{"id":15806,"date":"2024-03-04T08:37:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=15806"},"modified":"2024-03-04T08:37:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-04T18:37:27","slug":"new-noteworthy-false-killer-whales-another-marconi-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=15806","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: False Killer Whales, Another Marconi Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
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False killer whale. Credit: Robin Baird<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

FKW Trigger Lowered: <\/strong>The National Marine Fisheries Service has reduced the level of observer coverage in the deep-set longline fishery of Hawai\u02bbi. And as the level of observer coverage is lowered, so, too, is the number of false killer whales that the fishery is allowed to take before the fishery is closed out of a large area of fishing grounds south of the islands, extending from the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, in the west, to beyond the easternmost tip of the Big Island, in the east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NMFS has set at 16 the number of pelagic false killer whales that can be killed or seriously injured by the fishery, and the number of observed takes, at 20 percent observer coverage, is estimated at one-fifth of that, or four, due to rounding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that the coverage has been reduced, the number of animals that can be killed or seriously injured by the fishery has been reduced as well, to three observed mortality or serious injury (M\/SI) takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, the fishery had six observed takes, five of which were still awaiting at year\u2019s end a determination as to whether the injury qualified as a M\/SI. This year, a false killer whale was hooked on January 11. The observer report stated that about 3.7 meters of branch line, 0.7 meter of monofilament line, a 45-gram swivel weight, and a hook remained attached to the animal when the line was cut by the fishing crew. No determination has been made on that interaction, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The agricultural warehouses at Marconi Point. Credit: Peter Fowler\/Endure Films<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

New Marconi Lawsuit: <\/strong>On February 16, attorneys representing RCA Trade Center, Inc. and MP Unit 21, LLC, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court against Schulte Building Systems, Inc., a Texas company that provided the building materials for the eight agricultural warehouses that have been erected on the former companies\u2019 units within the Marconi Point Condominiums property on O\u02bbahu\u2019s North Shore.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both RCA and MP Unit 21 are owned by Marconi Point developer Jeremiah Henderson III and are part of another federal lawsuit against the City & County of Honolulu over, among other things, whether the Department of Planning and Permitting improperly required a Special Management Area permit to be obtained for some of the proposed development at Marconi Point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more recent complaint asks that nearly $770,000 in damages be awarded to RCA, and $1.12 million in damages be awarded to MP Unit 21. The companies claim that the metal purlins that Schulte provided to support the buildings\u2019 roofs were not properly galvanized to fight corrosion and rusted out, requiring the ordering of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of replacement parts and delaying construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RCA and MP Unit 21 also claim Schulte owes them money for lost rental income due to construction delays. This, despite the fact that the City & County of Honolulu has so far held back on issuing permits to complete the interiors of most of the buildings and that the companies\u2019 ability to secure Certificates of Occupancy is in question as a result of unauthorized work done recently on adjacent historic structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The companies\u2019 calculation of lost income from the sale of electricity generated by the rooftop solar panels atop all of the buildings is also off by several thousand dollars. The complaint alleges the companies are each owed $21,000 based on the estimated sale of electricity over 18 months at a rate of 24.5 cents per kilowatt hour. That rate, however, is the feed-in tariff rate for concentrated solar power, not rooftop solar. The feed-in tariff rate for rooftop solar is 18.9 cents per kilowatt hour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FKW Trigger Lowered: The National Marine Fisheries Service has reduced the level of observer coverage in the deep-set longline fishery of Hawaiʻi. And as the level of observer coverage is lowered, so, too, is the number of false killer whales … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7856,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,26,8,338,522,17,18],"tags":[7,3],"class_list":["post-15806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-endangered-species","category-fisheries","category-land-use","category-march-2024","category-marine","category-new-noteworthy","tag-patricia-tummons","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15806","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=15806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}