Olowalu Town Nixed: Last month, at the end of a 12-hour-long hearing, the Land Use Commission refused to accept a final environmental impact statement for a residential development of 1,500 units in West Maui first proposed more than 10 years … Continued
Gardens Gone? The iconic gardens at Honolulu International Airport international terminal may soon be no more than a memory. The three gardens and their ponds – landscaped in the styles of China, Japan, and Hawai`i – have long been … Continued
More than a year after the Hawai`i Supreme Court heard oral arguments, it has issued its decision in Patrickson v. Dole, a case that revolves around harm to Central American workers exposed to DBCP, or dibromochloropropane. That chemical was widely … Continued
Carol A. MacLennan. Sovereign Sugar: Industry and Environment in Hawai`i. University of Hawai`i Press, 2014. 392 pages. $39.00 (cloth). In 1939, Harper & Brothers Publishers released John W. Vandercook’s history of sugar in Hawai`i. King Cane, it was called, and … Continued
A year and two months after the Hawai`i Public Utilities Commission opened a docket to determine the future of net energy metering, or NEM, it has concluded the first phase in a two-step process. On its face, … Continued
Defending the decision to phase out new net-energy metering customers, the Public Utilities Commission noted that the NEM program “was simply not designed for … deployment at the scale experienced today.” When the current NEM program was authorized in 2001, … Continued
Pia Valley Approval: The state Forest Stewardship Advisory Committee (FSAC) has given its approval to the acquisition by the Department of Land and Natural Resources of a 300-acre parcel of forested land in East Honolulu. Pia Valley, which lies in … Continued
The annual Hawai`i Conservation Conference, held this year in August at the University of Hawai`i-Hilo, offered hundreds of discussions on a wide range of topics. This month, we continue to report on selected presentations. * * * When Looking … Continued
The 23rd annual Hawai`i Conservation Conference, held last month, brought some 1,300 scientists, natural resource managers, and students to the University of Hawai`i-Hilo. For four days, participants criss-crossed the lush, sprawling campus as they walked from one symposium … Continued
Two years ago, the National Park Service petitioned the state Commission on Water Resource Management to designate the Keauhou aquifer, in West Hawai`i, as a water management area. The Park Service’s intention was to ensure that the subsurface groundwater flows … Continued