Superferry Storm Carries On
Tuesday 3-18-08
Kauai’s Koohan Paik is writing a book about the Hawaii Superferry, hoping to expose what she calls a conspiracy between the government and the military. The young writer is following Superferry meetings across the state. She believes the ferry will end up being heavily utilized by the military
Department of Transit starts Environmental Impact Assessment.
By Léo Azambuja
The Superferry controversy has generated a lot of turmoil in Hawaii. After months sailing against a sea of legal and technical problems, the vessel remains dry-docked since Feb. 13, with plans to return to operations April 22.
The Alakai, which translates to potbellied or leader, depending on where the okina is placed, is a controversy in itself. After spending $40 million in harbor repairs and $180 million on loan guarantees to the Superferry, the State Government does not have much to show for it.
Adding to tax-payers’ losses, the Department of Transit (DOT) recently announced a new Harbors Modernization Plan. The DOT’s plan will cover six harbors statewide, will last six years, and is budgeted at $842 million, which will come from the Harbors Special Fund. Four of those harbors will go through special renovations to accommodate the Superferry.
A special Legislature session in late 2007 decided the State has to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which will add yet another $1 million in tax payers’ expenses.
Opponents of the Herculean twin-hulled ferry have organized several protests against the company, and have even put themselves on harm’s way, by blocking the boat from entering Nawiliwili Harbor on its second voyage to Kauai.
Superferry opponents on Maui and on Kauai fear that the boat’s operations will bring irreversible environmental damages and traffic chaos to their islands.
As much as environmental and social impacts lurk beneath the surface, such as humpback whale collisions, drug trafficking, invasive species propagation, and traffic jams, Oahu’s large population gives the Superferry a positive outcome in statewide surveys. Neighbor Islands’ surveys have yet to be conducted, but large groups of residents there have showed strong opposition to the Superferry.
Just about eight months ago, Governor Linda Lingle appointed Michael Formby as the DOT Deputy Director, overseeing the harbors’ division. Formby inherited probably the biggest controversy the DOT had to face in recent years.
Just days before the Superferry’s maiden voyage, the Hawaii Supreme Court halted the ferry’s operations by mandating an Environmental Assessment (EA) to be conducted.
The DOT hired Belt Collins Hawaii, Ltd. to prepare an EIS. Lesley Matsumoto, director of environmental consulting at Belt Collins, said the normal course of action would have required an EA before an EIS. But the DOT is now obliged to conduct an EIS because lawmakers decided it during the special Legislature session in late 2007.
Matsumoto explained an EA evaluates general impacts on the environment. If the government decides there are significant impacts, “then the next level is the EIS.”
Matsumoto said the Superferry will continue to operate while the EIS is being prepared. The after-the-fact EIS will evaluate the environmental consequences of the Superferry operations and its secondary impacts. She said the findings will not stop the ferry; instead, the EIS may include additional restrictions on the company’s operations.
When the Supreme Court decision temporarily halted the ferry’s operation last year, Senator Kalani English said he supported the decision. "The EIS was required under the law," he said. "It's been my position all along."
Formby does not agree. According to him, no law had been broken when former DOT Deputy Director Barry Fukunaga gave the Superferry an EA waiver.
“That’s the way business was done,” Formby said, explaining that the Office of Environmental Quality Control (OEQC) used to put certain items on a list of approved exemptions. The Superferry, an alternative inter-island transportation sought by the Cayetano and Lingle administrations, was on that list.
“If you put yourself in Barry Fukunaga’s place, the OEQC’s place, at the time they made those decisions, they’ll tell you they made the right decision,” Formby said.
However, times have changed. “Obviously the Supreme Court doesn’t think it was a good decision,” Formby said.
“Any time you get a landmark decision at the Supreme Court, it changes the way things are done,” Formby said. “The way we do things now is different than the way we did things before the Superferry.”
Even insisting Fukunaga’s actions were lawful, Formby agreed that the company should not have been exempted from an EA.
“For the community it’s for the better,” Formby said. “Now we’re looking at long term effects, secondary impacts.”
Formby wasn’t too sympathetic to Kauai’s Superferry opponents. In 2005, the company hosted informational meetings on Kauai. “Maybe 20 people showed up,” Formby said.
Formby, who says he has not seen any Kauai poll showing majority opposition to the ferry, called opponents a “vocal minority.” Despite saying they have good arguments, Formby believes the community has “to balance the pros and the cons.”
“If there was a terrorist incident at the Kauai Airport, people all of a sudden would fall in love with the Superferry,” Formby said. However, after Hurricane Iniki, in 1992, there was no Superferry, and the community did just fine.
Many places on Kauai lost access for days and electricity for weeks. The community helped out each other, and received overwhelming support from government agencies and the military.
Formby blamed Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) for overcrowding Kauai’s roads with as much as 400 rental cars every time it docked at Nawiliwili Harbor.
“I think for the people of Kauai it will be very interesting to see what happens now that NCL has pulled one vessel out and is pulling a second vessel out,” Formby said. The impact of 100-150 cars the Superferry will transport daily to Kauai is a “very small piece of the puzzle” if compared with the business formerly generated by NCL, Formby said.
If NCL decides to put back its ships on Hawaiian waters, it would have to re-flag the ships, re-fit them, and ask for Congress approval. The chances of it happening are slim, according to Formby.
The Superferry may not come to Molokai, but its impact here cannot be underestimated.
“It can potentially have impacts on the island and on the residents of the island because it’s transiting the coastal waters,” Formby said. If necessary, the boat can go through the Penguin Banks “if goes at the right speed, in the right time of the season.”
Despite rumors of a proposed dredging in the harbor at Kaunakakai Wharf, Formby assured that the DOT has no plans to do so.
“I’m not aware of any maintenance schedule for Kaunakakai, and we definitely don’t have any new dredging plans for Kaunakakai,” Formby said.
A dredging would only be approved after several environmental studies, a design phase, and finally a lengthy construction phase. “There are definitely no plans for larger vessels to come in,” he said. “If we started today, it would be about 15 years before we finished it, that’s how long it takes; it’s a very long process.”
EIS public meetings
The DOT initiated a series of statewide meetings to gather community input on the EIS currently being prepared by Belt Collins Hawaii Ltd. The island of Molokai was the DOT’s first stopover.
About 30 community members showed up last week Tuesday at Kaunakakai Elementary School to tell Matsumoto and the DOT staff some of the impacts the ferry may have on the Molokai.
Most testifiers were concerned about how the EIS would protect whales and seals from colliding with the vessel. Humpback whales and Hawaiian monk seals are protected by strict federal laws, and some residents do not believe the Superferry is able to avoid hitting them.
Resident Ruth Manu said Young Brothers, in order to accommodate the Superferry schedule in Kahului Harbor, Maui, has changed its scheduled trips to Molokai. The cargo shipper now comes to Molokai two days in a row every week, instead of spacing the trips. As a result, fresh produce availability on Molokai’s grocery store shelves has been compromised.
A series of posters showed potential impacts the Superferry may have in Hawaii. Resident Cheryl Richards wanted to know why the social-economics poster was empty. “If I’m paying the bill, I want to know why the money isn’t coming to our schools,” she said. “I’m paying the taxes and I want to know what the business plan is.”
Richards said she felt the EIS was a “cart-and-pony show.”
The meeting was organized solely to hear comments from the community. DOT officials and Belt Collins associates were not allowed to answer community concerns, which frustrated many testifiers.
“Next time you come, you give us our answers, that’s pono, that’s Hawaiian style,” Manu said.
A recorder kept track of community input, which will be included in the preparation of the EIS.
On March 14 the DOT held two meetings at Farrington High School, on Oahu, drawing only 12 people.
On March 17 the DOT carried two meetings on Maui, and on March 19 it carried two meetings on Kauai. At the time of press, there was no information on those meetings
Comments
Speakers blast Superferry EIS
By HARRY EAGAR, Maui News, March 18, 2008
WAILUKU — The special environmental impact statement for the state harbors and their ferry customers was attacked as unconstitutional and illegal at a public meeting on Maui on Monday.
This EIS is being prepared under Act 2, passed in a special session of the Legislature last year to allow the Hawaii Superferry to operate pending completion of an EIS for both harbor improvements and secondary impacts.
Several speakers at an afternoon session at Baldwin High School Auditorium said any EIS should be rolled into the regular EIS for the 2030 Harbors Department master plan, also now under way.
That position would, if pursued, sideline the Hawaii Superferry for up to two years.
Irene Bowie, executive director of the Maui Tomorrow Foundation, was the first speaker to denounce the special EIS. Her group already has challenged the constitutionality of Act 2 in court.
Eleven people spoke at the afternoon session, with 15 more turning out for a relatively quiet evening session. An Oahu meeting Friday was also reported to have been lightly attended, but sessions scheduled for Kauai on Wednesday may generate more heat.
Kauai opponents of the Hawaii Superferry physically blocked the ferry from docking at Nawiliwili Harbor on its second run on Aug. 27 last year. Although the Alakai resumed service to Maui in December after Act 2 was approved, the company has not attempted to renew the Oahu-Kauai run.
The issue is somewhat complicated because the special EIS is for state actions in harbors as they relate to any “large capacity interisland ferry,” while many of the objections are to the one ferry company operating — or trying to.
The Hawaii Superferry’s first vessel, Alakai, began Oahu-Maui service under the dispensation granted by Act 2 on Dec. 13, but canceled voyages for four days at the end of the month because of rough seas, and canceled another two days in mid-January.
It went out of service on Jan. 28 again because of rough conditions in Kahului Harbor, but has been drydocked since because of damage to its rudders and to its hull. It is currently scheduled to resume service on April 22.
Whatever issues there are about reliability of the ferry, the EIS mandated by Act 2 is proceeding. However, the state’s harbor plans not only would apply to any “large-capacity ferry,” but also are meant to accommodate other businesses, like cruise ships.
While most of the 11 testifiers had bad words about the Superferry, others, like Karen Chun, spoke against all passenger vessels using Kahului Harbor.
Chun, representing Save Kahului Harbor, said, “Maui’s freight crisis is critical. We should give priority to freight over passenger ships.”
Besides Bowie, Masako Cordray described the special EIS as “a fake EIS.” But retired Maui Community College professor Dick Mayer accepted the EIS process, proposing a long list of items that the preparers should address.
The special EIS is not just for Kahului Harbor. It will cover shore-side improvements (many already constructed) at the four harbors on the Hawaii Superferry’s route schedule — Kahului, Nawiliwili, Honolulu and Kawaihae.
Mayer also said the EIS must address secondary impacts in the oceans between the islands and on the islands where the ferries will call.
There were no novel suggestions for what should be studied. Mayer suggested that most items already had been listed by the county councils of Maui, Hawaii and Kauai, all demanding an EIS before ferry operations began.
Items to be studied include impacts on marine mammals, fisheries, surf spots, traffic on island roads, smuggling between islands, transportation of alien pests, depletion of resources (like opihi, among others), interisland travel of criminals, traditional and cultural Hawaiian practices (like canoe paddling in Kahului Harbor), air quality, social cohesion and displacement of freight operations.
Brad Parsons added the question of fuel consumption, and Mayer demanded an investigation of depleted uranium if the Army uses the ferry to move Stryker vehicles.
Some speakers, like Daniel Kanahele, said the “no action” alternative is the one that should be adopted. The “no action” alternative is a requirement of every EIS.
Mike Cummings announced the formation of a new Maui Surfing Association with 352 members from age 8 to 62 who, he said, hold varying opinions about ferries, but are all agreed that all surf spots are a valuable resource that “validate a quality-of-life issue.”
He said economic considerations must not be allowed to trump quality-of-life issues.
Leslie Kuloloio said the EIS preparers, Belt Collins, are “missionary descendants” who treated Hawaiians without respect.
Lesley Matsumoto, vice president of Belt Collins for environmental planning, reviewed some of the measures either required by Act 2 or imposed by Gov. Linda Lingle by executive order to help mitigate impacts of any ferry operations, pending completion of the special EIS. Completion is not expected until May 2009.
Required or imposed measures include a number of operational safeguards and monthly meetings of a Ferry Oversight Task Force to consider practical experience.
There has been little practical experience, since the ferry has been in drydock since the beginning of February.
The Department of Transportation, Matsumoto said, had formed a Rapid Risk Assessment panel of engineers and scientists to examine ferry impacts.
The panel had planned to issue a report this month, but since the ferry hasn’t been operating, it will have to wait until it does, sometime after April 22. Matsumoto said the assessment now is planned for May, with a report in June.
With the limited experience, she said, “To date they haven’t noted any substantial concerns.”
Bowie disagrees. She claimed there already have been three close encounters with humpback whales, encounters made more likely when the Alakai was forced to a southerly route through the Kalohi Channel south of Molokai by heavy seas on the northern route.
A draft of the special harbors EIS is expected to be completed in October, which will open a 45-day public comment period.