The draft environmental impact statement prepared by the state Department of Transportation for various developments in and around the Kahului airport was not undertaken gladly by the DOT. In 1988, the DOT had published a Kahului Airport Development Plan, in which the expansion program was divided into short-term and long-term tasks.
Isaac Hall, a lawyer in Wailuku who has represented several parties in lawsuits against the DOT, has described what ensued in his comments on the DEIS: “Before the publication of an Environmental Assessment (EA) for the short-term development plan, the Hawai`i House of Representatives adopted House Concurrent Resolution No. 137 on March 17, 1989, which directed DOT to prepare a comprehensive EIS covering both the short- and long-term development of Kahului Airport. Nonetheless, DOT, against the express resolve of the House, published an EA on the short-term development plan and issued a Negative Declaration [a finding that there would be no significant environmental impacts from the proposed action]. It should be noted that prior to the short-term development plan, DOT had issued at least 27 successive Negative Declarations based upon Environmental Assessments for Kahului Airport projects.
“On August 5, 1989, the Sierra Club, the Maui Air Traffic Association, Hui Alanui o Makena and several individual plaintiffs filed a timely complaint seeking the withdrawal of the Negative Declaration …, the publication of an EIS preparation notice, the preparation of an EIS addressing the projects described in the EA and cessation by DOT of the expenditure of state funds and use of state lands to implement the projects described in the EA. On March 12, 1991 a Stipulated Order was entered … by the terms of which DOT agreed to prepare an EIS meeting all state and federal legal requirements.”
The draft EIS issued in September 1991 is the outcome of the process described by Hall.
Constant Comment
The DEIS seems to have satisfied few parties, judging from the written comments collected at the Office of Environmental Quality Control. Among the complaints, the following appear with great frequency: The DEIS contains an inadequate treatment of noise control measures; there is insufficient consideration given to the likelihood of increased accidental introduction of new and unwanted species of plants and animals; it fails to consider all reasonable alternatives (including those set forth in the court settlement of the EIS lawsuit); its discussion of water quality impacts is inadequate and incomplete; it avoids any consideration of possible impacts upon nearby Kanaha Pond, which provides habitat for two species of endangered Hawaiian waterbirds; contrary to state EIS law, it is self-serving, does not consider negative impacts, and resembles “project advocacy.”
Overshadowing these complaints, however, is the granddaddy of them all: the fact that the authors of the draft environmental impact statement refuse to acknowledge any link between airport size and visitor population.
Paying the Pipers
The DOT may hire independent consultants to prepare the EIS and supporting analyses and studies, but, as any contractor does, it exercises close control over the results of their work. In the case of the Kahului airport DEIS, the consultants were given a set of forecasts for tourist traffic to Maui taken from the Statewide Airport System Plan, prepared by Aries Consultants, Ltd.
Berna Cabacungan of Earthplan, which prepared the social and economic impact analyses for the Kahului airport DEIS, was asked how it was possible for her and her subcontractors — Community Resources, Inc., and Michael P. Mays — to conclude that visitor volume was utterly unrelated to and independent of airport capacity. After repeating the DOT’s reductio ad absurdum of contrary viewpoints — “people come to visit Maui, not to see its airport” — she stated that she was told she had to work within the forecasts given her. The DOT and others “were responsible for coming up with the numbers. Under our contractual obligation, we were not asked to dispute them.”
In fact, the DOT itself has not always or consistently expressed the belief that tourist traffic is unrelated to airport amenities. For example, in a letter recapping a discussion held September 24, 1991 between Perry White of Belt Collins and Owen Miyamoto, administrator of the DOT’s airports division, White reports the various options discussed concerning runway extensions. One of those options, White states, would be to extend the existing runway “to 9,600 feet … if detailed market studies then show that the increased traffic it would generate warrants the cost” — a tacit but clear acknowledgement that runway length may have a direct bearing on tourist industry growth.
Then there is the statement by the DOT in the prospectus for the airport system revenue bonds (first series of 1991) that facilities at Kahului airport are limited in their ability to handle wide-bodied aircraft, “thereby constraining the growth in such service.”
The DEIS itself acknowledges that the “high level of air traffic activity” that may be expected by the year 2005 if no airport expansion occurs would have an impact on general aviation operations at Kahului, resulting in a 50 percent decline.
In a document labeled “Working Paper No. 1, Existing Conditions and Aviation Demand Forecasts for Kahului Airport Master Plan,” prepared by Belt Collins and Aries Consultants, Ltd., in February 1991, the consultants state that underlying all their forecasts is the assumption that “overseas mainland service to the neighbor island airports will not be constrained by airport facilities and services.”
William Smith points out, in his comments on the DEIS, that DOT consultants “have let slip the obvious in their observations” during earlier public meetings. He quotes them as saying, “If the facilities are not there then there would be problems with implementation of more flights” (October 4, 1990), and expansion is necessary “so the airport does not limit what goes on on Maui” (May 9, 1991).
Volume 2, Number 8 February 1992