Virgin Paper Chase:<\/b> Once again, the Department of Accounting and General Services is seeking an exemption from the requirement that it purchase paper with recycled content for printing state checks. According to the exemption request that state Controller Russell Saito submitted to the state procurement office last month, Xerox, whose equipment the state uses when printing checks, can\u2019t guarantee that a security measure will be effective if the checks are printed on paper containing recycled content.<\/p>\n
\tThe security feature is called MICR, for magnetic ink character recognition, or MICR. A letter attached to the exemption request from Ian Yee, Xerox Document Solutions sales manager in Honolulu, says that while his company\u2019s high-speed printers can run on a variety of paper stock, \u201cwe highly recommend the use of virgin paper\u2026 Our MICR guarantee is based on the printing being within tolerances of the check scanners used by the banking industry to automate processing.\u201d Also, he says, \u201cMore jams will occur when using recycled paper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tA quick internet search easily turned up check suppliers who manage to employ the MICR system on paper with recycled content. But Kurt Muraoka, a DAGS accounting system manager, told Environment Hawai`i,<\/i> \u201cwe don\u2019t want to run the risk\u201d of something going wrong.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cBasically, we try to stay within the standards of Xerox,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we have problems, we call them for support. They do maintenance on the systems. We stick to whatever they recommend. They\u2019re not benefiting from this at all, we don\u2019t buy paper from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWhen banks process checks, he said, their machines read the MICR line on the bottom of each check. With recycled paper, \u201cthere\u2019s no guarantee that it will be free of MICR content in that area, which can distort the information picked up by the bank readers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cWe print over a million checks a year \u2013 thousands each day,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t afford to have any down time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tAccording to the exemption request, DAGS estimates that the cost of the paper it needs for checks will be around $35,000 for the 2009-10 fiscal year.<\/p>\n
NELHA Pipeline Repair:<\/b> After three or four do-overs (depending on who\u2019s counting), the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority has finally awarded a contract for repair of the damage to its deep-water pipelines that occurred in the October 2006 earthquake.<\/p>\n
\tThe winning bidder is Harbor Offshore, Inc., the same company that got the nod in the second bid, which was voided by NELHA after a competitor\u2019s protest called attention to flaws in the bid process. (The first bidding was cancelled for flaws before a winning bid was selected.) Harbor Offshore was the same company that NELHA administrator Ron Baird wanted to award the job to in his request last September to have the State Procurement Office approve a non-bid \u201cemergency exemption.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn the NELHA board\u2019s December meeting, Baird did not identify the winning bidder, who had not yet been formally notified. He did say, however, that \u201cwe have a very clear and present low bidder, within the amount of monies we have to do the earthquake repairs.\u201d The winning bid came in at $275,256.<\/p>\n
\tRegardless of how \u201cclear and present\u201d the winning bid seemed to Baird, \u201cit\u2019s not over yet,\u201d says Patrick Ross, vice president of Sea Engineering, Inc., which also bid on the project. \u201cI have asked for a debriefing\u201d to learn more about the basis on which Harbor Offshore was awarded the bid. That could lead to a formal challenge, he said.<\/p>\n
\tThe subject of NELHA pipeline repairs was discussed in the November issue of Environment Hawai`i,<\/i> available online at [url=https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org]www.environment-hawaii.org[\/url]<\/p>\n
Fishing for Data:<\/b> In March 2007, when the state adopted new rules regulating the use of lay gill nets, several fishermen and fisherwomen vowed to continue using their nets in their traditional fashion, despite the consequences. The rules require, among other things, lay net fishers to register their nets with the state Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Division of Aquatic Resources and prohibit the use of lay gill nets at night, a condition that some fishers said would turn them into criminals.<\/p>\n
Gary Moniz, head of the DLNR\u2019s Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement, says he has no idea how many lay-net related citations his officers have issued since the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the rules. However, he told Environment Hawai`i,<\/i> his officers do occasionally confiscate unmarked nets and people receiving citations \u201cusually know that what they were doing is illegal.\u201d He adds that his division is working to implement a software system that will help track DOCARE\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
DAR records indicate that more than two thousand fishers are trying to comply. According to DAR\u2019s Francis Oishi, as of November 19, 78 lay gillnets had been registered in Hilo, 24 in Kona, 71 on Lana`i, 628 on Moloka`i, 591 on Oahu, and 710 on Kaua`i. None have been registered on Maui since the rules ban the use of lay nets there.<\/p>\n
Volume 19, Number 7 January 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Virgin Paper Chase: Once again, the Department of Accounting and General Services is seeking an exemption from the requirement that it purchase paper with recycled content for printing state checks. According to the exemption request that state Controller Russell Saito … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-july-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}