production systems damage soil and water resources in the U.S. and are only profitable in the context of tax breaks and tariffs,” the society said in a news release. “Future systems based on a combination of cellulosic materials and grain could be equally degrading to the environment, with potentially little carbon savings, unless steps are taken now that incorporate principles of ecological sustainability.”

The full policy statement is available on the society’s website: www.esa.org

To post comments about this article please click here

DBCP and Dole, 30 Years Later

Dibromochloropropane, a nasty pesticide that continues to lurk in Hawai`i’s aquifers long after the pineapple fields have gone fallow, was used throughout Central America as well – and with consequences equally disastrous. In November, a Los Angeles jury found that Dole Food Co. had deliberately exposed six Nicaraguan banana workers to DBCP, rendering them sterile. A Nicaraguan court had found Dole culpable earlier, but lawyers for the plantiffs said the workers were unable to collect on their judgments in that country. The jury ordered Dole and Dow Chemical Co. to pay compensatory damages to the six totaling $2.8 million, with Dole bearing 80 percent of the responsibility; punitive damages may still come.more...

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Browse our free archive of EH-xtra stories.

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CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN THE AGE OF EXTINCTIONS

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...



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EH-XTRA! EH-XTRA! READ ALL ABOUT... In the grand old tradition of the New York Times, we would love to publish all the news that's fit to print. Alas, with just 12 pages a month, we end up with a surplus of goodies. EH-xtra is where you'll find the news that we just couldn't squeeze into our print edition or come up after we have gone to press. It's also where you can catch glimpses of our archives -- going back to July 1990 -- for free! NMFS Is Sued over New Rules for Swordfishing The National Marine Fisheries Service announced new rules for the longline swordfish fishery on December 10. Six days later, the agency was sued by a coalition of conservation groups, who allege that the rules violate the Endangeed Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The rules lift the limits on effort that had been in place since the swordfish fishery was opened up after a judicial closure in the early part of the decade. The limits were intended to protect loggerhead and leatherback sea turtles. Now that effort is no longer limited, the fishery can "take" (including injure or kill) up to 46 loggerheads a year -- up from the 17 previously allowed. (The hard limit of 17 leatherbacks remains in place.) To see the full complaint, click here: more... Laupahoehoe Advisory Council In October, the state Board of Land and Natural Resources unanimously approved a recommendation by the Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Forestry and Wildlife to create a Laupahoehoe Advisory Council to provide guidance to DOFAW and the U.S. Forest Service on activities within the Laupahoehoe Unit of the USDA’s Hawai`i Experimental Tropical Forest. The council’s 10-14 members will be appointed by the Land Board chair and will include experts in scientific research, cultural and historical resources, natural resource management, hunting, recreation and public access, education, and additional community members at large. The council will be a “means to consistently manage both units of the HETF as a whole,” according to DOFAW’s report to the Land Board. A Council Member's Dissenting View on Bigeye Issue Peter Young, appointed by the governor to represent Hawai’i on the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, has voiced his strong disagreement with the council’s action on bigeye tuna in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke. Read Young’s letter: Peter_Young_statement.pdf Environmental Council Goes on Strike The state Environmental Council has had it with the Lingle administration’s lack of support. In a letter August 17 to deputy director of Health Laurence Lau, council chairman Gail Grabowsky announced that the council would not be meeting again until certain conditions had been met: more... NMFS Reporting Requirements Give Council Broad Leeway Over Spending From Volume 18, Number 12 -- June 2008 In partial response to a Freedom-of-Information-Act request by Environment Hawai`i filed last November, the National Marine Fisheries Service Pacific Islands Regional Office in March delivered 254 pages of records relating to Western Pacific Fishery Management Council activities. This is the second bolus of documents coughed up by the council and the agency in response to the request. Included in the recent shipment were copies of the council’s budgets for 2005 through 2009, which are presented to NMFS in the form of a five-year grant application. The budget was just shy of $5 million for the 2005 calendar year ($4.963 million). Increases of 5 percent were anticipated for each of the listed years, with the 2009 budget pegged at $6.159 million. The current year’s budget is given as $5.848 million. Totals for the five-year period come to $27,770,862. Salaries and fringe benefits make up the largest chunk of the council budgets. For 2009, around 23 percent of the overall spending falls into this category ($1.416 million). But the budgets represent only a projection and not necessarily what the council actually has spent or will spend in future years. At a NMFS website showing all grants (including those for the regional fishery management councils), the five-year umbrella budget for the Western Pacific council shows up as $14,572,465. Scott Bloom, grant program manager for the NMFS Pacific Islands Regional Office, said he believed this amount reflected funds that NMFS has paid to the council since the inception of the award in 2005. However, details of the grant (award NA05NMF4411092 on the NOAA website, grantsonline.rdc.noaa.gov) do not support that interpretation. Bloom also noted that the actual amounts received depend on year-to-year congressional appropriations as well as internal NMFS formulae that determine how lump-sum budget amounts are to be allocated among the regional councils. So how much does the council really get and spend? The question may be simple. Answering it is anything but. more... Yellow Light on Biofuels The nation’s premier professional association for ecologists, the Ecological Society of America, has weighed in with a statement on biofuels that urges policy-makers and planners to go slow in converting lands to biofuel crops. “Supplying the emerging biofuels industry with enough biomass to meet the U.S. biofuel energy target – replacing 30 percent of the current U.S. petroleum consumption with biofuels by 2030 – will have a major impact on the management and sustainability of many U.S. ecosystems,” reads the policy statement from the society, which represents some 10,000 ecological scientists. “Current grain-based ethanol production systems damage soil and water resources in the U.S. and are only profitable in the context of tax breaks and tariffs,” the society said in a news release. “Future systems based on a combination of cellulosic materials and grain could be equally degrading to the environment, with potentially little carbon savings, unless steps are taken now that incorporate principles of ecological sustainability.” The full policy statement is available on the society’s website: www.esa.org To post comments about this article please click here DBCP and Dole, 30 Years Later Dibromochloropropane, a nasty pesticide that continues to lurk in Hawai`i’s aquifers long after the pineapple fields have gone fallow, was used throughout Central America as well – and with consequences equally disastrous. In November, a Los Angeles jury found that Dole Food Co. had deliberately exposed six Nicaraguan banana workers to DBCP, rendering them sterile. A Nicaraguan court had found Dole culpable earlier, but lawyers for the plantiffs said the workers were unable to collect on their judgments in that country. The jury ordered Dole and Dow Chemical Co. to pay compensatory damages to the six totaling $2.8 million, with Dole bearing 80 percent of the responsibility; punitive damages may still come.more... EH-xtra Archives Browse our free archive of EH-xtra stories. more... CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN THE AGE OF EXTINCTIONS 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...	SUMMARY OF CURRENT ISSUE MARCH 2010 Stalemate at Turtle Bay With no penalty for delay of game, no fine for failure to act, and small chance of public opprobrium, the Land Use Commission has decided not to decide an issue on whose resolution hangs the fate of a development that will change the face of O`ahu’s North Shore. For the time being, at least, the standoff continues between the developer and groups who want to see, at the very least, an updated environmental review to replace one drawn up a quarter century ago. Perhaps when the Supreme Court forces it to act, the LUC members will show some spine. But as is clear from both the examples discussed in this issue – Kuilima on O`ahu, `Aina Le`a on the Big Island – haste, deliberate or otherwise, is a stranger to the commission. And, as our coverage of the East Maui stream diversions suggests, the LUC’s affliction has infected the Water Commission as well. Also in this issue: In Push to Cut State budget, Lingle Deals Crushing Blow to Environment Programs. In the governor’s budget for the next fiscal year, the state’s programs to protect land, water, native species, and environmental health suffer cuts altogether out of proportion to their meager share of state spending. Water Commission Defers Vote on East Maui Stream Restoration. For two decades, A&B has diverted millions of gallons of water a day from the streams of East Maui, over the protests of Native Hawaiians who want to restore taro fields and conservationists who want to see life returned to the water courses. At the most recent commission meeting to deal with the dispute, however, delay was the name of the game. Some Progress at Puako Development that Won Reprieve from LUC. The stalled development on land near Puako that barely escaped death by reversion last year has taken halting steps toward meeting the Land Use Commission’s deadline to have 16 completed affordable housing units by the end of this month. But what counts as “completed?” New & Noteworthy. Our focus this month is on invasives – the brown tree snake and invasive algae. To see summaries of previous months: more... Knowledgeable. Passionate. Independent. Providing News Found Nowhere Else. In June 2009, Environment Hawai'i, a monthly newsletter, completed 19 years of continuous publication. We thank all of our loyal subscribers for your contrubutions to this astonishing run. Mahalo nui loa. If you want to see us around for another 19 years, now is the time to show your support. New subscriptions are welcome too. Give your colleagues who are always cockroaching your copy subscriptions of their own. Any and all gifts, are deeply appreciated. Pay for your subscriptions online! Environment Hawai`i accepts Visa and MasterCard payments online. Just go to our Subscriptions webpage. The monthly issues are 12 pages of densely packed, tightly written articles on the some of the most troubling environmental issues facing Hawai`i today. View an online version of one of our past issues -- JANUARY_2008_ISSUE.pdf -- or REQUEST A FREE SAMPLE COPY! Please support the investigation and publication of essential news stories so that our islands can be protected by an informed community. If our stories or our website have helped you, support our non-profit organization further with a donation. Mahalo. Since 1990, Environment Hawai`i has gained a reputation as the single most important source of news on environmental issues in the 50th state. Environment Hawai`i is published monthly by Environment Hawai`i, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Subscriptions are $50 individual; $85 supporting; $85 corporate and institutional. Environment Hawai`i is also available in microform through Unviersity Microfilms' Alternative Press Collection (300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1346). Environment Hawai`i staff Patricia Tummons, Editor Teresa Dawson, Staff Writer Susie Yong, Office Administrator Environment Hawai`i, Inc. directors: Kathy Baldwin Robert Becker Teresa Dawson Mary Evanson Mina Morita Patricia Tummons ARCHIVE ACCESS Our archives are password protected, but available to subscribers at no charge. If you are renewing by PayPal or credit card, your password will be immediately issued. If you only wish to access the archives, select the "offline payment: pay by mail" payment option. You will not be charged. Your account will be reviewed and activated as soon as possible.
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