Thursday, July 2, 2009

Musings: Quick Stop

I'm in a rush today, but wanted to provide you with a link to a piece I just published on cultural and environmental concerns related to placing the bike path on Wailua Beach.

Then there's also the Star-Bulletin piece reporting that a federal judge has ruled Hawaii Superferry can abandon its two ferries to MARAD, the federal agency that provided the bulk of its funding. According to the article, we won't be seeing the ferry in Hawaii again:

"We're not going to be returning back to the state of Hawaii now that the estate has abandoned the ships," Leon Barson, a Hawaii Superferry attorney, told Walsh during a hearing in Wilmington, Del., where the Hawaii Superferry filed for bankruptcy on May 30.

The article also has Alex Harman, a partner in J.F. Lehman saying:

The private-equity firm lost its entire $85 million investment in Hawaii Superferry, Harman said.

And finally, I'll be co-hosting a KKCR show with Jimmy Trujillo from 4 to 5:30 p.m. today. The topic is the military's impact on Hawaii, including depleted uranium. The guests will be Kyle Kajihiro of American Friends Service Committee and freelance reporter Bob Nichols. You can tune in on line at www.kkcr.org or 91.9 FM. And please call in at 826-7771, especially if you're a military supporter. Always makes a discussion more interesting to get varying points of view.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

so lets ask an interesting question: over the last 10 years, who has done more environmental harm on kauai - the missile base, or kiuc's port allen operations?

if one has ever walked around those kiuc fuel tanks and seen the leakage into the beach etc, the question is bound to give one pause (if they are honest)

and while the north shore pot culture crowd is well intentioned, thankfully they are only as effective as they are well informed

the primary legitimate criticism of kauai / hawaii military operations is not fish kills and the like (remember the darpa fish kill theory?...), but rather that after that senator dies there is a real risk the military money will leave hawaii faster than it can be replaced. base closings can financially devastate communities. one would hope we do all possible to replace it with a growing cleantech industry, starting now


darwin_was_pretty_smart

Joan Conrow said...

I hope you'll call in with your comments/questions, DWPS.

Katy said...

Thanks, Joan.

I hope that folks tune in to hear Kyle - hardly someone who could be lumped in to the "north shore pot culture crowd." He's one of the smartest, most effective peace and social justice organizers I've ever met. Those interested in checking out some of the work he and others in Hawai'i have been doing should check out the dmzhawaii.org site.

Joan, be sure to ask him about the amazing environmental justice youth summer project he's part of right now on Oahu's West Side. It's very much related to military impact.

I'll be listening!

Anonymous said...

so i took a sec and read up on the guy some. he thinks missile defense is a bad idea. k, fine. lotta pretty smart people would disagree w/ him. heck even i could prob run circles around him on the topic, and im a total pedestrian on it

anyways, ill look forward to when the following is acknowledged:

1. hawaiian royalty set the table for modern complaints by basically selling off big chunks of hawaii (99% of the time monarchies suck, sorry)

2. the moderate and far left dont like the military. period. and acknowledging the value of the US military is apparently as difficult for them as noting nobody has proven human cancer case via GMO consumption

strange to me so much time is wasted b/ of items 1-2 above, meanwhile local public schools pump out kids that are painfully unprepared for the world outside surfing, broken english, pot smoking, early pregnancies, and a lifetime of service jobs

nice set of priorities and planning people

as the royals from 200 or so years ago screwed over the hawaiians by being stupid, being tricked, and being greedy....so to do many folks here (aka activities) similarly screw over kids by focusing time and attention on relatively small and false problems (military, gmo, etc) in lieu of advocating proven, serious, measurable, politically painful, and robust means of educationally setting up the youth for better lives

(and to that you answer ~ "oh well thats a big part of why were against gm crops, bases, etc...hurts our kids, bla bla"...and you still wonder why elected officials blow you guys off?)


dwps

Anonymous said...

dwps said: "if one has ever walked around those kiuc fuel tanks and seen the leakage into the beach etc, the question is bound to give one pause (if they are honest)"

KIUC fuel tanks? I don't think so. The fuel tanks at Port Allen belong to Chevron.

Anonymous said...

"KIUC fuel tanks? I don't think so. The fuel tanks at Port Allen belong to Chevron."

-- if u say so. thanks for the info

and if that is true... man... chevron... pony up the money to fix / replace those leaky tanks

epa? dlnr? bueller?


dwps

Joan Conrow said...

Thanks for calling in to the show, dwps. Good thing you have unlimited minutes! Email me if you'd like to help me put together a show on the topic you suggested. eastsidegrrrl@yahoo.com