Dairy Update: In 2019, the Big Island Dairy shut down, never having been able to prevent runoff from its manure-filled ponds fouling streams that ran to the ocean off the Hamakua coast of the Big Island. The dairy sits on state-owned land leased to the dairy for $57,645 a year. After ceasing operations, the company kept current on its rent, in hopes, it seems, of being able to sell the lease.
On October 26, the Board of Agriculture gave its consent for the sale of the remaining lease term (a period that runs through June 4, 2048) to Hawaiʻi Secure Foods, LLC. Member/managers of that entity, formed last year, are Buck Holdings, LLC, and Dutch-Hawaiian Dairy Farms, LLC. In return for the transfer of the lease, Big Island Dairy was paid $969,539.
The Dutch-Hawaiian Dairy, run by the Kea family, also have been running Cloverleaf Dairy, near Hawi, at the northern tip of the Big Island. Last year, the Board of Agriculture approved the transfer of the lease for that operation from Ed Boteilho to Dutch-Hawaiian Dairy.
As Environment Hawaiʻi reported in our December 2020 issue, the California Energy Investment Center, a California firm that brokers investment opportunities for foreign nationals seeking to qualify for EB-5 visas, had its eyes on the Cloverleaf operation, as well as other agricultural sites on the Big Island. It challenged the BOA approval of the lease transfer in state court in July 2020, a month following the BOA action.
This past July, 3rd Circuit Judge Ronald Kim issued a final judgment in that case, upholding the lease transfer and ordering CEIC to reimburse the defendants their attorneys’ fees as well, amounting to nearly $80,000.
On September 2, CEIC appealed the judgment, so the lease transfer remains on hold.
Records Request: The Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi has filed a lawsuit in the Environmental Court seeking to force the state Department of Health to produce documents the organization requested in early September regarding recent fuel leaks at the Navy’s Hotel Pier.
The complaint states that an October 8 Civil Beat article on the spill indicated that “at a minimum, the documents that the Sierra Club requested include a March 17, 2020 Navy report on the fuel release, the Navy’s May 18, 2021 notification, and Department of Health Deputy Director Keith Kawaoka’s June 30, 2021 letter.”
“The Sierra Club is trying to learn, among other things, when the Navy first discovered the first leak, whether the Navy’s Red Hill pipeline pressure monitoring system worked, where the leak occurred, how much fuel leaked, how much fuel was recovered, and how precisely the leaky pipeline is connected to the Red Hill underground storage tanks,” it continued.
The same day Civil Beat published its article on the spill, a Health Department official informed Frankel that the Navy had claimed that the documents he requested were “protected in the interest of national security. DOH seeks to produce as much of the record as possible. Those documents identified by the Navy as protected by federal law, however, will be withheld in accordance with 92F- 13(4), HRS. I have provided the Navy the complete DOH file so that they can identify those things that must be redacted and this process of redaction is underway. Please allow time for this process to play out and be assured that every effort is being made to provide as much of the record as possible in compliance with federal and state law.”
As of the date of the Sierra Club’s complaint, October 25, the department has not provided him with any records.
Quote of the Month
“My question is a simple question. What in the record demonstrates evidence that we as the Land Use Commission … should trust the representations that the Department of Education is making?”
— Gary Okuda, Land Use Commission
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