Green issues dominate 2006

Kaua‘i is no stranger to controversy, nor hot-button issues about land, water, plants and animals.
Not surprisingly, then, one common thread to 2006 was environmental controversy.
While Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and others moved to reduce the island’s dependence on fossil fuels, a number of flammable topics threatened to ignite — and sometimes exploded into — fiery, emotional debates.
Largest environmental fine ever
Long before the Ka Loko dam breached during this spring’s record rains, owner James Pflueger was already on an the ecological hot seat for a November 2001 mudslide in Pila‘a that damaged property before running into the ocean and blanketing the reef in Pila‘a Bay.
Pflueger, who had been doing roadwork without a permit, agreed earlier this year to pay a $7.5 million fine levied by the Environmental Protection Agency for violating the Clean Water Act, the largest single environmental fine on record.
It brought Pflueger’s tab for the mudslide up to $12 million. The retired O‘ahu auto dealer is set to appear in court in January for a civil suit stemming from the incident.
Pflueger has also been named in a civil suit filed by the families of the victims of the March 14 Ka Loko disaster.
Sayonara, sonar
Well, not really.
After months of wrangling, the Navy reached an agreement in July with various conservationist groups on the use of sonar in its Rim of the Pacific naval exercises.
Protesters turned the heat up in May, using the mysterious stranding of approximately 150 melon-headed whales in Hanalei Bay in 2004 — during the last RIMPAC exercises off Kaua‘i — as their rallying cry.
On July 2, a U.S. District Court judge in California issued a temporary restraining order against the use of active sonar, but six days later the Navy got the go-ahead after agreeing to not use mid-frequency sonar, and not use any sonar within 25 nautical miles of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument.
Some were still not happy about it, and led protests on the North Shore throughout July.
There were no reported marine mammal injuries from RIMPAC sonar, though some blamed the late June beaching of a bleeding whale in Hanalei on the exercises, which had begun at the time, without the use of sonar.
Bad idea genes
While technically two different issues, adversaries of genetically modified foods often found themselves fighting the good fight on behalf of taro farmers statewide in their opposition to the University of Hawai‘i’s taro patents.
Essentially, naysayers feared that UH would be at liberty to uproot fields of the resilient, low-maintenance crop that has long been a sacred staple to the Hawaiian diet. Furthermore, they argued that because farmers have crossbred crops for centuries — and taro often crossbreeds itself — it would be impossible to positively identify one strain from another.
The debate hit home on Kaua‘i, where 65 percent of Hawai‘i’s taro is grown.
GMO opponents entered in when the worst-case UH scenario began to sound like when the seed giant Monsanto filed hundreds of lawsuits against farmers in the U.S. and Canada over patented corn.
UH eventually released the patents, but the GMO fight continued with numerous protests from GMO Free Kauai and HawaiiSEED.
Though things quieted down over the summer and through the early fall, rumors of GMO evils surfaced again in November when heavy rains released pungent odors from a Syngenta-owned field onto the campus of Waimea Canyon Elementary next door, sending several students home and many more to the infirmary.
The official line is that it was caused by a common Westside weed called cleome gynandra, or the wild spider flower, more commonly known as “stinkweed.”
Some members of the anti-GMO faction, though, were quick to blame Syngenta’s modified crops.
Big noise from
a little frog
When opposition to the Hawaii Superferry began in earnest earlier this year — for drugs, for homelessness, for traffic, for whales — it was, for some at least, the tiny coqui frog that caused the most concern.
Turns out, the noisy little critters have already found their way from the Big Island and Maui to Kaua‘i — specifically, a 15-acre plot in Lawa‘i — without the help of the speedy interisland ferry.
The County Council recently slotted almost $300,000 to eradicate the nighttime chirpers with poison, a move conservationists, frog-lovers and environmentalists have attacked as cruel, expensive and unnecessary.
The poison will also most likely kill or severely damage every other living thing in the area, opponents say — a bad move in a state with more endangered species per square mile than any other place on the planet.
Others, however, fear that the little buggers will eventually move beyond Lawa‘i and take over the whole island, and need to be silenced (and sentenced) at once.
Alas, the County Council tabled the decision until early next month, ensuring that the big debate over the little frog will continue well into the new year.