Kihei High Update: “While construction of the two classroom buildings, administration building, and locker rooms is proceeding at a brisk pace, due to some unavoidable construction and material delays, we have been informed that completion of these new facilities will be delayed until January 2023,” Halle Maxwell, principal of the new school, announced in a March 28 news release.
Maxwell’s presser said nothing about delays associated with the ongoing standoff concerning construction of a grade-separated pedestrian crossing, which is a condition of approvals granted by both the state Land Use Commission and the Maui County Planning Department.
An officer of the Kihei Community Association told Environment Hawaiʻi that it had heard nothing from the Department of Education on efforts to resolve the issue. County planning director Michele McLean said in mid-March, “I haven’t heard a thing from DOE in months and know of no new developments.”
The state Department of Transportation, meanwhile, has begun work on a $16 million, four-lane roundabout at the intersection of Piʻilani Highway and Kulanihakoʻi Street, which will be extended to provide vehicle access to the high school. Both the DOE and the DOT have argued that a pedestrian at-grade crossing at the roundabout will give students safe access to the school.
False Killer Whale Update: Last year, there were five observed interactions between the Hawaiʻi-based longline tuna fleet and false killer whales inside the Exclusive Economic Zone that were determined to have led to the serious injury or death of the whale. That exceeded by one the number of mortalities or serious injuries that would ordinarily have resulted in the closure to fishing of what’s called the Southern Exclusion Zone or SEZ — a vast swath of ocean south of the islands – for the remainder of the calendar year. But since the last two incidents occurred late in the year, before the National Marine Fisheries Service issued its determination on the severity of the hooking, the SEZ was not closed.
That doesn’t mean that there may not be consequences for the fleet. On March 8, NMFS published in the Federal Register a notice that even though no closure occurred last year, “the requirements for closure of the SEZ were met in 2021.” Under the service’s take reduction plan for false killer whales, if the trigger is met again in a year following the SEZ closure, the SEZ will be closed and remain closed until one of several fairly stringent criteria is met.
As of mid-March, the longline tuna fleet had taken three false killer whales this year, including one inside the EEZ that was determined to have been a serious injury. Should three more such incidents occur, the SEZ would be closed for an indefinite period.
Climate Clearinghouse: Global warming is going to profoundly effect Hawaiʻi’s environment, and resource managers need to find a way to adapt, said Ryan Longman, a research fellow with the East-West Center at the official launch of the Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal last month.
The portal (https://www.hawaii.edu/climate-data-portal/) houses weather data collected over the last century, and allows users to create maps indicating where there may be higher risk of fires, floods, avian malaria, and more.
Maps that used to take a year and a handful of specialized people can now take 30 seconds and a seven-year-old can do it, Longman said.
In addition to aiding natural resource managers, he said the portal can also be a valuable tool in developing curriculum. “If my 7 year old can make a rainfall map, why can’t a student make a projection map of how hot their school will be in 2100?” he asked.
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