In mid-May 1993, MCM Planning delivered to the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism a 10-volume draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Ka’u spaceport. The Office of Space Industry, within DBEDT, is conducting now what it calls an in-house review of the document. Copies have been sent to several of the key agencies that are most likely to suffer impacts from a space-launch facility at Ka’u.
According to Ken Munechika of the OSI, it will probably be the end of the year by the time the comments are compiled and revisions, if any, made to the preliminary draft EIS. Only then will this long-awaited document be available for review of and comment from the public.
That scrutiny, whenever it comes, is sure to be intense. Some measure of the public’s concern over the spaceport can be seen in the controversies that have surrounded preparation of the EIS for the last three years.
Bait and Switch?
In 1988, DEBD advertised nationally for proposals from consultants interested in preparing an EIS and master plan for the Ka’u spaceport. CH2M Hill Northwest, an Oregon-based firm, was selected from among several respondents, and on December 1, 1988, DBED executed a contract with that company to undertake both the master plan and the EIS.
By October of the following year, an environmental assessment had been prepared; scoping meetings were held that same month – three on the Big Island, and one in Honolulu – to receive comments from the public on the range of issues that any EIS should cover.
In February 1990, the state executed a joint lead agency agreement, concerning preparation of the EIS, with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, the federal agency that licenses all commercial launch sites. The OCST, meanwhile, prepared a safety assessment of the two Ka’u sites. The assessment, released in March 1990, pronounced the two sites “acceptable” so far as the potential impact of launches on the safety of residents as well as commerce (shipping lanes and the like).
Sometime around March 1990, however, things began to sour between CH2M Hill and DBED. The result was that CH2M Hill agreed to complete work on the master-plan part of its contract (the work was substantially complete, in any event). The part of the contract relating to the EIS was, DBED decided, to be taken over by one of the primary subcontractors – MCM Planning, a sole proprietorship of Marilynn C. Metz. The decision to do so was made, DBED stated in a news release November 21, 1990, “to increase the independence of the EIS from the master plan.”
Lapsing Funds
The new contract with Metz has been regarded by some spaceport critics as a sign of something more sinister. A citizens’ group called Information Network for the Spaceport, led by Sandra Demourelle of Na’alehu, has described the award of a new contract to Metz as a circumvention of state procurement policies. Munechika, OSI director since January 1992, has defended it as merely the state’s recognition of the actual relation that existed between MCM and CH2M Hill Northwest.1
However Munechika and others might characterize it, DBED did experience difficulties in getting the assignment of the work to Metz through the Department of Accounting and General Services. At first DBEDT sought DAGS’ approval for transferring payments to Metz for EIS work through an “assignment” of a portion of the contract with CH2M Hill. DAGS objected to this, noting that the new assignment “terminates the existing encumbrance; currently encumbered funds therefore lapses.”
The attorney general’s office became involved after DAGS’ initial rejection of DBED’s request. In a February 22, 1991, letter from Robert A. Marks (then deputy attorney general; now the state’s AG) to then-state Comptroller Russel Nagata, Marks noted that the original contract allowed CH2M Hill to “assign the services… with the approval of DBED.” Marks continued: “Hill exercised its right under this clause and DBED acquiesced to the assignment.” He concluded: “DAGS should issue payments to Metz from funds that had been earlier encumbered by the consultant contract.”
DAGS did not give up so easily. The problem was not the assignment of work to Metz so much as it was that the state was prohibited from transferring funds from one contract to another after those funds had lapsed. “The funds encumbered under the existing contract are not available for payments under a new contractual obligation,” Nagata explained.
One possibility might be to “leave the existing contract in place, but to have the existing contractor make an assignment of payments” to the new contractor, Nagata continued. “From staff discussions, however… it is our understanding that the expending agency in this case does not wish to continue any future contractual obligation with the existing contractor.”
In the end, a new contract was issued to Metz, signed April 1, 1991, but effective back to November 22, 1990. To find the money to pay her (with the CH2M Hill money having lapsed), $33,000 was taken from funds earmarked for the “Future Flight” program of the Office of Space Industry.
A Federal EIS?
From earliest days, the Office of Space Industry has indicated it intends to prepare an environmental impact statement that will satisfy the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act as well as state Chapter 343 requirements for environmental review. Given that any launch facility must be licensed by the federal Department of Transportation before it can operate, an EIS that meets federal standards would seem to be mandatory.
But whether the draft EIS will do that seems to be in doubt. In the “Conceptual Plan” that the Office of Space Industry released in February 1993, the statement is made that the “environmental analysis currently being conducted is intended to meet the requirements of Hawai’i Revised Statutes Chapter 343 and the state Department of Health’s EIS rules… It will also form the basis for a document that will meet the requirements of the federal National Environmental Policy Act” (emphasis added).
The “proposed work program” attached to Metz’s contact provides for consultation with the federal Office of Commercial Space Transportation (the licensing agency) but makes no mention of federal sufficiency. Environment Hawai’i asked Munechika whether the Draft EIS would be intended to satisfy federal needs. “Of course,” was his answer.
Strong Objections
According to people who have seen the preliminary document, the Draft EIS will put forward Palima Point as the preferred alternative site for construction of the facility. This site is bounded to the north by Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.
In a letter sent to Richard Flagg of the OSI on June 10, 1993, Bryan Harry, director of the Park Service’s Pacific Area Office, states, “The National Park Service objects to the preferred alternative site for the proposed launch facility and will actively attempt to thwart the endeavor if the preferred alternative site is selected.”
Harry continues: “the National Park Service concludes from this EIS that emissions from the preferred alternative will have an adverse impact on the air quality-related values (including visibility) of those lands…. We feel that construction of the launch facility at your preferred alternative site will constitute a violation of the Clean Air Act.”
The Palima Point site “directly adjoins the portion of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park that is a congressionally designated ‘wilderness area,”‘ Harry notes. “We can think of no more incongruous development directly adjoining a National Wilderness Area than an active spaceport. The National Park Service will seek every remedy possible, through the Congress and otherwise, to protect the integrity of the Ka’u Desert Nationally Designated Wilderness.”
Harry faults the process that seems to have been used in selecting Palima Point over Kahilipali Point. According to the letter, Flagg informed Harry that Kahilipali Point had been rejected as a possible spaceport site “solely because it affected ‘ceded’ lands.” “We fault the EIS process from the viewpoint that it is merely a justification for a pre-determined site alternative that does not fairly evaluate other alternatives,” Harry added.
Show-Stoppers?
One of the most sensitive issues concerns possible impacts to the Mauna Kea observatories. The state has proudly pointed to the telescopes there as one of the best examples of what Hawai’i can achieve in so-called space science. To sacrifice that, or diminish its potential, to a launch site of unproven value is a risk that the Waihe’e administration has said it is unwilling to take.
According to one party who has seen the preliminary draft EIS, under some conditions, launches from the spaceport could have impacts that could degrade the summit’s viewing quality as well as harm the telescope mirrors themselves. The spaceport is not “impact free” to the observatories, but the impacts “can be mitigated,” according to this source.
1 See, for example, “Spaceport official backs assignment of EIS contractor,” Hawai`i Tribune-Herald, March 30, 1992.
Volume 4, Number 1 July 1993
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