What were they thinking?
They are the board members of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority. Last month, in what has mercifully turned out to be a meaningless exercise, six of them approved a 30-year leas of at least 10 acres of land to a company called Megasoft. It has no visible assets. Its principal, Venumadhav Pasupuleti, has a track record – but not one that suggests he’s halfway capable of delivering on his big promises.
Supposing Pasupuleti could carry through on his plans, would the result be good for Kona or the Big Island – or even Hawai`i as a whole?
The prospect of 4,200 highly paid computer engineers washing up on the Kona shore over the next five years may put a gleam in the eye of land speculators, building contractors, and real estate agents. Others in West Hawai`i – where housing prices are already through the roof, electric rates are sky high, and traffic is a near-constant nightmare – may be forgiven if they don’t roll out the welcome mat for the newcomers.
Big Island Mayor Harry Kim took a dim view of the project. So, too, did his representative on the NELHA board, Robert Arrigoni, the county’s energy coordinator. But Arrigoni and Pat Cooper, the University of Hawai`i’s delegate to the board, were the lond holdouts at the hastily – and improperly – called April meeting.
And why the rush? When the board met in March, no one suggested that there might be a need to act on the Megasoft deal before the end of May. Yet just eight days later, NELHA administrator Ron Baird was frantically trying to line up a quorum for a meeting in early April. He succeeded, but neglected to inform the public of the scheduled meeting. Fortunately for the public – and unfortunately for Pasupuleti and his backers – the meeting must be redone.
Due Diligence
At NELHA board meetings, Baird often mentions the problems he faces in trying to manage a facility that, to hear him tell it, is being cut adrift by the state administration and Legislature and told to be self-sufficient. This may explain his eagerness to put paying tenants on what is now vacant land. It doesn’t absolve him of responsibility to vet their bona fides.
We have made extraordinary efforts to interview Pasupupeti and Baird for our articles. Pasupuleti has been as evasive with us as he’s been with the attorneys who sued him in Ohio. Baird has simply refused to return calls, apparently preferring to deal with us via the deputy attorney general assigned to NELHA or other intermediaries.
All in all, it’s not a situation to inspire confidence in the management of NELHA, its strangely incurious board, and, perhaps most of all, the state administration that seems to be the hidden hand pushing Pasupuleti forward in the name of economic diversification.
Until last year, decisions of the NELHA board to issue subleases had to be approved by the state Board of Land and Natural Resources or its chairman. Last June, however, the Land Board, acceding to the request of NELHA chairman Richard Henderson, waived its involvement in the approval process, effectively giving NELHA carte blanche to put on state land whomever and whatever it chose. According to the DLNR Land Division office in Hilo, NELHA no longer even notifies the DLNR of the subleases it grants.
If the NELHA board and staff exercised all appropriate reviews and acted within the constraints of the environmental impact statements and master pans drawn up for the facility the public might rest assured that state lands were properly managed.
The EIS, dating from 1985, describes a “worst-case” scenario for development of the Hawai`i Ocean Science and Technology Park (the mauka portion of NELHA, where the Megasoft facility will be sited), involving no more than 3,850 employees and peak-hour traffic flows of 1,611 vehicles per hour. The anticipated power consumption was for no more than 12 megawatts at full development – contrasted to the 50 MW that Pasupuleti projects he alone will need.
As the Megasoft case and the sprawl of water bottlers in tent-like buildings point out so eloquently, however, NELHA staff pays no heed to the EIS or the latest revision (1989) of the master plan for the HOST Park. Those documents describe a development where close attention is paid to the visual quality of the area (with architectural standards – all now observed in the breach – laid out in a specific design manual) and strict standards are in place for construction, conservation of historic sites, treatment of wastewater, and the like.
NELHA is still bound by the terms of that environmental impact statement. As that document states, it is “intended to be used by the key decision-makers both in finalizing their development plans and in evaluating the suitability of prospective tenants and projects… [I]f a new activity emerges with unique requirements that may increase the magnitude of the impacts presented in the EIS, an environmental assessment will be made and the Office of Environmental Quality Control will be asked to determine if a supplemental EIS is required.”
Comparing what has been built with the vision set forth in the master plan, one cannot help but be struck by the disconnect. The detailed manual of practices and procedures, the design manual calling for the use of “high quality” building materials, the care that was to be taken with landscaping and historic sites – all have fallen by the wayside.
What’s more, the development that has already occurred stretches the limits of the EIS to the breaking point. That the Megasoft proposal could even be considered without preparation of a supplemental EIS is outrageous.
A Fresh Start
There’s probably not a person living hwo, at one time or another, wouldn’t love to be able to start over with a clean slate, unburdened by the weight of past mistakes. Maybe Pasupuleti regards the chance to start up a business at NELHA as just such an opportunity, leaving behind his sad history in Ohio. And maybe Pasupuleti does deserve a break.
Burt one can make a powerful argument that the state’s valuable resources at the NELHA facility should be husbanded a bit more carefully and not treated as give-aways to the down-and-out. Let private investors take their risks with Pasupuleti, and save the state’s highest and best lands for enterprises that can show they have a better chance of success and with less wear and tear on Big Island infrastructure.
Regardless of how l’affaire Venu plays out, it is past time for NELHA to adopt administrative rules governing applications, procedures, and contested case hearings (the ones drafted for HOST Park are a good place to begin). It may also be a good time to prepare a new EIS and master plan. But until that occurs, NELHA must live within the constraints of the existing development documents. If that means a moratorium on development projects, so be it.
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