Letters

Mililani Experience Provides Example Of Holistic Management Of Plantation Trees

To the Editor:

I recently began a milling project that is the outcome of successful negotiations leading to a multi-party cooperative effort involving Castle & Cooke Homes, Trees of Hawai`i, and myself. Under the agreement we reached, I have a short-term lease on two acres of agriculture land in Mililani Mauka, where I am storing a milling a couple of thousand logs (from about 700 trees) of Eucalyptus citriodora, or lemon-scented gum (the scent is in the leaves, not the wood), which had to be removed because of their proximity to two new increments of the Mililani Mauka subdivision.

The trees have grown tall and straight in the swale in which they were planted some 60 years ago. Castle & Cooke wanted to retain the wooded ambiance of the area, and so paid O`ahu Construction to fell only the tallest of the trees, which could conceivably fall onto and damage the new houses. O`ahu Construction subcontracted the job to Trees of Hawai`i. In turn, I arranged with the tree contractor (who was required to remove all material resulting from the job) to deposit logs meeting my specifications (at least 10 inches in diameter, and at least 8 feet long) on the property I had leased. While the contractor still had to chip the balance of the material and pay for its trucking and disposal off-site, his road time and disposal fees were considerably reduced by this arrangement, and Castle & Cooke was able to get the work done at less cost. And I got the material basically for the effort of coordinating it all — though I, too, am obligated to leave a clean slate at the end of the project.

The reason I was able to get the logs for free is that the market is unfamiliar with the species as well as being leery of eucalyptus in general, recalling several failed ventures on Maui and the Big Island in which the millers were unable to dry the wood completely and correctly, causing the wood to move after it was placed into service. I took on the project on the basis of research on and personal experience with this species, and with confidence in improvements in drying technology.

The thing I like about all this is that if I’m successful, it may open the door to more thoughtful recycling arrangements in the case of future developments. I know of two military projects where similar numbers of trees were ravaged without any thought of recovery. There are a number of obstacles to making it happen, starting with getting wind of the project in time to negotiate into it. I was fortunate in that in my case, a woman from Castle & Cooke Homes (Carol Lilley) attended our HFIA [Hawai`i Forest Industry Association] Woods of Hawai`i show, liked the theme, and knew of the impending need to remove the trees.

At this point, things look good. With a couple of adaptations to my mill I am able to saw this very hard, heavy and dense wood (which resembles teak in its yellow-brown coloration and slightly waxy feel), and I have successfully dried it without any loss in quality. My challenge now is to increase the speed at which I am able to produce the lumber and to broaden market familiarity with the species. The same wood is known as one of the premier sawtimbers in Australia and has been sold here (imported from Australia) as spotted gum in limited but well received quantities. Most of it might be able to be sold as flooring. However, I feel it is my task to work with Eric Bello of Bello’s Millwork and Woodturning in Wahiawa (who has the kiln and moulding machine) to develop a few higher return products (such as moulding, railings and the like), since flooring can and should be produced from lower grade lumber.

This all fits into the much bigger picture of holistic management of Hawai`i’s forests, including the forest plantations that were established over the last 100 years. (By the state’s definition, any planting of trees covering an area of more than two acres is a plantation.) Many of these forest plantations are approaching climax state. When they reach that state, they begin dying back. Several things can happen then: they can become susceptible to various pathogens, the understory is opened up to vines and opportunistic alien species, and eventually the forest cover can disappear (witness the slopes of Makiki Valley and portions of Tantalus).

It is reasonable to think that without incurring any net ecological losses, some economic value can be recovered from these resources. After the trees were planted, they were essentially left on their own, with no management whatsoever. With proper planning and management, it should be possible to ensure greater survival rates and higher quality trees in the future. The opportunity exists now to be planting forests that take into account many values (aesthetic, commercial, cultural, ecological, watershed and recreational) and which capitalize on valuable lessons learned in previous plantings.

My own small experiment in Mililani Mauka will turn out, I hope, to be a step in this direction.

Bart Potter

Honolulu

To the Editor:

I wish to correct several false impressions left by the article “[url=/members_archives/archives_more.php?id=958_0_28_0_C]Two Visions for East Honolulu…[/url]” in the February 1996 issue of Environment Hawai`i:

1. Neither Bishop Estate nor Kaiser’s subsidiaries retained me. I have several times between 1989 and 1996 given advice on an “of counsel” basis to the law firm of Damon Key Bocken Leong Kupchak on land use matters, particularly on the legality of using consent decrees to settle complex land use litigation. In that capacity, I joined Kenneth Kupchak of that firm in at least one conference with Honolulu officials to express my views on the consent decree process, probably in 1989 or 1990. My only other formal connection with development in East Honolulu came as special counsel to the City and County of Honolulu in the Queen’s Beach litigation in the 1980s, resulting in the upholding of Honolulu’s development plan process.

2. Based upon early conversations with Mr. Kupchak and my long interest in agreement rather than conflict between government and landowner in the land development process, I wrote a paper in 1990 on the use of consent decrees to settle complex land use and environmental litigation. I expanded that paper into an article in 1991, which the Stetson Law Review published in 1992.¹ It is probable that some of the of-counsel work I did for the Damon firm formed the basis of the paper and the article. It is, however, simply inaccurate to report, as you did, that the article is “a study paid for by Bishop Estate and Kaiser.” The implication that the article is therefore biased is unwarranted. As I clearly state in my conclusion: “This [use of a consent decree] may be a salutary result where environmental impact and land development regulations have grown in number and complexity so as to unduly complicate and lengthen the land development process for years and years. On the other hand, it behooves the courts to take special care that they do not become an unwilling substitute for local land use and environmental permit agencies simply for the sake of convenience and expediency.”

3. After stating that Kaiser and Bishop Estate claim to have paid in excess of $2 million studying the settlement, you add: “How much of this went to Callies could not be determined,” thereby implying a great windfall to me for expressing my legal opinion on the legal validity of the consent decree process. My best estimate of what I was paid for advice on the process to the Damon firm is about $7,000 over the past seven years.

David Callies

Benjamin A. Kudo Professor of Law

William S. Richardson School of Law

Honolulu

1. “The Use of Consent Decrees in Settling Land Use and Environmental Disputes,” Stetson Law Review, Vol. XXI (1992), 861-897 -Edito

Volume 6, Number 9 March 1996