Letters

Concern Over Checker Reef Is Justified, DLNR Says

To the Editor:

I am responding to an editorial published in the July 1998 issue of Environment Hawai`i. The editorial dealt with concerns raised by a number of divisions in the Department of Land and Natural Resources about the movement of a second full-scale commercial operator to the area known as Checker Reef within Kane`ohe Bay (as called for in the Kane`ohe Bay Master Plan). Specifically, I would like to clarify the resource issues that sparked our concerns and to emphasize the fact that these concerns are real, not manufactured. Enclosed is an illustration of habitat differences between the commercial areas in the bay.

Checker Reef is fundamentally different from the Sandbar Area where other commercial operations are located. The Sandbar Area has very little living coral and is mostly comprised of sand and rubble in the vicinity of the commercial operations. It is part of the extensive back reef area, an extensive feature which elsewhere contains many complex marine habitats. Checker Reef by contrast is a complete living patch reef ecosystem (in fact, the largest one in the state of Hawai`i).

Whereas fringing reefs occur all over Hawai`i, patch reefs are relatively rare and represent unique forms of reef habitat. Their isolated nature provides shelter for many recruiting organisms, and their compact complexity allows multiple, semi-independent coral reef ecosystems to thrive in a relatively small area. Checker Reef offers substantial shelter space for recruiting fishes and invertebrates across its reef flat and has two distinctive “sinkholes” atop its reef flat plus an endemic sea grass bed along its southern flank. As an ecosystem, Checker Patch Reef is the aquatic equivalent of a rain forest while the Sandbar Area could be compared to a grassy plain.

As a coral reef biologist recently hired by DLNR, I was asked to look into effects, if any, of the current commercial operation at Checker Reef. Along with another biologist, I documented significant impacts, including physical damage to coral, from the existing operation at that site. Many of the commercial activities observed at Checker Reef were similar to those being conducted by other operators in the Sandbar Area, where they cause minimal impact (examples include playing volleyball atop the shallow portion, mooring lines crossing shallow portions, and running boats and thrill craft over the slope). It became obvious that moving an existing full-service operation from an ecosystem where it had relatively little impact to a unique ecosystem where an existing operation was having a documented effect would cause increased harm to one of the unequalled natural resources in the bay.

At this point, given our Public Trust responsibilities, we had no choice but to express our concerns about the move. As part of the DLNR Kane`ohe Bay Hot Spot Team, the Division of Aquatic Resources has worked with other divisions, including Boating and Ocean Resources, to try to deal with the issue. We have discussed our findings with the Kane`ohe Bay Regional Council, with the commercial operators themselves, and with other interested parties. We have arranged to take members of these groups out onto the Bay to look firsthand at the differences between these areas. When DOBOR informed us that they were going to go forward with the move, we submitted testimony to the Board of Land and Natural Resources outlining our concerns about environmental damage to Checker Reef that could be incurred. We also worked with the existing operator, who agreed to moor his vessel farther away from the reef and modify his activities to reduce the damage that had been occurring.

We share the community’s frustration with the delay in implementation of the Kane`ohe Bay Master Plan but note that the move of this one vessel is just one component. We also believe that the plan, which was developed almost a decade ago, was intended to have flexibility for chance as new information is developed. The purposes for the move appear to be to reduce noise and improve the view plain of the Bay. These goals can undoubtedly be accommodated without increased impact to the unique coral reef habitats within the Bay, especially if consideration is given to alternative sites or mitigation.

Dave Gulko

Aquatic Biologist

Division of Aquatic Resources

Department of Land and Natural Resources

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Tarnas Explains K-Bay Legislation

To the Editor:

Thank you for reporting on Kane`ohe Bay. Having been very involved in legislative work in this area, I appreciate the opportunity to shed some light on our actions last session.

The community-based regional planning process that produced the Kane`ohe Bay Master Plan is a remarkable and effective means of sustainable natural resources management. Implementing the plan has been problematic and needlessly delayed for years. This is unfortunate, since I had hoped we could use the process of developing and implementing the Kane`ohe Bay Master Plan as a model for other parts of the state. The Legislature, DLNR, and all the stakeholders must make every effort to create success. If we continue to delay, the resource suffers.

As chair of the House Committee on Ocean Recreation and Marine Resources, I helped craft the bill that was eventually signed into law this year as Act 4. This bill made it very clear that DLNR must implement the Kane`ohe Bay Master Plan. A 1997 opinion we requested from the Attorney General concluded that the DLNR had granted permits in Kane`ohe Bay that were inconsistent with the Master Plan. At the end of 1997, the Board of Land and Natural Resources finally gave its Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation six months to write the rules to implement the master plan.

While this was all going on, Senate Bill 2078 was introduced in the 1998 Legislature to repeal many statutes that restricted ocean recreation activities statewide. The only part of this bill that passed the Senate was a reduction in the transfer fee for ocean recreation thrillcraft permits. When considering SB 2078 in the House, it was clear that some wished to have this bill contain language repealing the Master Plan’s requirement that one of the Kane`ohe Bay tour operators relocate to Checker Reef. I refused to support having the Legislature amend the Master Plan. I believed that the Kane`ohe Bay Regional Council had the authority, under Act 4, to amend the Plan. In communication with Gretchen Gould, then chair of the council, she agreed that the council had the authority and was already planning to amend the Master Plan with respect to the Checker Reef relocation, because of safety concerns raised by the U.S. Coast Guard and environmental concerns raised by University of Hawai`i marine scientists.

On further analysis and discussion with state administration, it became clear that the state attorney general disagreed with our analysis of Act 4. The attorney general’s position was that the Regional Council could recommend changes to the Master Plan, but the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation was required to promulgate rules to implement the Master Plan as is, without any mechanism for incorporating amendments. So, by this analysis, the very nature of the Master Plan as a living, dynamic document was threatened by this statutory restriction. As a legislator, I was in a position to correct this situation.

At my insistence, SB 2078 was changed to clarify that the Regional Council has the responsibility to review and amend the Master Plan, and that DOBOR would be able to incorporate these amendments into rules. I would not support a bill in which the Legislature amended the Master Plan, since the Legislature should not be doing that sort of resource management. Our job was to assure that the community-based planning process could function and that the plan could be amended.

Since I had been assured by Gould that the Regional Council was aware of the safety and environmental concerns over Checker Reef and that it would amend the Master Plan to address these concerns, I was confident this legislative strategy would work and was willing to make these last-minute changes to SB 2078. To prevent any legal question and to avoid the prospect that a relocation would occur for just one or two months, I agreed to include a provision in SB 2078 saying that the relocation of an operator to Checker Reef that was called for in the Master Plan would not be enforced until after rules were promulgated.

The strategy was for the Regional Council to take up this relocation issue at its June meeting and then recommend to DOBOR that it amend the Master Plan and delete the Checker Reef relocation requirement. Then DOBOR would incorporate this amendment into its proposed rules for Kane`ohe Bay. There would be no further delay; the issue of environmental and safety concerns would be addressed; and the process would function well. In fact, I wrote a memo to Gould summarizing this strategy to make certain we were all moving in the same direction.

Unfortunately, the Regional Council did not take up this issue in June and DOBOR received no recommendation to amend the master plan. DOBOR has not incorporated any changes into its rules, contrary to our expectations; in fact, it has not yet even presented the draft rules. Now the BLNR has granted apparently new operator permits, and the decision about relocation to Checker Reef remains unresolved.

At this point, I believe it would be prudent for the Regional Council to consider and pass a motion, as soon as possible, to amend the requirement that one of the major operators relocate to Checker Reef, based on valid safety and environmental concerns. DOBOR should proceed without delay to put the proposed rules out to public hearing, without waiting for the Regional Council to act. When the Regional Council finally does amend the Master Plan, this could be presented at the public hearings on the rules and incorporated into the final rules. DLNR must not wait any longer before putting these rules out to public hearing, and the Regional Council must not delay in addressing the Checker Reef relocation issue.

The Regional Council must do its job and get beyond this major stumbling block so it can deal with fisheries issues. Every year for the last four years, a bill has come before the Legislature to restrict gill-netting in Kane`ohe Bay. As chair of the House Ocean Committee, I have repeatedly recommended that we hold the bill so that the Regional Council would address this issue properly. The Regional Council should address this through a community-based planning effort with the fishers and other stakeholders. It should not be a legislative decision. The Ocean Committee was assured in the 1998 session that the Regional Council would decide how to manage gill-netting in the Bay and would recommend any statutory changes, if needed, to the 1999 Legislature.

As an interested legislator, along with my colleagues in the Kane`ohe Bay area, I extend an offer to work with the Regional Council and DOBOR to accomplish the goals that lay before us. We can succeed, but must be willing to come to the table and set aside our differences, identify common goals, and develop a mutually agreeable strategy for achieving them. The process can and must work, and the experience and lessons learned at Kane`ohe Bay should be a model for other parts of the state also striving to develop a community-based strategy for managing natural resources.

David Tarnas

Chair, House Committee on

Ocean Recreation and Marine Resources

Erratum: In the July issue, Environment Hawai`i said that David Tarnas represented the Waiaha Bay of Kona, site of the SoBay project that he was helping to mediate. As Tarnas has reminded us, his district does not extend to Waiaha Bay.

Volume 9, Number 3 September 1998