Hotel operators across the state are devising ways to conserve energy, reduce water use, and cut down on generation of solid waste. Architects and engineers are starting to incorporate conservation techniques into the very design of their buildings.
The developers of the Hawaiian Riviera Resort seem to have missed the boat on this trend, however. In their environmental impact statement and subsequent documents presented to the Land Use Commission, not one word is mentioned in regard to conservation.
Consider the electricity that would be consumed by the resort when it is fully built out (both the Palace and the Hawai`i Ka`u `Aina phases, plus the support community of 800 houses). The environmental impact statement predicts that 39 megawatts of electrical generation capacity will be needed to power this development — an amount that is roughly 40 percent of the present generation capacity for the entire Big Island. Since the EIS was written, the project has been sized down somewhat. However, the level of service has been increased, meaning the consumption of power on a per-capital basis has gone up rather than down. The current forecast for energy needs will be 20 megawatts.
The on-site population (visitors and part-time residents) will be about 4,200 at the time of completion of the first phase, according to John Knox, hired by the developers to study the socio-economic impacts of their plan. When workers are added to that, the de facto daily population of the resort rises to 6,600. If an allowance is made for dependents residing in the support community (say, generously, 3 per household, for a total of 2,400), the total de facto population rises to 9,000.
Statewide electrical consumption in 1988 was 6.3 megawatt hours per year per person (based on de facto population estimates). The projected electrical consumption for the resort’s de facto population is in the range of 19.5 megawatt hours per capita — or more than three times the statewide average.
Water Woes
The resort planners have indicated they will be getting water from wells near the Mamalahoa Highway. No potable water has ever been produced in the area; the one test well they dug was brackish. In any case, they are confident they will find sufficient water supplies, brackish as well as potable, to support the development.
According to the EIS, 2.2 million gallons a day of brackish water will be needed to irrigate the Palace Resort grounds. This portion of the resort will also require about 1.2 million gallons of potable water each day, with the support community using .18 million gallons a day. (These estimates were prepared before the super-luxury resort was conceived; with super-rich luxury consumers, the demands might be reasonably expected to rise.)
A standard per-capita figure for potable water consumption is 100 gallons a day. Under normal circumstances, then, a population of the resort’s size might be expected to consume 900,000 gallons a day, not 1.4 mgd. Even before the up-scaling of the resort, it was going to be consuming water at a rate at least one and a half times the average. At no time does the EIS discuss possible ways of mitigating this. Agents for the developers told the Commission that, in effect, there was no need to worry since water could always be found (even if by desalination).
Waste
The EIS states that the Palace resort (excluding the support community) will be generating about 22 tons of solid waste per day, or 8,030 tons per year. That is more than 7 percent of the total waste generated in Hawai`i County for 1990 (108,500 tons), even though the resort’s de facto population (6,600, excluding the support community) will amount to less than 5 percent of the county’s total daily de facto population. And, again, the EIS was developed before the super-luxury, super-consumer clientele was targeted.
The environmental impact statement is silent on ways to mitigate this impact. The only concession the developers offer is to provide land to the county for a transfer station or possibly to set aside an area on its own property for a future landfill. It acknowledges that “the projected solid waste from the … resort will probably exceed the remaining capacity of the existing landfill in the Kailua-Kona area” (there being virtually no remaining capacity even today). However, “the opening of new landfill sites by the county would meet the projected demand for landfill capacity.”
Landscape
The shoreline from Miloli`i to Ka Lae (South Point) is the longest and wildest undisturbed stretch of coast in Hawai`i today. Immediately to the east of the resort site is the Manuka Natural Area Reserve. Anchialine ponds in the area owned by the developers were noted to be pristine, with no introduced species or chemical contamination. An archaeological survey done for the developers identified “four definite and two probable coastal-inland trail networks.”
The developers have not committed to taking all measures needed to preserve the anchialine ponds. Rather, the EIS states simply that they “could” be protected from disturbances associated with development.
The state proposed some kind of buffer between the resort site and the Manuka Reserve. This was not required of the developers, however.
There is, of course, no way to mitigate the impact on the wild shoreline. The trails, however, enjoy (theoretical) protection both by specific language in the deed to the property as well as by the statewide trail program, Na Ala Hele. No mention of protecting these resources is made in the environmental impact statement, nor did the Land Use Commission see fit to acknowledge them in its conditions of approval.
Volume 1, Number 12 June 1991
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