Monthly Archives: October 2007

Community, Government, Sustainability

They Did Have Kukui Nut Oil

Wednesday night I attended a meeting to discuss the Hawai‘i 2050 Sustainability draft plan. There was an article about the meeting on the front page of yesterday’s Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald.

Senator Russell Kokubun is chairman of the 24-member task force. He gave an overview of the plan and I like his approach, which was inclusion and collaboration—an approach from the bottom up, rather than the typical “top down, force-it-through” approach one often sees from ineffective leaders. This is a good sign.

Next, Jane Testa, director of the Hawai‘i County Research and Development department, spoke. She, too, was very patient, respectful and thorough as she explained parts of the plan. Assistant Planning Director Brad Kurokawa followed and he was also positive but deferential and patient. It was evident to me that they are all very invested in this plan. This is a good start.

The objective of this meeting was to expand, contract and give relative weight to particular sustainability issues that are of concern to the community members. They split the audience into five groups, each with a facilitator. We were to make comments and lend color to the sections of the plan.

I came to the meeting with an agenda. I want to see Peak Oil given high priority, and its effects monitored continuously and adapted to as necessary.

It’s important to realize that population, oil and food are related. In the earliest days, one hundred percent of the energy needed to grow food was provided by the sun, and the human population was in balance with how difficult it was to catch and eat mastodons and saber tooth tigers.

Then 150 years ago, we discovered oil and it was cheap—$3 for a 55-gallon drum. Using energy obtained from oil produced inexpensive food. And the world population soared—it was easy to go hunting in the supermarkets.

But with Peak Oil, where oil will start to become expensive and scarce, it will be more difficult to produce food. And then what?

Back to the sustainability meeting. We need to be able to monitor Peak Oil and to take decisive action. We really don’t have time to play around and the last thing we need is flowery prose.

I was pleased to see that there will be a sustainability council. This group of people is a quasi-government group with powers given to them by the legislature. They will be on the job all the time on a specific task. Not like the legislature, which has a year-to-year memory. They will have to report at least annually, if not more frequently, to the public. This group will be the vehicle to monitor and react to Peak Oil for the State of Hawai‘i. I like this!

The part I like most is that one of the five goals is related to Kanaka Maoli cultural and island values. The Hawaiian culture already accomplished what we are now trying to do—they survived, and thrived, without oil. Okay, they did have kukui nut oil. No sense reinventing the wheel.

But with our ability now to harness alternative energy, we should be able to accomplish what the Hawaiians did hundreds of years ago.

Not, “no can.” Can!

Big Island, History, Where We Live

Wailoa Pond Memories

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When I was a kid, Pop would deliver eggs from our poultry farm to the Hilo Egg Producers Co-op, which was located between the Wailoa Pond and the Hilo Civic Auditorium.

A couple days after the 1960 tsunami, we were delivering eggs when we found weke swimming in ponds on the gravel road. The waves had swept through Wailoa Pond and stranded the fish on land. This was an unbelievable sight. I was in the 10th grade then, and my brother Robert in the 7th grade.

Pop spent a lot of time mullet fishing on Wailoa Pond—sometimes from the shore and sometimes from his rowboat. Sometimes, when the mullet came close to shore, the fishermen would stand shoulder to shoulder, casting out to the middle of the school.

Mullet fishing protocol states that one must not cross over another fisherman’s line. To be in the middle of the group, closest to the fish, you had to be accurate. The less accurate you were, the further to the edge you found yourself forced.

I was not a real mullet fisherman, and after a few casts I would find myself out on the edge by myself. Pop and Robert always fit comfortably in the center of the group.

On the day I returned from Vietnam, I got home and Mom told me they were at the pond. I drove down there and they were all happy to see me.

There was what I estimate to be a 50+-pound ulua swimming along the edge of the bank that fronts the Lagoon Center, heading toward the Café 100 direction. We knew he had to come back and my brother Kenneth ran to get his spear gun.

Since I was just back from Vietnam and they were so happy to see me, they gave me the honors. The ulua swam back and passed right in front of me, only about 5 feet away. I used all my combat skills and let it fly.

Missed! I couldn’t believe it, and neither could they. That was the end of the welcome back party.

But hey, I was an Army lieutenant, a Vietnam veteran!

Big deal—I missed the ulua.

Adopt-a-Class, Community

“Adopt-a-Class” Update

You may recall that we started our Adopt-a-Class project when we learned that Keaukaha Elementary School does not have enough funds to take its students on regular field trips. Because they have no funds, they only took walking excursions around the community.

So we started the Adopt-a-Class project, where individuals or groups could adopt one class for $600. Three hundred dollars would go for bus transportation and the other $300 would go toward entry fees to ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center, should the teachers want to take the kids there, or other destinations.

That was in May, and in these four months we have had enthusiastic support from the community. Just $300 more, to sponsor the second graders for the second semester, and all the classes are adopted and can go on excursions this school year.

For their first excursion, some of the students recently went to see Cinderella, a stage play at Hilo High School. As the school’s principal Lehua Veincent pointed out, many have never seen a play or other stage production, and it may open up a whole new world to them. We will post some photos here soon.

We have had several organizational meetings with Kumu Lehua, the school’s Adopt-a-Class coordinator Lynn Fujii, Tutu Momi Wakita, who is president of the Keaukaha School Foundation and Terry Crichton, secretary. All administrative tasks are done for free, and one hundred percent of the donations go to the Keaukaha Elementary School Foundation for the children’s excursions.

Aunty Momi told us that she had been planning to retire. But the Adopt-a-Class project generated enough work that she decided to work on it instead of retiring. She was smiling when she told us this.

Every time we meet with Kumu Lehua, we learn more about the school. For instance, he told us recently that the school’s enrollment is increasing significantly. For a while parents were taking their kids out of Keaukaha Elementary and sending them elsewhere. Now parents are bringing their kids back, because they feel like the kids are getting a good education.

He said that when he started there as principal two-and-a-half years ago, the student attendance rate averaged 92%, as compared to the state average, which is 95%. Keaukaha Elementary’s attendance rate is now above 97%. These kids must want to come to class.

I was floored when he told me that they have a monthly ‘Ohana night that draws 150 or more parents. I know of much larger schools where only a handful of parents participate.

Leslie asked about writing a press release about the Adopt-a-Class project and Lehua suggested she do it after the ‘Ohana night they have planned for November. That’s when the students will show where they went and what they did on their excursions and aloha the donors, who will be invited to attend. He said that the students’ acknowledging and thanking the Adopt-a-Class sponsors who help them is part of the education process.

We know this will be a special, unreal occasion. Roland Torres of the television program Kama‘aina Backroads told me he wants to film this event. Chicken skin time!