Board Talk

Land Board Seeks to Develop Policy On Undersea Communication Cables

The Wai`anae coast is already home to O`ahu’s main power plant and major landfills. In the last decade, its shores have been littered with underwater cables, and according to Wai`anae resident William Aila, the community has had enough.

Three years ago, 21 of O`ahu’s 26 cable landings were between Barber’s Point and Ka`ena Point, Aila told the Board of Land and Natural Resources at its September 14 meeting. And according to Department of Land and Natural Resources staff, there will be more: Telecommunications company Sandwich Isles has proposed 16 new cable landings.

On September 14, the Land Board approved two additional cable landing sites on O`ahu’s west side. Tycom Networks, Inc. received a Conservation District Use Permit (CDUP) to construct the landings, one at Kahe Point Beach Park, and another at the Wai`anae Wastewater Treatment Plant outfall near Lualualei Beach Park, as part of its global network. Cable installation usually requires digging a trench toward the ocean. Tycom plans to use a method called horizontal directional drilling, where the conduits will be drilled underground. This method will require consultation with the State Historic Preservation Division to determine a minimum drilling depth to avoid disturbing hidden burials.

Concerned about the cumulative impacts of all of these cable installations, Land Board member Tim Johns asked the Land Division to prepare a briefing on the issue for the board.

“Here we are, asked again to get in the way of technology,” Johns said of Tycom request. Over the years, the Land Board has been approved several CDUPs for telecommunication cables in Hawaiian waters. “But each time we’re askedÉ we don’t have the criteria to measure it on a larger scale,” Johns said.

According to a Land Division staff report, Tycom’s work will be a part of the “largest and most advanced global undersea telecommunications fiber optic network in the world.” The cables will be part of the Asian Pacific ring: the one at Lualualei will link to Guam and the Kahe Point cable will link to the U.S. mainland. While only two cables will be installed, the company will be installing four landings at each point to accommodate any future expansion and to avoid asking the Land Board for more permits.

When asked about the possibility of developing a cable landing policy, Land Division planner Sam Lemmo said that because the telecommunications industry is highly competitive, it’s difficult to get companies to work together. In addition, he said, the state doesn’t have the expertise to develop requirements.

Lemmo also said that it’s difficult to co-locate cables. Cables are hooked and pulled up for repair or maintenance. If cables are far apart, it’s less likely that more than one cable or the wrong cable will be pulled up. Separating cables also reduces the impact that catastrophic events, such as landslides, would have on the system’s capacity, he said.

Johns noted that Florida and New Zealand have established corridors for telecommunications cables, notwithstanding the desires of the industry.

— T.D.

The Hawai`i Tropical Botanical Garden along Onomea Bay north of Hilo – site of a long-fought battle over the public’s right to use old roads and trails – is being sued for denial of access rights to a Hilo resident. Along with the garden, the Land Board and its chairman, Gilbert Coloma-Agaran, are named as defendants.

The suit, brought by Brian MacKenzie, alleges that the garden and the Land Board have failed to abide by terms of a mediated agreement crafted in the mid-1990s to resolve a number of issues, including Conservation District violations, interference with public access, the garden’s exclusive use of a public trail, and other concerns.

According to the complaint, MacKenzie sought for more than a year to have the state enforce terms of the agreement and state regulations, but without success. Then on May 23, 2001, MacKenzie says, he was assaulted by security agents hired by the garden while he and two companions were unloading kayaks at the entrance of the public trail. The two employees “wanted to drive their truck down the trail to join other construction equipment operating without authority on the public trail,” the complaint states. Both employees struck MacKenzie, who says his head was pounded against the ground.

The lawsuit seeks to have Coloma-Agaran and the Land Board be required to enforce the terms and conditions of the agreement, including carrying out surveys of state-owned land at Onomea. It asks the court to find that the garden’s Conservation District Use Permit, which allowed construction of major improvements, is null and void and to order the garden to “cease all uses” on its property until all violations have been dealt with.

MacKenzie’s attorney, Steven Strauss, says the issue is “fact-driven” and clear-cut. The complaint was filed on August 24; by mid-September, it had yet to be served on the garden and on Coloma-Agaran.

(Environment Hawai`i has written extensively on the past disputes involving the Hawai`i Tropical Botanical Garden. For details, consult our search page.)- P.T.

This year, the state will pay $309,896 in rent for a piece of land at Ma`alaea, Maui that “has remained vacant and unused for the past seven years,” according to a report by land agent Eric Leong.

Since September 1994, the Department of Land and Natural Resources has been drained of about $1.2 million for this one-acre piece of land as a result of its Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation having been suckered into a 30-year lease for the lot, which has provided little revenue in return.

To plug the financial drain, DOBOR is proposing to buy the parcel owned by Don Williams with $2.5 million appropriated by the Legislature last year. If necessary, DOBOR will condemn the property. The lease included an option to purchase the land, but this option expired September 1, 1999. On August 24, the Land Board approved DOBOR’s request to acquire the land.

DOBOR is preparing a Master Plan for the area that will include offices for DOBOR’s district manager and harbor agents, a maintenance base yard, and public parking. DOBOR is also supporting a study of what the market will bear “and what businesses will have the best chances of success in this specific area,” Leong’s report states.

— T.D.

A handful of Kane`ohe Bay pier owners attended the August 24 Land Board meeting, some merely seeking answers, others hoping to delay or even reverse board action regarding the legalization and collection of lease rent for the piers.

Illegal piers in Kane`ohe Bay have been a problem for decades. Since 1998, the DLNR has tried develop a way to legalize as many of them as possible. Earlier this year, the Land Board approved an appraisal process and an overall Conservation District Use Permit for the piers.

About 150 pier owners in Kane`ohe Bay have joined the Land Division’s Kane`ohe Bay Amnesty Program, established to “provide owners of illegal piers with the required permits to achieve compliance with the state’s land use laws and, ultimately, resolve the illegal pier problem in Kane`ohe Bay,” according to report to the board by Land Division staff.

On August 24, the Land Board granted leases to pier owners that had joined the amnesty program. Pier owners who have not joined the amnesty program were given until the end of September to join.

According to the state’s appraisal method, approved by the Land Board in February, the pier’s value would be half the square-foot value of the adjacent land multiplied by the square footage of the pier.

At the August meeting, Alvin Maeda of the Protect Shoreline `Ohana and state Rep. Colleen Meyers disagreed with the method of determining lease rent. Meyers, who presented the Land Board with what she felt were more reasonable pier appraisal methods used on the mainland, asked that asked the board to delay its vote on the leases.

Land Board members were not swayed and voted to unanimously to approve the leases. However, board member Johns noted that he was not entirely comfortable that the Land Board did the best job it could determining the piers’ value and asked that the staff hold a public meeting on what had been decided. He also asked that staff report back to the board the community’s response.

Lessees will have the option of making a one-time payment for their 55-year leases or paying rent annually with rental reopenings every ten years until the 40th year. One pier owner said that under the state’s appraisal method, he will pay $6,000 for a 55-year lease for his pier. That works out to $109.09 per year for a pier that until now he enjoyed for free.

Pier owners who disagree with the staff’s appraisal may seek an independent appraisal. A third appraiser, chosen by the DLNR staff and the lessee’s appraiser, will determine the final lease rent.

Maeda told the Land Board that his group, which includes several of those in the amnesty program, will seek an independent appraisal.

— Teresa Dawson

Volume 12, Number 4 October 2001