{"id":251,"date":"2014-02-01T21:03:52","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T21:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/EH\/?p=251"},"modified":"2014-02-01T21:03:52","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T21:03:52","slug":"new-noteworthy-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=251","title":{"rendered":"New & Noteworthy"},"content":{"rendered":"
Sailing On:\u00a0<\/b>\u201cAhoy rrrr ye mateys! The\u00a0Queen’s Treasure<\/i>\u00a0be sailin again!\u201d read the June 28 message to followers of\u00a0Queen\u2019s Treasure\u2019s<\/i>\u00a0Facebook page.<\/p>\n

For about the last year and a half, Ka`anapali Tours, LLC (KTL), which owns the 65-foot luxury catamaran, has been fighting in federal court for the right to operate the vessel along Maui\u2019s Ka`anapali coast.<\/p>\n

In September 2011, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources\u2019 Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation prevented the company from sailing\u00a0Queen\u2019s Treasure<\/i>\u00a0under its one-of-a-kind permit that purported to allow the use of either a monohull or a multihull vessel.<\/p>\n

DOBOR argued that the permit should never have been granted because its rules for Ka`anapali don\u2019t allow for such a permit. What\u2019s more, the rules require catamaran permittees to be selected from a waiting list (and KTL was not at the top of that list when it acquired its permit).<\/p>\n

KTL sued in U.S. District Court and lost. Although the company\u2019s monohull\/multihull permit expired last year, KTL appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n

However, in May, attorneys for KTL and the state filed a motion asking that the case be dismissed with prejudice. According to DOBOR administrator Ed Underwood, KTL recently entered into an agreement with the owner of Fun Charters, Inc., which has a valid catamaran permit for Ka`anapali. Essentially, Fun Charters is leasing\u00a0Queen\u2019s Treasure<\/i>\u00a0from KTL, he says. He added that KTL\u2019s owner is still on the wait list for a permit.<\/p>\n

For more on this, read our February 2012 cover story and our March 2012 and February 2013 New & Noteworthy items, all available at\u00a0https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Albizia Update:\u00a0<\/b>The county of Hawai`i is suing a family that owns land in Hilo over its failure to trim back an albizia tree that is hanging over Punahele Street, just a few blocks from downtown Hilo. The huge, heavy limbs create \u201ca known hazard to motorists, pedestrians, residents and users of Punahele Street,\u201d the county\u2019s complaint states.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s Department of Public Works first attempted to get the landowners \u2013 heirs of Harold Spencer \u2013 to remove the tree last September, when it issued a notice of violation and order that required removal of the hazard by November 6. An identical NOV was issued November 21, demanding corrective action be taken by January 21. On January 29, yet a third NOV was issued, with corrective action to be made by March 4. All three NOVs indicated that fines of $1,000 a day would be imposed if the deadline were not met.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s complaint asks for damages of $1,000 a day, starting only on March 4. By June 25, when the complaint was lodged with the court, the fines would have amounted to $113,000. The county is also seeking to recover its attorneys\u2019 fees, interest, and other costs.<\/p>\n

Even if the county prevails in court, its ability to collect damages from the owners is not a sure thing. Property tax records show they last paid taxes in 2011.<\/p>\n

TAUs Are Tossed:<\/b>\u00a0Federal Judge Leslie Kobayashi has ruled that a Kaua`i law limiting construction of new transient accommodation units (TAUs) is invalid. In doing so, she agreed with the argument of Kaua`i Beach Villas\u2014Phase II that the law, the result of a ballot referendum, was in conflict with the Hawai`i Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Kaiser Hawai`i Kai Development Co. v. City & County of Honolulu,<\/i>\u00a0better known as the Sandy Beach case.<\/p>\n

Environment Hawai`i\u00a0<\/i>published details of the lawsuit in our October 2012 issue. For more information and to see the judge\u2019s decision, see the EH-Xtra item on our website,\u00a0https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sailing On: “Ahoy rrrr ye mateys! The Queen’s Treasure be sailin again!” read the June 28 message to followers of Queen’s Treasure’s Facebook page. For about the last year and a half, Ka`anapali Tours, LLC (KTL), which owns the 65-foot luxury catamaran, has been fighting … 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":[32,18,20],"tags":[7,3],"class_list":["post-251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-august-2013","category-new-noteworthy","category-tourism","tag-patricia-tummons","tag-teresa-dawson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251","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=251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}