DLNR Eats $230,000 Remediation Bill for Contaminated North Kona Property It’s not unusual for the Department of Land and Natural Resources to request permission from the Board of Land and Natural Resources to write off uncollectible accounts. Rarely does the amount … Continued
The scene outside the Hawai`i County building in Hilo was as colorful as it was noisy the morning of February 12. Groups of Native Hawaiians and others opposed to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, many decked out in … Continued
A year ago, the nightly network newscasts were focused on the extravagant spending by the General Services Administration – specifically, a Las Vegas convention for its employees that cost taxpayers $820,000. After congressional inquiries into the event, attended by 320 … Continued
Some of the building blocks of the Ko`olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan (KLSCP) have been moving targets in recent months. Information about the region’s population, growth trends, and number of potential housing units was either absent from or sorely outdated … Continued
“We ended up on the short end of this opinion…. Minds immeasurably superior to ours will have to do the analysis on this one, at least for now,” wrote Honolulu attorney Robert Thomas in a recent post on his blog, … Continued
The recent decision of the Hawai`i Supreme Court involving a bottling company’s use of spring water has moved the case forward — back into the lap of the county agency that denied it the permits it needed in the first … Continued
The taro farmers of East Maui were first in line, but it appears they may be last to get served. The state Commission on Water Resource Management’s contested case hearing on the interim instream flow standards of Waihe`e River and … Continued
For a few weeks in January and February, keeping up with the filings for mechanic’s liens against Hu Honua Bioenergy required almost a full-time presence in Hilo’s 3rd Circuit Court. On February 4, an article by John Burnett in the … Continued
The Nature Conservancy’s Waikamoi Preserve in east Maui has been mostly free of feral pigs and goats for the last two decades. But what has that meant for the native vegetation on the high slopes of Haleakala? In 2008, four … Continued
The County of Hawai`i Planning Department has won a favorable ruling from the 3rd Circuit Court in a case that challenged the county’s ability to set shoreline setback distances. Despite that, the deputy corporation counsel representing the Planning Department, Amy … Continued