Three men face up to $3,150 in fines each for their role in the alleged removal and attempted transport of river rocks from Maui to Oahu aboard the Hawaii Superferry. The August incident drew widespread attention as environmental groups questioned the impacts of the new interisland vessel operations on cultural and natural resources. Resource Enforcement officers from the Department of Conservation recovered 934 rocks from the beds of three pickup trucks. Charlie K. Bright, Ralph Chun and Victor Fomoimoana—all of Oahu—were charged with unauthorized removal of the rocks from an area identified as state-owned unencumbered public lands, located in a conservation district along the Paukukalo Shoreline referred to as “River Mouth.” According to state documents, one of the men told authorities the rocks were taken to make imus for non-profit organizations and a church. The state board of Land and Natural Resources will review the recommend fines during a meeting Friday, July 11th in Honolulu at 9 a.m. in the Kalanimoku Building, Land Conference Room 132. (Posted: Thursday 7/10/08)) CLICK HERE TO VIEW DETAILED DLNR REPORT & DOCUMENTATION
The state has jurisdiction over the conservation district, which includes coastal lands up to the vegetation line, certified by a process of shoreline certification. This is why anyone can access the shore, despite private property of the coast. This is also why technically people can land on Ni`ihau and not be in violation of private property (the Robinsons), as long as they stay on the shore. Nonetheless, there is a policy not to land anyone in the vicinity of Pu`uwai, the main settlement on Ni`ihau. On a large boulder beach such as Paukukalo in West Maui, the vegetation line lies far inland, and the shoreline conservation district zone there is broad, thus the violation.
Indeed this is exactly the kind of behavior that Maui folks were afraid would happen if the superferry began bring people with trucks in large numbers to the island...
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