Editorial

In The Face Of Incorrigible Violators, State, County Need The Will To Enforce

So who says Hawai`i isn’t friendly to small business?

As the state looks at cutting red tape and needless regulation, the case of the Anglin family and their quarry on Moloka`i raises a different concern. Could it be that in Hawai`i, we need more rules?

At the very least, the state and counties need regulations that allow for greater ease of enforcement — and regulators who have the stomach to enforce them. While every permit issued to the Anglins for operation of their quarry at Kamalo contains boilerplate requiring full compliance with other applicable government regulations, in practical terms, that language is a waste of good paper. And while each permit is supposedly self-enforcing — that is, it is automatically void if even one term is violated — agencies’ views of due process effectively prevent them from shutting down a bad operator.

To give credit where it is due, Maui County has sought for the last year and a half to close down the Kamalo quarry. But action against the Anglins was neither swift — it would be difficult to argue that in nearly a decade of operation, the Anglins were ever in full compliance with their county permit for so much as a single day — nor was it particularly effective. But for the IRS, the Anglins’ business would probably still be going strong.

But what is going on with the Department of Health? Apparently it feels the solution to pollution is to heap blessings on the heads of the violators and call their sins compliance.

In Bruce Anglin’s view, his quarry is no worse than other quarry operations on Moloka`i or elsewhere. Or so he told the Department of Health when it was considering revoking his permit to operate.

Heaven help Hawai`i if Anglin is right. For the better part of the 1990s, the Anglins’ quarry operated in violation of practically every permit condition placed upon it by both the Department of Health and Maui County. Had the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs bothered, it could have cited the Anglins also, for continuing to run a business after it was no longer incorporated. And similarly with the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and perhaps other agencies — OSHA and the state Department of Taxation come to mind — as well, although the paper trail left by their investigations, if any, has not yet been made public.

Indeed, the only hero in the sorry story of the Anglins’ quarry is the IRS. The revenuers may not have stopped the Anglins permanently, but at least for the next few months they won’t be bothering Hawai`i.

For the last two decades, the state has chafed at federal court orders mandating it to protect the endangered palila bird by removing ungulates from the high-elevation mamane forest on Mauna Kea. Exactly how far the state was willing to go out on a limb for the benefit of a vocal, if small, hunting constituency is nicely illustrated in the October 1998 letter, reprinted in part in this issue, from Governor Cayetano to his then-DLNR chief, Mike Wilson — ordering actions that would have all but invited another contempt of court ruling by the U.S. District Court.
While that letter was quickly retracted, the sentiment behind it would seem to have carried the day in the post-election period. Hunters, who now claim — with straight face — to be the palila’s best friend, have gone back to court in an effort to keep a herd of sheep on the mountain. Standing close by their side is the state.

However much the hunters and their state allies pay lip service to science, no one seriously doubts that political considerations are driving the issue. As the governor’s 1998 letter shows, the temptation for the present administration to bow to the hunters’ will is great. Representing the hunters is a former Republican candidate for the state Senate, John Carroll, who has made little secret of his interest in making a run for the U.S. Senate on the back of a tiny bird.

It’s time the people of Hawai`i made their own wishes known on the subject. Three strike-downs in court and the state should be out — out of court, out of the pocket of the hunters, and out of the business of sacrificing endangered species for political gain.

Volume 10, Number 4 October 1999