{"id":16262,"date":"2024-12-05T11:12:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T21:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.environment-hawaii.org\/?p=16262"},"modified":"2024-12-05T11:12:43","modified_gmt":"2024-12-05T21:12:43","slug":"new-noteworthy-kona-three-dick-cox-seabird-protection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=16262","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy: Kona Three, Dick Cox, Seabird Protection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kona Three Goes Down: <\/strong>The long and fraught controversy over a housing development proposed more than 40 years ago just south of Kailua-Kona seems to have come to an end. On November 20, the Hawai\u02bbi County Council voted down a bill on first reading that would have given the landowner and developer, Kona Three, LLC, ten more years to finish the development. The vote was 7-1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had it been approved, the developer\u2019s consultant, Daryn Arai, said it would have added 450 units of much-needed housing. Michelle Galimba was the only member of the council who seemed swayed by this promise. All other councilmembers seemed concerned by the lack of infrastructure, traffic, flooding concerns, and the presence of cultural and historic resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill will come up again for a second, final council vote. The outcome is unlikely to change, given the strong sentiment within the community and in the council against the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the area proposed for development \u2013 around 70 acres \u2013 has been nominated for purchase by the county through the county\u2019s Public Access, Open Space, and Natural Resources Preservation program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dick Cox: <\/strong>We note the passing of Richard Cox, a member of the very first Commission on Water Resource Management. He died at his home in Manoa on August 2, at the age of 103.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A civil engineer, he worked for both McBryde Sugar and Alexander & Baldwin, but he also had a keen interest in environmental issues. He was a charter subscriber of Environment Hawai\u02bbi <\/em>and a generous supporter of our work over the years. He also served as president of the Conservation Council for Hawai\u02bbi. In the area of the arts, he and his brother Doak established the Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts at the Honolulu Museum of Art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seabird Suit: <\/strong>On November 19, the Conservation Council for Hawai\u02bbi and the American Bird Conservancy sued Maui County and Hawaiian Electric to protect endangered and threatened seabirds from being distracted or disoriented by streetlights on Maui and L\u0101na\u2019i.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit seeks to protect the endangered \u2018ua\u2018u (Hawaiian Petrel), the threatened \u2018a\u2018o (Newell\u2019s Shearwater), and the endangered \u2018ak\u0113\u2018ak\u0113 (Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s unique population of the Band-rumped Storm-petrel), according to a press release by Earthjustice, which represents the two groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll three species leave their nests at night, using the moon and stars to navigate out to sea and back. They can become distracted and disoriented by artificial lights, causing them to circle and eventually fall to the ground from exhaustion (known as \u2018fallout\u2019) or strike other human-made structures. Once grounded, the birds cannot become airborne, and typically die of predation, starvation, dehydration, or vehicle strikes. The largest remaining \u02bbua\u02bbu colonies nest near the summit of Haleakal\u0101 on Maui and at L\u0101na\u02bbihale on L\u0101na\u2019i,\u201d the release states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The utility owns and operates the streetlights on the two islands, while the county \u201cdictates the parameters for streetlight operation on county roads. Under the Endangered Species Act, both the county and Hawaiian Electric are liable for harm to these seabirds, and both must secure permits for unavoidable harm and develop habitat conservation plans for the species,\u201d it continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lawsuit comes just weeks after the groups reached a three-year agreement with the utility, under which it commits to several new measures (i.e., diverters to make the power lines more visible, $480,000 a year for monitoring and enhancement of \u02bbua\u02bbu habitat) to reduce the risk of harm to \u2018ua\u2018u and \u2018a\u2018o by power lines on Maui and L\u0101na\u2019i.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kona Three Goes Down: The long and fraught controversy over a housing development proposed more than 40 years ago just south of Kailua-Kona seems to have come to an end. On November 20, the Hawaiʻi County Council voted down a … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16263,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[531,26,338,18],"tags":[7,3],"class_list":["post-16262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-december-2024","category-endangered-species","category-land-use","category-new-noteworthy","tag-patricia-tummons","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262","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=16262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}