Strafing run at Salt Pond Beach

SUBHEAD: Lifeguards on duty thought the military helicopters were a clear danger to the public.

By Juan Wilson on 9 December 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/12/strafing-run-at-salt-pond.html)


Image above: Attack helicopter traverses Salt Pond Beach Park at low altitude from east to west as beachgoers watch. Note the chopper is right over cars parked at the far side if the beach. See image below for close up of cars. Photo by Juan Wilson.

This is the second time I have witnessed what amounts to practice strafing runs over an occupied county public beach park on Kauai, Hawaii. It is not welcomed.

Below are images and a short video that caught on my iPod as two military helicopters flying low and hot in at least four passes from east to west and back over Burns Field.

Burns is an unregulated airstrip at Puolo Point shared by small private civilian and commercial aircraft. There is no control tower, personnel or traffic regulation at the fields.


Image above: Vehicles park along fence of Burns Field for access to beach for swimming and fishing. Photo by Juan Wilson.

These maneuvers brought them over the Salt Pond Beach area including a sandy beach and ocean swimming area occupied by tourists and locals that often park near the end of the Burns Field runway.

one of  the helicopter's passed was higher from west to east. See video below.


Image above: The two  helicopters heading west over water of Salt Pond Beach Park in one of at least four runs at Burn's Field. In most they approached the area and dropped to lower strafing altitude. From (https://youtu.be/dQvwrn8EMPQ).

I spoke to the lifeguards on duty at the time. They were appalled by the risks of flying so low over a swimming area. They thought it clearly a danger to the public.

One aircraft appeared to be a UH-60 Black Hawk and the other a Bell Cobra attack helicopter, both used by the US Army.


The Navy operates two 7,000 foot long runways with a control tower, fire trucks and safety equipment just a few miles from this beach. Why can't the Army make what look like strafing runs there? Is it because they would have to ask permission of the Navy and might be turned down?


These copters likely flew from Oahu - Probably from the US Army's Schofield Barracks airfield.

See also:

Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai and Niihau endangered 9/24/16

Ea O Ka Aina: MV-22 Osprey landing at Salt Pond 2/5/17

Ea O Ka Aina: See film "Okinawa: The Afterburn" 3/18/17

Ea O Ka Aina: Marines backing off 8/24/12

Ea O Ka Aina: Unproved Osprey on Kauai 8/21/12

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Hawaii tests nuclear attack sirens

SUBHEAD: The state closest to Kim Jong Un’s missiles is preparing for what was once unthinkable.

By Jon Letman on 1 December 2017 for the Daily Beast -
(https://www.thedailybeast.com/hawaii-just-heard-what-a-north-korean-nuclear-attack-would-sound-like)


Image above: Graphic of nuclear bomb explosion and siren wave form over the seal of the State of Hawaii. From original article.

The wail of an air raid siren cut through the humid December air for the first time in decades to warn of an imminent nuclear attack. Holiday shoppers at a palm tree-lined outdoor mall on the Hawaiian island of Kauai showed little reaction though. Others around the state reported not hearing the siren at all.

One resident, Adrian Diaz, a bank employee on his lunch break outside a Starbucks, was following local media and expected the siren. “It’s not going to be on the soundtrack of anybody’s album, but I think it’s definitely a good alarm to have.”

On Dec. 1, Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA) initiated a new monthly test of a siren that would sound in the event of a nuclear attack warning people to “Get Inside. Stay Inside. Stay Tuned.”

In a public presentation on Oahu, HI-EMA administrator Vern Miyagi said that with only 12-15 minutes advance notice in case of a North Korean missile launch against the islands, his agency has a responsibility to inform the public how to prepare and what to expect.

Hawaii already has 384 warning sirens statewide and is increasing the count to nearly 500. A steady tone siren to warn of natural disasters is already tested monthly, but Miyagi said, “For 2017, of course, we’ll have something for nuclear attack.”

Stressing such an event is “very unlikely,” Miyagi explained how planning models indicate a nuclear strike could target Honolulu’s international airport, harbor, or Hickam Airforce Base near Pearl Harbor.

Models project a nuclear strike would produce severe damage to critical infrastructure and buildings and a loss of emergency services, communications and utilities with up to 120,000 trauma and burn victims and close to 18,000 fatalities.

The state says it must also consider the possibility of neighbor islands like Maui or Kauai being hit intentionally or by accident.

Some critics believe officials are downplaying potential impacts but Miyagi insists, “We’re not holding anything back. We’re not making anything prettier. This is what we anticipate will happen. We want to make sure the public understands. It’s not a good thing.”

David Santoro, director and senior fellow of nuclear policy at the Pacific Forum/Center for Strategic and International Studies in Honolulu, isn’t opposed to Hawaii’s nuclear preparedness efforts but says people shouldn’t get too worried.

“North Korea isn’t an immediate threat and the U.S. has been ‘threatened’ by other nuclear-armed states for a long time,” Santoro wrote in an email. “Still, it’s good for Hawaii residents to be aware of the problem and prepare in the event of an incident.”

Residents are advised to stock two weeks’ worth of food, water, and medicine for natural hazards like tsunami and hurricanes but also in case of a nuclear attack, which could cut off supplies brought in by air and sea.

If U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) detected a Hawaii-bound missile, it would immediately notify HI-EMA, which is located in an underground tunnel inside Honolulu’s Diamond Head crater.

The agency would activate the statewide siren warning the public to shelter in place, ideally in the center of a sturdy concrete building that could hopefully withstand the searing flash and blast wave of an explosion.

Hawaii’s Cold War-era fallout shelters, long disused, are no longer viable and there are no plans to evacuate residents or tourists from one island to another.

Although military installations are assumed to be targets Miyagi said, “We’re very fortunate that we have PACOM right inside Honolulu... as soon as they determine that it is inbound or it is a threat to Hawaii, they will notify us via a secure telephone.”

Hawaii’s Department of Education spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said Hawaii’s public schools have been coordinating with HI-EMA but have no special drills planned for a missile attack.

“We work with HI-EMA on nuclear preparedness planning, practices and emergency procedures. Schools were provided the HI-EMA information regarding Ballistic Missile Preparedness and sheltering in place guidance,” Dela Cruz said by email.

Hawaii Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa said, “I don’t think any major U.S. city or state is adequately prepared for what has been, until more recent times, an unthinkable event.”

In written responses, Hanabusa and Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono both voiced support for sanctions and criticized President Trump’s use of Twitter to taunt the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un while failing to adequately pursue serious diplomacy.

“In fact,” Hirono said, “[Trump] has undermined his own Secretary of State on the importance of diplomatic talks, and has failed to make important nominations such as an ambassador to South Korea and an Assistant Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific Affairs.”

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said Trump needs to understand Kim Jong Un is developing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against U.S.-led regime change. The toppling of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, and Trump’s repeated threats to abandon the Iran nuclear deal tells North Korea that the U.S. can’t be trusted, Gabbard said.

“We must end our regime change policies and wars, and seriously pursue diplomatic negotiations with North Korea, without preconditions, to de-escalate and ultimately denuclearize North Korea,” Gabbard said in a written statement.

Hawaii is one of the few places in the U.S. to take concrete steps in preparation for a possible North Korean nuclear attack. Others include Ventura County (PDF), north of Los Angeles, and Guam, which Kim Jong Un threatened to strike in August.

Guam’s Homeland Security and the Office of Civil Defense are increasing the territory’s all hazards alert warning system and issued “imminent missile threat” guidelines (PDF), but, like Hawaii, has no designated fallout shelters and would have less than 15-20 minutes’ warning to “shelter in place.”

Some Hawaii residents are looking beyond sirens and shelters, urging local leaders to take a more active role in pursuing diplomacy with North Korea.

Koohan Paik, an Asia-Pacific policy analyst on Hawaii Island, introduced a resolution calling for the U.S. “to seek a peaceful diplomatic solution to reduce tensions in the Korean peninsula.”

The Hawaii County Council passed the resolution with an 8-0 vote.

Paik, whose own father was born in what is now North Korea said,

“A peace resolution sets a tone of aloha, while nuclear attack drills normalize fear and conflict. We need to visualize diplomacy, not a nuclear attack.”

On Oahu, Christine Ahn, international coordinator with Women Cross the DMZ, says she would rather see greater investment in supporting diplomacy than a “fear mongering campaign.”

“A wise move,” Ahn said, “would be to call for halting the war drills scheduled for the winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. That would be a game changer and would signal to the North Koreans that we are ready to talk.”

University of Chicago history professor Bruce Cumings, a Korean history authority, believes “North Korea is not going to hit Hawaii because that would lead to the U.S. obliterating the regime.” In an email Cumings said,

“If public educators would focus on our historic responsibility for the North Korea problem—including utterly demolishing the country via air campaigns during the Korean war—we might get somewhere.”

In South Korea, where the risk of war is greatest, attack drills have been met with little sense of urgency in a nation that has grown accustomed to decades of fiery threats.

Meanwhile, this week North Korea broke its 74-day pause when it fired a Hwasong-15 ICBM toward Japan where missiles fired earlier this year led Japanese officials to sound their own warning sirens.

With talk of nuclear war rattling nerves from Honolulu to Hokkaido, instability on the Korean Peninsula does benefit one group: weapons manufacturers like Lockheed-Martin which view Asia as a “growth area” and where, less than a month ago, President Trump bragged about how much military hardware the U.S. would sell to “bring security to the region.”

The attack never came, of course. It was a drill, the first in decades.



Image above: Video of siren warning as it was heard at near Starbucks at the Kukui Grove Mall in Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii. From original article (https://youtu.be/P1i95FD5-NM).


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Korea in Conflict

SUBHEAD: "From Colonization to Militarization" a free lecture December 7th at 6-8pm at KCC.

By Kip Goodwin for Island Breath on 29 November 2017 - 
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/11/korea-in-conflict.html)


Image above: Representatives of North and South Korea meeting in Demilitarized Zone in 2015 peace talks. From (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34039187).

WHAT:
 "From Colonization to Militarization: Korea in Context: Past and Present".  A free lecture with powerpoint presented by KCC History Professor Mark Ombrello and Kauai journalist Jon Letman.   Followed by snacks, refreshments, and a lively discussion.

WHERE:
Kauai Community College
One-Stop Center (the first building on the right when you drive into the Puhi campus
3-1901 Kaumualii Highway
Lihue, Hawaii 96766
808-245-8225

WHEN:
 Thursday, 7 December 2017, 6pm - 8pm

SPONSOR:
Kauai Alliance for Peace and Justice, and KCC History and Philosophy Club
For more information, email ombrello@kauai.edu or call 808-245-8328

Dr. Ombrello will provide a brief overview of modern (20th century) history of colonialism in Korea from the overthrow of the kingdom by Japan in 1910 to World War ll.

Mr. Letman will speak on current affairs with focus on the highly militarized state of the two Koreas. At a time of heightened tension with the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula, speakers will also examine Kauai's role in the militarization of South Korea and northeast Asia.

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Kauai Community Coalition meeting

SUBHEAD: The Kauai Planning Department plan for the future needs to be fixed by the people.

By By Juan Wilson on 22 August 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/08/kauai-community-coalition-meeting.html)


Image above: Detail ofillustration of County General Plan proposal superimposed over photo of the landscape of Kauai. From Kauai Community Coalition website.

WHAT:
All are invited to a public meeting to discuss changes needed in the Kauai General Plan Update as presented by the Kauai Planning Commission. 

WHEN:
 Thursday, August 31st 2017 from 6:30pm to 9:00pm

WHERE:
Lihue Neighborhood Center
3353 Eono Street
 Lihue, HI 96766

WHO:
Kauai Community Coalition
Website: https://www.communitycoalitionkauai.org/
Email:  communitycoalitionofkauai@gmail.com

For Kauai’s Future, for our Keiki – Fix the Plan!
Please join us in this coordinated community-wide effort to speak with one voice about the need to have a General Plan that first and foremost meets the needs of the residents of Kauai.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: We need "our" Kauai General Plan 7/24/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Fact or Fantasy: Kauai General Plan 7/9/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Commission accepts General Plan 6/15/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Lima Ola mess to begin in 2018 6/15/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Testimony against General Plan 6/14/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Nui Kuapapa 5/14/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Find and Limit Ourselves 2/17/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai General Plan open house 12/8/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Reject the Kauai General Plan update 11/30/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai County "Keep Kauai Rural!" 11/17/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Planet Kaauai 2/26/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai General Plan Update 9/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Plan disappoints 12/9/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Agricultural Goals 4/30/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai General Plan 4/2/09


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Hawaii prepares for nuclear attack

SUBHEAD: Officials wanted to roll out a response plan before tensions escalated. Then Trump's threats began.

By Carla Herreria on 12 August 2017 for Huffington Post -
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hawaii-response-plan-north-korea-nuclear-tension_us_598cf7e1e4b09071f698b844)


Image above: Why is Hawaii threatened? Because of strategic location to control the Pacific Ocean. That's a major reason for America's takeover. many of the islands are riddled with important military targets.

Months before President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” before North Korea claimed to be planning a mid-August attack on Guam and well before Trump tweeted that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” to strike, officials in Hawaii began organizing guidelines for civilians in case of a nuclear attack on the islands.

The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency has been preparing for possible threats from North Korea since January while trying to avoid causing undue anxiety among residents. But as the state began rolling out its response plan, North Korea successfully test-launched two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July with ranges within reach of Hawaii.

Then a very public exchange of threats and one-upmanship began between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“Of all the worst things that can happen is to stoop to the level of North Korea [with] threats of destruction and nuclear weapons,” Carl Baker, director of programs at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies, told HuffPost.

Though most experts are certain that the risk of a North Korean attack on Hawaii, let alone anywhere in the U.S., is still very low, Baker said the president’s “rhetoric isn’t doing anybody any good.”

“Most people are dismissive [of North Korea’s threats] and understand that this isn’t a problem,” said Baker, a retired Air Force officer who served as an intelligence analyst for U.S. Forces Korea. “But when you ratchet up the rhetoric like that and you get the bombast from both sides, it just makes everyone more uncertain.”

Hawaii is one of the first states to begin preparing for a nuclear strike from North Korea. Gov. David Ige requested the attack response plan from the state’s Department of Defense in December after military officials briefed him on North Korea’s potential threats to Hawaii.

“It’s only a matter of time that North Korea will be able to strike Hawaii with any kind of accuracy,” Lt. Col. Charles Anthony, a spokesman for the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency, told HuffPost.

“We want to get ahead of” the threat, Anthony added. “To us, it made much more sense to try to get a public information campaign out there before [North Korea] had a series of successful ICBM tests.”


Image above: Test flight of an Aegis missile from the Barking Sand area of the Pacific Missile Range Facilty (PMRF) on Kauai.

If a missile were to be launched at the islands, officials say, the state would have approximately 20 minutes to respond. The U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii would identify the launch within five minutes, giving the islands’ 1.4 million residents a mere 15 minutes to take shelter.

This scenario is what the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency is preparing residents for with a public information campaign, a revised set of nuclear response guidelines and the restoration of statewide attack warning sirens that had been turned off after the thawing of the Cold War in the late 1980s. Ideally, all this would’ve rolled out without stirring up fears ― a just-in-case plan.

Then things between North Korea and the U.S. escalated in a very public way.

“When we started this process, North Korea was zero for five in terms of ICBM missile tests,” Anthony told HuffPost, referring to the five failed ICBM tests. “About a week after we rolled out the public information campaign [on the state’s nuclear response guidelines], North Korea had successfully tested the second ICBM.”

Anthony said that Trump’s increasingly intense exchanges of threats with North Korea aren’t disturbing the state’s plans to prepare residents and visitors for an attack.

“We’re not concerning ourselves with any rhetoric coming out of North Korea or Washington,” Anthony said. “We’ve got our plans, and we’re working on our plans on our particular time table.”

North Korea has made major advancements in the country’s weapon program, which now includes ICBMs and miniaturized warheads that are potentially within range of Hawaii, as well as the mainland’s West Coast and Denver.

But most experts believe that there is no real threat to U.S. soil, especially since it remains unclear if Pyongyang has developed the accuracy to deliver a long-range missile to its intended target.

An attack on Hawaii also wouldn’t be a smart move for North Korea ― and they know that, according to Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu who focuses on North Korea.

“An actual strike against Hawaii doesn’t make sense because it wouldn’t help North Korea win a war,” Roy told HuffPost. It “would result in immediate and massive U.S. retaliation, probably the complete destruction of Pyongyang, and would seal not only the defeat of North Korea but its erasure as a political entity.”

And leaders in North Korea aren’t suicidal, Roy added.

However, it appears that Adm. Harry Harris Jr., commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, would disagree.

Harris, who could not be reached for an interview, told Congress in April that Kim is “clearly in a position to threaten Hawaii today” and requested that the government consider installing interceptors on Hawaii, which the state does not yet have, and a defensive radar.

Asked about the state’s readiness in the event of an attack, a Pacific Command official told HuffPost in a statement, “We always maintain a high state of readiness and have the capabilities to counter any threat, to include those from North Korea.”

The Missile Defense Agency currently has 37 interceptor missiles in Alaska and California that the agency claims would protect Hawaii from a North Korean ICBM.

As Trump’s threats to North Korea appear to be intensifying with every new statement, officials in Hawaii are calling for a de-escalation.


Image above: "Ground Zero" on Makaha Ridge atop Kauai is a  key facility for gathering critical aero-space information for the military and NASA. 

The president tweeted Friday that U.S. “military solutions are now fully in placed, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely,” later telling reporters that if Kim “utters one threat ... he’ll regret it.”

In a statement sent to HuffPost, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) called for “steady American leadership” in order to de-escalate the tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

“Bluster and saber-rattling will only exacerbate an already difficult situation,” Hirono said.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) criticized Trump’s exchanges with North Korea in a series of tweets this week, calling the president’s statements “unwise in tone, substance,” and urging Americans to listen to the Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea commanders instead.

Responding to reports that Trump improvised his North Korea remarks, Schatz said, “Am I supposed to be reassured?”

Amid all this war talk, some in Hawaii want to remind the president who he is endangering when threatening North Korea with nuclear war.

“Trump’s rhetoric puts Hawaii and even more Guam ... on the front line,” DeSoto Brown, Honolulu Bishop Museum historian, told HuffPost, likening the situation to Hawaii’s positioning during World War II.

“The situation is again beyond our capacity to control it,” DeSoto said of a possible nuclear threat.

“It’s just as it was in 1941 because of our geographic location and because of ... the country we are a part of,” he added, referring to the attack on Pearl Harbor. “There’s nothing we can really do about it except either ignore it or try to think seriously about what would we do.”

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Kauai and Tesla are newlyweds

SUBHEAD: "The power grid of the future will require sunny skies above and energy storage below. Thanks to Tesla, Kauai has both." ... and now the corporate takeover marriage will be complete.

By Juan Wilson on 10 August 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://grist.org/climate-energy/welcome-to-paradise-batteries-now-included/)


Images above: A corporation supported by underwriting by the Federal government. An average day of energy use on Kauai, before and after Tesla’s batteries came online. In 2016, the period of highest energy demand is met mostly with fossil fuels, after the sun has set. In 2017, solar power generated during the day is stored up and used at night, shrinking the island’s fossil fuel use by as much as 1.6 million gallons a year. From Kauai Island Utility Cooperative.

Kauai is now in bed with Tesla. There is good and bad to that. Tesla is a corporation interested in space travel and autonomous technology. They have not found a way to make money manufacturing cars or spaceships - maybe because they are a thing of the past - or ought to be. Tesla now wants to be your power grid. They chose to make colorful Kauai a test case for their plans. A great public relations stunt as well as a real experiment.

You can bet their smart meters will know everything Siri and Alexa have found out in your home... and more. You can also bet that Teslaand the County through KIUC will make it increasingly difficult for individual home owners to be off the grid and on their own system.

Within our Means?
Living within our resources looks like an impossible goal. Even our best sustainability efforts are corrupted by an inability to let go of our planet crushing appetites. Our efforts to "keep it all running" on solar power cannot run the colorful display screens, the refrigerators/freezers, the microwaves, washing machines and automobiles 24/7/365.

There are not enough rare earth metals and other required resources to supply that life we had suicidally burning fossil fuels. However, solar PV power can support a modified and reduced appetite for power. particularly if the PV panels are on your roof and the batteries in the garage.

You'll stay within a reasonable energy budget or wreck your system. As Luke Evslin found out with six solar panels and a small bank of batteries. (see Ea O Ka Aina: Failing to live Off-Grid 1/3/16).

The online article at Grist Magazine reproduced below is named "Welcome to Paradise: Batteries Now Included!"... It's about Tesla and Solar City teaming up to building a game changing solar PV farm with battery storage on Kauai.

What's funny to me is on the Grist website splash-page the article is tilted "Empire of the Sun: How Tesla is powering America's first clean energy paradise." That is closer to the truth.

Nikola Tesla
Tesla Corporatiion is doing what the Edison Company was doing over a century ago... creating a monopoly for power distribution. A century ago Nikola Tesla worked for Thomas Edison as Edison attempted to make power distribution practical.

Early on, Edison recognized the limitations of DC power. It was very difficult to transmit over distances without a significant loss of energy, and the inventor turned to a 28-year-old Serbian mathematician and engineer Nikola Tesla whom he’d recently hired at Edison Machine Works to help solve the problem.

Tesla claimed that Edison even offered him significant compensation if he could design a more practical form of power transmission. Tesla accepted the challenge. With a background in mathematics that his inventor boss did not have, he set out to redesign Edison’s DC generators. The future of electric distribution, Tesla told Edison, was in alternating current—where high-voltage energy could be transmitted over long distances using lower current—miles beyond generating plants, allowing a much more efficient delivery system. Edison dismissed Tesla’s ideas as “splendid” but “utterly impractical.”

See (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edison-vs-westinghouse-a-shocking-rivalry-102146036/#8xRjVLp0MuvbdEUk.99)

Tesla's AC scheme was rejected and after selling his related power patents to Westinghouse he became a recluse while attempting, and unable, to convince the world to transmit power through the air like radio waves.

The irony is that Tesla's scheme to transmit power would have been impossible to meter, and therefore of no use to Edison or Westinghouse interests. Tesla died a recluse feeding uncountable pigeons in his New York hotel room.

Elon Musk
It is ironic that Elon Musk invokes the "Tesla" name for his corporate interests. Free anything is the last thing on Musk's mind... unless its free money for Tesla Corporation in capitalizing and underwriting the cost of unaffordable electric cars.

KIUC was "supposed" to be a customer owned co-operative, but was really a creation to bail out the failing Kauai Electric company for a whopping $270 million.  As I've said before, we should have let Kauai Electric go bankrupt and suffered a bit and not end up saddled with unpayable debt charges added to our bills.

The Tesla-Solar City offer will be another monopolistic yoke around Kauaians necks. It will discourage solo homeowner efforts or neighborhood and community attempts to generate any power.
It will make Kauai self sufficiency less resilient as well as more brittle. Generating your own power produces a heightened awareness of limitations to power consumption.

If the Tesla-SolarCity system encourages running AC through the night and unlimited use of refrigeration and electric cars, it will be merely another crutch in enabling us to go on with business as usual. All the throw-away technology, the plastics, the imported foods, flat-screen screen hi-def entertainment and sprawling development will continue like a cancer to devour natural life on Earth.

Maybe we should be putting more effort into getting people not only "Off-The-Oil" but "Off -The-Grid". It may lead us into a cooperative, a commune, a commons, a guild, or life as a solo practitioner of a craft.

Real life is in the water, soil, the plants, the birds and bees. Not the Tesla SUV multi-tasking trip to Costco for fresh imported tropical fruit.

Of course, the efforts at the most local levels will be the most valuable. These Tesla Farms will supplant some agriculture, but worse their presence will accelerate suburban residential development.

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Batteries Now Included
SUBHEAD: In fact there is an option that there might be a monopoly on energy worse than under Kauai Island Utility Coop (KIUC) in partnership with TESLA (probably along with Amazon, Google and Ebay).

By Amelia Urry on 8 august 20-17 for Grist Magazine -
(http://grist.org/climate-energy/welcome-to-paradise-batteries-now-included/)


Images above: An industry supported by underwriting by the Federal government can afford to build a monopoly on Kauai as a test for bigger things. Centralized power distribution from free sunlight.

When people ask Luke Evslin why he decided to live off the grid, he starts with the time he almost died.

Evslin grew up on Kauai, a nub of a former volcano at the oldest end of the Hawaiian archipelago, but he was living on nearby Oahu at the time of the accident, working and competing in races with an outrigger canoe club.

The biggest race of the year is a daylong ocean crossing from the island of Moloka’i to Oahu’s Waikiki Beach, which can take between five and eight hours. Exhausted paddlers rotate out of the canoe during the race, jumping into the water to be scooped up by a waiting motorboat.

During the first switch, Evslin was getting ready to heave himself into the canoe when the motorboat struck him.

The propeller sliced across his back in five places, severing muscle and bone along his spine and pelvis, each cut a potential death blow. His teammates pulled him out of the ocean and rushed him to shore. Judging from the looks on everyone’s faces, Evslin wasn’t sure he would survive the hour-long trip to land.

“I wasn’t scared to die,” he wrote a month later from his hospital bed, “but I was sad to die. I realized how much I love our beautiful world and everyone that is a part of it … and I was sad that I’d only just noticed.”

Soon after, still recovering from his wounds, “I made the terrible choice to read Walden Pond,” Evslin recalls. He came across these famous words from Henry David Thoreau: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Evslin began dreaming of a self-sufficient life, in touch with nature and free of the careless consumption of modern society. He convinced his then-fiancee, Sokchea, to move to a rainy acre on his native Kauai, where they built an off-grid yurt powered by six solar panels and a bank of batteries.


Image above: Luke Evslin and family stand in front of their yurt on Kauai. Not exactly paradise if you have to drive to get anything - even if you're driving a Tesla. From original article.

They planned to use only their own energy, eat what they grew, and eliminate their carbon footprint. Luke even planted a few coffee trees, imagining he would keep up his caffeine habit guilt-free.

“I had this grand plan of being an example for people,” he says, “showing how easy it was going to be.”

He had good reason to think that. Bathed in Pacific sunlight year-round, Kauai has all the hallmarks of a renewable energy paradise. Others thought so, too. In 2008, the member-owned electricity cooperative set an ambitious goal to run the entire island on 50 percent renewable energy by 2023.

At the time, Kauai had no utility-scale solar at all. But by the final day of 2015, the island’s main power plant — a rusty sugar plantation-era diesel generator — shut down for the first time since firing up the 1960s. For a few hours in the middle of the afternoon, two large solar farms did the heavy lifting on the island of 65,000, and the diesel plant sat dormant.

It was a good omen. By the end of 2016, the utility was on track to hit its 50 percent renewable goal five years ahead of schedule.

This February, the co-op board voted to move the goalposts again: 70 percent renewable energy by 2030. It will probably clear that mark early, too.

But, as Evslin quickly learned, the path to a low-carbon future can be tougher than it seems. Even in Hawaii, the sun doesn’t always shine — and when it does, sometimes you end up with more power than you can use in the moment.

How to collect that solar energy, predict it, get it to the right places at the right time, save it up for a rainy day — those are the kind of challenges our massive, spread-out, and unevenly populated country faces as we make the switch to clean energy. It’s one of the reasons that Tesla is making a major investment on Kauai, hoping to get it right.

And it all comes down to a lesson that the Evslins learned the hard way: It’s not about getting off the grid. It’s about building a better one.

“I imagine that there will be a lot more failures than successes to report,” Luke Evslin wrote in the first post of a blog he started to document his life off the grid, on January 1, 2011. “But that’s the point of it.”

Evslin didn’t know just how much he would come to reconsider what counts as failure and what constitutes success. On a visit with the family this summer, I walk the property with Luke as he points out trees he had planted. He’s tailed by a handsome dog named Asher and a mismatched set of terrier mixes, Peanut and Pico. A calico cat appears and settles on the railing with a view of the yard, where ducks and wild chickens peck hopefully.

“I’ve failed at most things I’ve grown,” Luke says with a shrug. Other than the fruit trees dotting the property — supplying all the banana, papaya, breadfruit, and lychee the Evslins could want — little else has taken root. His attempts at arugula and tomatoes fell prey to the chickens, and the ducks discovered a taste for sweet potato; other crops didn’t take to the damp.

“The only real success I’ve had is taro,” Luke says. An easygoing, water-loving crop that can be regrown from its own stem, taro makes up the bulk of the calories the Evslins get from the land. Their one-year-old daughter, Finley, subsists largely on homegrown poi. For Luke and Sokchea, the grocery store remains a necessity.

Then there’s the water. Their water tank, which collects rain from the hill above the yurt, also provides a welcoming home for mosquito larvae. The tank’s lining recently sprung a leak, so the family has been living on jugs of municipal water hauled from Luke’s sister’s house.

At one time, Luke might have thought of this as a betrayal of principle; now it’s mostly just inconvenient.

But the biggest problem for Luke, like the utility that serves his island, has been the sun itself. He and Sokchea scaled back their lives to live within their solar-powered means — ditching their toaster and microwave, giving up laundry on cloudy days when their batteries wouldn’t be able to recharge. But they still have rainy weeks where they run out of power and have to run their gas-powered generator to keep the refrigerator from spoiling.

Most days, however, produced more solar power than they could use or successfully store in their batteries. If they were connected to the grid, Luke thought, that power could be used by his neighbors.

It took about a year for Luke to regret his move off the grid. “It’s not that it wasn’t what we expected,” he explains. “We wanted the difficulty of it.” But he also wanted to show people it was possible to live with a smaller carbon footprint; instead, he was burning gasoline and watching the island’s electric utility outpace him, installing solar power and cutting carbon all over the island.

“That was all happening, not because of me,” he remembers thinking, “but despite me and my efforts.”

Just after 10 a.m., the sun comes down hot on Kauai’s biggest solar field. Rows of darkly gleaming panels ripple toward a horizon of jungle-green mountaintops and whipped-cream clouds.

By high noon on the sunniest days, the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative generates 97 percent of its energy needs from a combination of three large solar fields, residential rooftop solar, biomass, and hydropower. Last year, 42 percent of the electricity used on island came from renewable sources.

In fact, Kauai is capable of generating so much energy from sunlight that any additional solar power the utility installs would likely go unused much of the time. Unlike the mainland United States, where a massive power grid connects far-flung regions, Kauai has nowhere to send the power it doesn’t use — and right now, it’s got about as much solar power in the middle of a day as it needs.

Yet even on the brightest day, the utility’s diesel-fired power plants start chugging back to full speed as the sun sets. It’s the solar version of feast or famine. And it’s why, despite all its advantages, Kauai is still a long way from complete clean-energy conversion.

That’s where the ranks of industrial, refrigerator–sized boxes lined up beside the solar field come in. Grouped together on neat concrete pads, only the occasional Tesla logo hints at what lies inside: batteries.

In March, Tesla cut the ribbon on this groundbreaking grid-scale battery installation, a key test of the viability of energy storage in making renewable energy a more reliable part of the grid. With 50,000 solar panels and 272 batteries, the combined solar-and-storage plant provides enough energy to power 4,500 homes for four hours.

If Tesla can help keep Kauai solar-powered around the clock with its batteries, then it can apply what it has learned elsewhere in the country, and around the world.

On this particular sunny day, Tesla engineers are doing some final tests before signing off on the plant. The site manager unlocks the front panel and swings the door open to reveal lithium-ion battery cells stacked like cafeteria trays.

Much of this hardware was borrowed directly from the electric cars that Elon Musk built his company on. (The coolant reservoir fastened to the door looks especially automotive.) Decades of research and development into smartphones and electric cars make lithium-ion batteries the most reliable and cheap battery on the market today.

“We designed the Tesla plant to be like a conventional power plant,” Brad Rockwell tells me. He is the head of power supply for Kauai’s utility cooperative, the one in charge of balancing supply and demand.

“I can say, ‘OK, give me 5 megawatts on the grid,’” Rockwell says. “And the plant looks around and says, ‘Am I getting any solar? What do you know, I’m getting 7 megawatts of solar — the grid only needs 5, so I’m going to give them a solid 5, and 2 will go to the battery.’”

He moves a pen across a sheet of paper to underline the shifting arithmetic. “Then when a cloud comes over and the [solar panels are] only putting out 2 megawatts, now I need 2 from the solar and 3 from the battery. And it just does that all day long.”

Rockwell is a former U.S. Navy engineer, familiar with photovoltaic and battery systems because he studied them in the early 1990s. “It turns out that most remote islands are powered like ships are,” he says. Neither can rely on copious cheap fuel, and they can’t afford to waste what power they do have.

Below are two charts of power supplied through KIUC to Kauai. Hydro-electric is in blue, burning biomass is in green, diesel generated electricity is in gray and solar PV (with battery storage in 20917) farm is in yellow.


Image above: An average day of energy use on Kauai, before and after Tesla’s batteries came online. In 2016, the period of highest energy demand is met mostly with fossil fuels, after the sun has set. Solar PV power (in yellow) without battery storage is ineffective from dinner time until breakfast the next day. From original article by From KIUC.


Images above: In 2017, solar power generated during the day is stored up and used overnight, shrinking the island’s fossil fuel use by as much as 1.6 million gallons a year. From original article by From KIUC.

Most places, including Kauai, see two big, predictable peaks in energy use every day: one in the morning, when most people are waking up and getting ready for work, and a bigger one at night, when they return home. Both of those peaks occur outside the period when most solar power can be generated.

That’s why “there’s a finite limit” to how much solar power Kauai can consume right now, Rockwell says, showing me a graph of energy use over the course of a day.

Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on most days, Kauai nearly reaches its 100 percent renewable goal. Rockwell points out a gap of only a few megawatts between solar supply and the total electricity demand during the daytime hours, represented on the graph as a slim gray wiggle of conventional power under a heap of solar power.

“We’re already adding that much in rooftop solar every year. But,” he goes on, “if we can keep adding projects that don’t have to deliver here,” he taps the sunny yellow hill, “then we can start to erase this stuff,” he says, gesturing to the twin peaks of dark gray conventional power book-ending the day. “And that’s how we get to 100 percent renewable.”

Now that the Tesla battery plant is up and running, the utility will be able to cut 1.6 million gallons of fuel use per year. That power will come right off the top of the morning and evening peak demand. Because those peaks are also the most expensive times to generate power, Kauai’s customers should see a drop in their electric bills, too.

The co-op is already looking to its next solar-plus-storage installation, this one in partnership with the energy company AES. Announced in January, the AES plant will be about twice as big as the Tesla plant, and will supply 11 percent of the island’s annual electricity needs by the end of 2018.

By 2025 — three years ahead of their latest goal — the utility expects to get 70 percent of its annual energy from renewables, much of it stored in those battery packs for use during the evening and morning peaks.


Image above: Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho has been a corporate stooge for the Chemical-pesticide-GMO companies since he was elected. Now he a shill for unfettered suburban growth on Kauai tarted up with a "new" but not improved Kauai General Plan Update changing "Keep it Rural!" to "Make it Suburban!" and fueled by subsidized corporate energy monopoly.  From (http://grist.org/people/this-hawaiian-mayor-is-scoring-touchdowns-for-clean-energy/).

In June, Hawaii became the first state to formally adopt the Paris Climate Accord, in the wake of President Trump’s announcement that he planned to pull out. The mayor of Kauai, Bernard Carvalho, also threw his support behind the agreement.

“Although Kauai is a small island,” Carvalho said, “we believe it is our responsibility to take a leadership position on climate change mitigation. And we are strongly committed to staying on course to build a more sustainable and resilient future.”

But what will that future look like? It’s increasingly clear that it won’t be the off-the-grid Eden that folks like Evslin once imagined. Personal solar panels and other attempts to live the virtuous life look outdated in a place like Kauai, where the utility is committed to cutting carbon and costs at the same time.

The economies of scale are such that Kauai’s utility cooperative can install a solar-and-storage unit for about half what it would cost a family to install the same amount on a house.

Even when it comes to the island’s fossil fuel–generated power, the utility can produce more from a gallon of gasoline than someone with a $100 generator in their basement.


Image above: Ester Emery and her family have been living off grid for years in the wooded northeast of America. First they built a yurt and added solar power with four panels and two 12v batteries for $1,000. It provided much needed lighting and other light duty like charging small battery operated tools  - of course without a microwave or washing machine. They have built a bigger home from wood harvested off their property and are still off the grid. See more at (http://estheremery.com/videos/). From (https://mollygreen.com/blog/winter-in-a-yurt-with-three-children/).


This became obvious to Evslin midway through his yurt experiment: Inefficiency is the ultimate downfall of any individual effort to address climate change.

“Either you’re wasting electricity in a closed system, because it’s sunny and your batteries are full, or you don’t have enough power and you gotta run your generator,” Evslin says. “That’s not a bug in my system. That’s a feature of any off-grid system.”

These trends mean incentive programs set up to encourage homeowners to install solar panels are now out of whack. Hawaii’s public utility commission still requires Kauai’s utility to pay early solar adopters for power they generate, based on “avoided cost of fuel.” But these days, the power that’s being avoided doesn’t come from fossil fuels — it’s being provided by the island’s solar farms.

So although the utility is offsetting some panel owners’ bills for their (less efficient) solar power, the rest of the utilities’ costs (like batteries) are divided among members who don’t have access to rooftop solar power.

As the island around them goes solar, Luke and Sokchea are looking at houses — they’ve tentatively picked one out — that would put them back on the grid, and back in a community they could feel a part of. If they lived in town, they could cut down on a huge chunk of their remaining energy use by walking or biking to work, or to run errands.

Still, they both admit they are reluctant to leave the yurt. Settling onto the couch with their dogs in the evening, Finley sleeping in a crib on the other side of their single large room, Luke and Sokchea weigh the pros and cons. They could shell out several thousand dollars to the utility company to hook them up to the grid out here, sure, but they’d still be left with many unanswered questions.

What about the benefits of neighbors, a little lacking out here at the end of the road? What about walls, which might come in handy as Finley gets older? It’s still beautiful here, but it’s no longer the dream it was when they moved in.

The experience taught Luke a lot. He learned first-hand the challenges of solar power — how cheap it seems when he needs to run a fan in the middle of the day, how expensive when he’s rationing out the last watts in his batteries.

By retreating to his hideaway, Luke came to understand the power of civic participation. He’s pursuing a masters in public policy online, and it’s not hard to imagine him — wry, self-deprecating, easy to talk to — running for a seat in county government, or maybe even on the utility board.

“The solutions to all of this can’t be individual,” he says — and by “all of this,” it’s clear he’s thinking about the challenges facing society as a whole, not just Kauai, not just energy.

Walking me out past the taro patch, back across the swinging bridge that spans the creek surrounding his property, Luke points out one last thing. “It’s funny,” he says, “it was only recently I learned that Thoreau had his mom bring him food out in the woods.”

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Failing to live Off-Grid 1/3/16

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Lehua Island rodenticide info

SUBHEAD: Site available with links to articles, research and  testimony letters about the aerial drop.

By Kawai Warren on 5 August 2017 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/08/lehua-island-rodenticide-info.html)


Image above: There is no question that the introduction of rats, by humans, to Hawaii has been a disasters, especially for places like Lehua with ground nesting birds. Poisoning mammals may not directly kill birds but it may kill mammals like monk seals and whales near the shores where poison reaches the water.  From (http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/publications/newsletters/kararehe-kino/kararehe-kino-issue-19/which-toxin-is-best-for-eradicating-rodents).

A new website is now live for anyone wanting quick links to articles, research and public testimony letters about the Lehua aerial drop. The link is (https://www.lehua-island-hawaii-conservation.org/).

It is a resource for concerned residents, fishermen, journalists and scientists who need reliable information about the project.

The site states in part:

LEHUA ISLAND, 18 miles from Kaua'i in western Hawaii, is a rare and pristine State Wildlife Sanctuary. It harbors Federally-listed endangered and threatened species such as monk seals, green sea turtles, and three species of endangered birds.

Endangered loggerhead turtles have been sighted, and a rare species of reef coral (Cosinaraea wellsi) has been reported at a depth of 120 ft. Whales, dolphins, manta rays and eagle rays frequent the area. A native Hawaiian subsistence community of Ni'ihauans, 3/4 mile from Lehua, catches fish and ama crab in Lehua's waters to feed their families.

Starting August 8, 2017, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and US Fish and Wildlife intend to drop approximately 11.5 tons of diphacinone rodenticide on Lehua Island.

The diphacinone rodenticide will enter the coastal waters below the high tide line, resulting in an unknown level of collateral damage to non-target species within this precious marine and cultural ecosystem.

In their agency comment letters, NOAA, the EPA, Hawaii Department of Health, and many scientists have expressed concern about the lack of baseline, Lehua-specific data to justify the poison drop, as well as lack of a rigorous monitoring commitment and enforcement mechanisms for the proposed biosecurity acitivities.

The EPA urged DLNR to conduct effective consultation with the local Hawaiian and marine community. Yet, two native Hawaiian organizations and a representative of OHA submitted comment letters and an Opposition Statement describing environmental justice issues and lack of inclusion in decisionmaking.

A public meeting called by DLNR to announce the Final Environmental Assessment for the aerial drop was met with intense community outrage.

In 2009 DLNR had conducted a very similar aerial drop of diphacinone on Lehua that failed in its rodent eradication goal. Mortalities that followed included two whales and a large-scale fish die off that agencies claimed were not related to the aerial rodenticide drop.

Nevertheless, following the 2009 diphacinone aerial drop, the head of Hawaii Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Branch, prior to his retirement, directed staff "not to issue aerial application permits that might result in pellets entering into marine ecosystems until the EPA develops study protocols for such ecosystems."

This Archive provides quick access links to official source documents, research reports and other official information for those wanting to learn more about the concerns raised in the Lehua aerial rodenticide operation.

The Archive was assembled through the input of scientists, legal researchers, policy watchdogs and others concerned about the lack of public awareness about this project, questionable statements made by agency staff, and significant omissions within the Environmental Assessment documents approved by the project's state and federal agencies.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Impact of Lehua rat poisoning 6/8/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Navy operation coincides with fishkill 3/18/09
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Kauai Council is Climate Change

SUBHEAD: The County Council turns down $100,000 in private donations to fund climate action plan.

By Nathan Eagle on 3 august 2017 for Civil Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/08/kauai-council-says-no-thanks-to-100k-to-fight-climate-change/)


Image above: Kauai County Council members 2016-2018 -  Mason Chock, Arthur Brun, Chair Mel Rapozo, JoAnn Yukimura, Ross Kagawa, Derek Kawakami and Arryl Kaneshiro. From original article.

Opponents of taking the money question whether the county needs its own plan. One said the work should be left to the federal government.

Kauai County Council members have rejected $100,000 in private donations to fund a climate action plan for their rural island, which is particularly susceptible to rising sea levels, stronger storms and other effects of climate change.

In a 4-3 vote last week, Council Chair Mel Rapozo and members Arryl Kaneshiro, Ross Kagawa and Arthur Brun opposed a request from Mayor Bernard Carvalho’s administration to accept $50,000 from the Hawaii Community Foundation and a matching $50,000 from the nonprofit Partners for Places.

They expressed skepticism about the need for a county climate plan, saying they didn’t want to duplicate the state’s efforts. They also felt the county economic development director’s explanation of the potential funding was insufficient.

“You don’t need a plan to tell you that you help the environment if you walk more, if you bike more, catch the bus more,” Kagawa said. “If the federal government is working on it, let them do it.”

Councilwoman JoAnn Yukimura, who along with Councilmen Derek Kawakami and Mason Chock supported accepting the money, pointed out at the meeting that the United States is no longer leading on climate change.

“Under President Trump, we’re withdrawing from it and really losing face in the world,” Yukimura said, referring to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

The Paris agreement, signed by 195 nations in 2015, established a goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and laid out plans for countries to work together to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.

“That’s why the cities now are rising to address it and saying we’re going to do it because it’s affecting the lives of our citizens, it’s affecting the planet and I think this county needs to join in and do that,” Yukimura said.

The council’s Economic Development and Intergovernmental Relations Committee took up the matter again Wednesday, but the deadline had passed Monday to use the foundation’s grant to apply for the matching funds from Partners for Places.

George Costa, director of Kauai’s Office of Economic Development, said Wednesday that he had been reluctant to disclose Monday’s grant deadline at last week’s meeting because of the way council members had reacted the previous time the administration came before them with a last-minute request to apply for a Transportation Alternatives Program grant.

At least one council member said the additional information provided Wednesday by the county’s energy and sustainability manager, Ben Sullivan, who was unable to attend their meeting last week, would have changed their vote.

“Had we had this information last week, this would have passed,” Rapozo said.

Costa said the administration tries to give the council as much notice as possible, but in this case was uncertain whether the private funding would be available until July — although the county started talking to the Hawaii Community Foundation in January.

“A lot of these opportunities do come at the last minute,” Costa said.

Still, Yukimura questioned during Wednesday’s meeting why the county would not want to have the council accept the foundation’s funding, since there was ample time to use it to meet the next deadline in January to apply for a matching grant from Partners for Places.

Sullivan said there’s still a chance the administration will come back to the council to ask for such approval, but he noted that the foundation is now looking for a nonprofit or other third party to receive the funds. He was not sure if new recipients had been determined.

“We’re kind of strategizing and rethinking,” Sullivan said.

‘Defining Issue Of Our Lives’
Kagawa said at last week’s meeting that the idea of a county climate action plan reminded him of Kauai’s efforts to address “all this fear” over genetically modified organisms.

The county passed a bill in 2013 to require GMO companies to disclose more information about the pesticides they use and abide by setbacks for spraying. A federal court later overturned the law.

“I don’t think it necessarily makes sense that the county is getting into the business of telling people on Kauai what to do to help this problem,” he said. “It needs to be done nationwide.”

Kaneshiro had his own fears over what a climate action plan might obligate the county to do.

“Is it going to say airplanes are causing a lot of carbon emissions so we should reduce the amount of airplanes coming to Kauai?” he asked. “Or, you know, vehicles are a main cause of carbon emissions so reduce the amount of miles people can drive on Kauai?”

Yukimura said the plan would not obligate the county to do anything, but instead would provide data and possible strategies.

Sullivan said the county’s climate action plan would add a greater level of detail to the data the state Department of Health is collecting about greenhouse gas emissions, for instance.

Better Communication Needed
The council members, even those supporting accepting the funding, said they did not get the information they needed from Costa last week. Even Yukimura later called his answers “weak.” But those in favor said it still made sense to accept the money and then work out the details for the plan.

Kawakami, who was concerned about the message last week’s vote would send to future potential donors, said he wants a plan that produces results.

“At what point do we get some tangible recommendations on what we need to do with our wastewater facilities, with our county roads and state highways being impacted by sea level rise, and when do we get some sort of tangible to-do list instead of studying this thing?” Kawakami said. “If we study this thing to death then by the time we come out with any real action plan it’s going to be too late.”

Costa said $10,000 of the grant would have gone to a greenhouse gas study that looked at emission levels from various sectors, such as electricity, the landfill and transportation.

He said $40,000 would have gone to community engagement, $10,000 would have been for contingencies and the rest would have been used to contract with the University of Hawaii’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning to drive the plan.

Rapozo said at last week’s meeting that community engagement could be part of a county plan to address climate change, but he questioned spending the money on that, even it wasn’t from Kauai taxpayers.

“I don’t understand how you can get information on a plan with community engagement,” he said. “When you’re doing a plan, I think you’ve got to use scientific data.”

This was the third time the council has rejected funding a climate action plan. Last year, the Hawaii Community Foundation said it would provide $75,000 if the county chipped in $30,000, Costa said.

Kagawa said last week at the meeting that he still did not trust the administration when it comes to addressing climate change.

“I don’t believe they’ll have the plan with the silver bullet to solve the problem,” he said. “That’s just my gut.”

Yukimura, in an email trying to rally her constituents after the vote, called climate change the “defining issue of our lives.” She said Kauai’s fragile and unique environment in particular has a great challenge ahead that demands leadership, community involvement and consensus on a course of action.

In April 2016, Sullivan tried to convey the urgency of coming up with a plan to address climate change while encouraging the council to support the mayor’s $30,000 budget request.

“It’s past time for us to champion this,” he told The Garden Island newspaper at the time.

On Wednesday, Sullivan said in an email that the mayor is committed to developing and implementing a climate action plan and the Hawaii Community Foundation has been “extremely supportive.”

“Despite some communications challenges, today’s meeting seemed to illustrate that our County Council, and quite a few people in our community are also in full support of this effort, so I am confident that we will find a way forward with this work,” he said.

Darcy Yukimura, the foundation’s senior philanthropic officer on Kauai, said the island still has the opportunity to be a leader in the state.

Read more about the administration’s plan below.
(http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3912056-Council-OED-7-31-17-C-2017-168-Development-of-a.html?embed=true&responsive=false&sidebar=false) 




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Truth about Hawaiian bottled water

SOURCE: Ken Taylor (littlewheel808@gmail.com)
SUBHEAD: The industry exacerbates the global water crisis, and it’s not good for the islands either.

By Risa Kuroda on 27 July 2017 for Civic Beat -
(http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/07/the-truth-about-hawaiian-bottled-water/)


Image above: Kauai Natural Artesian Water promotional photo showing a waterfall background. That's not where this water comes from. From (http://www.foodsofhawaii.com/author/kauai-natural-artesian-water/).

Quickly trying to gather your things and your peace of mind, you relax your shoulders slightly: you’ve made it through the security checkpoint at Honolulu International Airport.

Since TSA made you empty your Hydro Flask, you decide to look for a drink. The only water fountain in the terminal trickles water so intermittently that it would take ages to fill your bottle.

You considered just getting a sip to quench your thirst but perceived the risk of catching a minor disease or being shot in the face with a random jet stream as you unwillingly pursed your lips as close to the fountainhead as possible. With a defeated sigh you drag yourself to a store to find no shortage of cold, refreshing, pristine, and over-priced Hawaiian bottled water.

Chances are, you recognized maybe one of the three Hawaiian bottled water brands in that airport store. Hawaii bottles an abundance of magical life giving elixirs but for the most part the water in the bottles of Hawaiian Springs, Waiakea or Hawaii Volcanic, to name a few, is not the water that most Hawaii residents drink.

As the state’s second-highest revenue-generating export, Hawaii’s water travels thousands of miles to bring in in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local economy.

Sounds like a good trade off right? Unfortunately the implications of bottled water on our islands may not be as pristine as we hope it to be.

In fact, our bottled water industries gravely contribute to the exacerbation of the global water crisis, which has profoundly negative impacts on our environment and local communities.

The global water crisis is no hoax. Earth is covered in water but only 2.5 percent of it is fresh water.

Of that portion, 70 percent of it is locked in ice and nearly 30 percent is deep underground in aquifers. Just 0.3 percent of all fresh water is surface water, or what is considered “renewable water” within humanity’s conceivable lifespan.

Though agriculture is the main culprit of consumptive, meaning non-renewable, water extraction bottlers like Hawaiian Springs and Hawaii Volcanic’s unscrupulous use of artesian aquifer wells contribute to what political and environmental pundits foresee as eventual cause for future wars.


Image above: A Surfrider poster about the danger to sea birds of floating plastic junk like water bottle caps. From (https://www.b4plastics.com/nl/news/survival-of-the-fittest-plastics-een-evolutie-die-we-uitlokken-of-ondergaan).


Bottled water, and its role in the global water crisis, is also about the bottles, the transportation, the marketing, the profits and the collateral damages that occur both to the environment and to human communities during and after the production of this fetishized commodity.

Though some companies are turning to glass bottling most, including the main bottling companies in Hawaii, still use polyethylene terephthalate plastic. Every PET bottle made requires double the amount of water actually in the bottle to manufacture. Since the average American consumes 36.4 gallons of bottled water per year, we are actually consuming around 72.8 gallons of bottled water.

In the same one-year span, more than 17 million barrels of crude oil is needed to produce the bottles — an amount of oil enough to sustain 1 million vehicles on the road or power approximately 190,000 American homes for one year. In a study done on FIJI Water, the manufacture and transport of one bottle was worth 7.1 gallons of water, 1 liter of fossil fuels and 1.2 pounds of greenhouse gases.

At what enormous cost does Hawaiian water make its way not to the communities where it came from but to the lobbies of five-star hotels in Hawaii and around the world? It is estimated that solving the water crisis would cost $10 billion.

The price that bottling companies pocket in revenue is $13 billion. We cannot think for one second that Hawaii has nothing to do with perpetuating a crisis.

Plastic bottles also do not biodegrade. The bottled water industry generates as much as 1.5 million pounds of bottles per year and only 13 percent of plastic bottles are actually recycled after being discarded. The rest go to landfills, where they can leach toxic chemicals into the land.

Or better yet, they end up in the ocean: Marine plastic pollution has impacted at least 267 species worldwide, including 86 percent of all sea turtle species, 44 percent of all seabird species and 43 percent of all marine mammal species.

Since Hawaii depends on the environment, including the vitality of our marine life, it is incredibly important for us to not turn our islands into a giant, lifeless trash heap. After all, would tourists or even the film industry pay to experience Hawaii’s dead monk seals and turtles?

In addition, though bottling companies can contribute jobs to a neighborhood, when the profit-driven interests of a corporation conflict with the interests of a local community or ecosystem, it is rarely the latter that benefit.
]
Most often, local communities and watersheds are left to deal with negative externalities when bottling companies decide to turn a blind eye.

For example, our state is currently in a period of drought and has just recently bounced back from a period of severe to extreme drought just last year. Given intensifying global warming, it is not prudent to be unscrupulously drawing upon water sources for jobs and capital accumulation. In the end, the communities will be the ones literally left in the dried up dust while bottling corporations’ wallets are lush with green Benjamins.

Bottled water is no environmentally friendly product. It is a prime example of greenwashing, which is an attempt to do ethically or environmentally what should not be done at all.

Under General Comment 15 of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, governments have a responsibility to ensure that its citizens not only have access to but also actually have clean and affordable tap water in accordance with their right to life.

The residents of Hawaii, like those of San Francisco and Concord, Massachusetts, need to take back the tap and push Hawaii lawmakers to wake up to the dirty truth that is Hawaii’s bottled water industry.

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Decision against Kauai Springs
SUBHEAD: The industry exacerbates the global water crisis, and it’s not good for the islands either.


By For Chris Deangelo on 6 October 2014 for the Garden Islands -
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/a-landmark-decision/article_7feed654-4d29-11e4-afca-c7950a559d55.html)


Image above: Label for  a five gallon bottle of Kauai Springs water. The water comes from a diversion of spring water to Grove Farms. From (https://i2.wp.com/kauaisprings.com/images/Kauai-Springs-Label-1.jpg).

In February, the state Supreme Court — in what has been called a landmark decision for Hawaii’s Public Trust Doctrine — sided with the County of Kauai by striking down a 2008 circuit court ruling that the Kauai Planning Commission “exceeded its jurisdiction” in denying Kauai Springs, Inc. permits for its operation.

Seven months later, and contrary to that ruling, the Koloa-based water bottling and distribution company’s doors remain open.

“They continue to operate,” said Attorney David Minkin, who was hired as special counsel to represent the county in the Kauai Springs case. “Working with the Planning Department, we have sent them a notice of violation telling them that, if they don’t shut down, we will start fining them and turn it over both at the Planning Commission level as well as the prosecutor’s office to go after them for violating the law.”

The notice was sent to Kauai Springs on Tuesday, following a site investigation of the property by the Planning Department a week before. It orders the company to cease and desist all water bottling and distribution activities. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $10,000 per day, as well as criminal prosecution, the letter states.

Kauai Springs has been given until Oct. 14 to respond.

On Wednesday, at the request of Councilman Tim Bynum, Minkin briefed the Kauai County Council’s Planning Committee on the Supreme Court ruling in the case and its application and relevance to the law.

Hawaii’s Public Trust Doctrine states that, “For the benefit of present and future generations, the state and its political subdivisions shall conserve and protect Hawaii’s natural beauty and all natural resources, including land, water, air, minerals and energy sources, and shall promote the development and utilization of these resources in a manner consistent with their conservation and in furtherance of the self-sufficiency of the state … All public natural resources are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the people.”

Minkin said the Supreme Court judge ruled the Planning Commission made the right call in denying the permits.

So what does the ruling mean moving forward?

“It means that, especially when water’s at issue, that every agency that has some duty or responsibility has to take a look at it from the constitutional perspective of the Public Trust Doctrine,” Minkin said. “You just can’t punt it and say, ‘Not my kuleana.’ You have to look at it. You have to evaluate it. You have to get information. And if you’re left with a question in the back of your mind that you don’t have enough information, it’s not the department, in this case the Planning Commission, it’s not their duty to go out and track down and get information.”

Instead, the applicant — in this case, Kauai Springs — must present the appropriate information.

“It basically shifts the burden,” Minkin said of the ruling.

Councilman Mel Rapozo questioned what good the Supreme Court decision is if the county doesn’t act on it. He said it’s time to put teeth behind it and stop Kauai Springs from utilizing the island’s natural resources illegally.

“I think the public needs to know. Are we going to fine them? Are going to just send them letters? I mean, if it’s this landmark decision, we should be prosecuting,” Rapozo said.

Kauai Springs has a long-term agreement with the Knudsen Trust to obtain water from a spring at the base of Mount Kahili. The pipeline, which brings the water to company’s Koloa bottling facility, is owned by Grove Farm.

Deputy County Attorney Mauna Kea Trask said the ruling was a substantial document, 107 pages to be exact, and “took a while to digest.”

“We are moving down that avenue,” he said of enforcement, adding that his hope is to reach a resolution without having to expend additional funds or go back to court.

Minkin said recent efforts to work things out with Kauai Springs’ legal counsel proved unsuccessful.

“We’ve resolved it as much as I can, now the next step has to be taken,” he said to Rapozo. “And I’ve made the recommendation, I agree with you — my background is also law enforcement — and I think, yes, this needs to be shut down.”

Kauai Springs owner Jim Satterfield did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

For several years, the case went back and forth, with both sides filing appeals. In 2007, the Planning Commission denied Kauai Springs’ three permit.

Kauai Springs turned around and sued the commission over the denial of the permits.

In 2008, 5th Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe sided with Kauai Springs and ordered the county to issue the permits.

“We felt, and the county felt, that was inappropriate … and we appealed it and we got the initial decision by the intermediate court,” which vacated the circuit court’s final judgement, Minkin said. “Applicant wasn’t happy with that and then it went up to the state Supreme Court, and the state Supreme Court went even further than the intermediate court did, to basically specify what our duties are as the county.”

The county has spent about $111,000, under the budget of $115,000, on the case, including the appeal, according to Minkin.

Bynum said he is proud of the Planning Commission and county for taking the Public Trust Doctrine seriously. While the court case was long, with many ups and downs, it was important for the community, he said. 

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We need "our" Kauai General Plan

SUBHEAD: Take back the General Plan from the hands of the developers, large land owners and tourism industry.

By Sandy Herndon on 23 July 2017 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-kauai-general-plan-is-ours.html)


Image above: An indication of how bad the General Plan Update is was illustrated by this plan of Kauai. Note the "Districts" in the plan relate to no cultural, historical, bioregional, political, or governing identities, but appears to be the myopic view of the island from the County Planning Department Office in Lihue. See the New Yorker Magazine map of America below. From (http://plankauai.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/island_graphic2.png).

WHAT:
Organizing meeting to address the County of Kauai’s General Plan Update

WHEN:
August 2, 2017 at 6:30pm - 9pm

WHERE:
Kapaa Public Library
Kuhio Highway, Kapaa

WHO:
Community Coalition of Kauai
(www.communitycoalitionkauai.org)

WHY: 
There is a lack of community wide input for this proposed plan which is going to the Kauai County Council for approval.

Take Back the General Plan From the Hands of the Developers, Large Land Owners and Tourism Industry and Make it Your Own

THIS IS YOUR GENERAL PLAN. IS THIS THE FUTURE YOU WANT?

The County Planning Department and Planning Commission have proposed a new General Plan that ignores the hundreds of pages of concerns and input of community members and organizations. The new General Plan proposes town designations, re-zonings, up-zonings and entirely new zoning categories for the benefit of large landowners and developers.

§ We do not need a General Plan that was written by and for developers and the tourism industry.

§ We do need a General Plan that will create balanced/sustainable growth, diversified job opportunities, and protects Kauai’s environment, rural character and quality of life.

PLEASE JOIN US IN THIS COORDINATED COMMUNITY-WIDE EFFORT TO SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE ABOUT THE NEED TO HAVE A GENERAL PLAN THAT FIRST AND FOREMOST MEETS THE NEEDS OF THE RESIDENTS OF KAUAI.

We are looking for your input, your participation and your interest in joining a growing group of concerned community members who want to take back the General Plan. We are coordinating our concerns and efforts in preparation for the delivery of the General Plan to the County Council for their approval.


Image above: Illustration of the  myopic view of America and beyond from Manhattan in this Saul Steinburg cover of the New Yorker Magazine in the fall of 2004. From (http://karakulia.livejournal.com/30444.html).

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Fact or Fantasy - The Kauai General Plan 8/8/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Commission accepts General Plan 6/15/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Okay given to destroy Paradise 6/10/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Testimony against General Plan
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai General Plan open house 12/8/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Reject the Kauai General Plan update 11/30/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai County "Keep it Rural" 11/17/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai General Plan Update 9/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai General Plan Update 9/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Will developers write Kapaa’s future? 5/6/16 
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai Plan Disappoints 12/9/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Hokua Place comment deadline 5/28/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Coco Palms good to go 3/11/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Lihue Loss of Vision 9/5/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Tax Donkey Purgatory - Lima Ola 7/18/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Annals of pure bullshit - Coco Palms 6/22/14 
Ea O Ka Aina: Coco Palms Travesty 8/10/13  
Ea O Ka Aina: Review 2000-2020 Kauai General Plan 4/2/09
Island Breath: Kauai Sustainable Land Use Plan 11/1/07
Island Breath: LEGS Sustainability Conference 10/13/07
Existing Kauai County General Plan 2000-2020 1999 
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