Friday, January 25, 2008
Strong opposition voiced to the Kahului Harbor 2030 master plan
Check out this long, detailed article in the Maui News. It may be a fair enough summary of community objections to the state's plan to completely change the character of the harbor for the benefit of the Superferry and other commercial interests, riding roughshod over community uses of the harbor.
The strength of Neighbor Island solidarity against state and commercial encroachment is quite impressive. I have no way of knowing if the Maui News article is accurate or complete, but reading it makes it clear that Maui intends to have its say on this.
As the article makes clear, there are alternatives. The very first testifier, Foster Ampong, had a suggestion:
Ampong and others said that expanding the harbor does not promote long-term sustainability, it just aids unabated growth. A common solution offered by plan opponents was to move all the cruise ships to Lahaina or Maalaea Harbor, where they said that the tourists really want to be anyway.
The end of the article includes ways for the public to present its comments on the draft EIS. The deadline is February 28. See the article for details.
If we really want local control over these harbor developments we need to repeal HRS 266-2 which exempts harbor projects from county permitting process and virtually suspends the federal Coastal Zone Management Act which is a county permitting process under the SMA (Shoreline Management Act) permitting done by local planning departments.
But don’t hold your breath- some of these bozos in the lege want to expand the exemption to cover airports too.
I have my doubts as to whether public concerns and input will be incorporated on this. Nevertheless the public has one more day to get in written input on the Kahului Harbor EIS. Got to the DOT/Belt Collins web page to do so. Aloha, Brad
: January 27, 2008 at 1:46:00 PM HST << Home
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