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cloud-covered Volcano. These ferns require moist soil to live. In fact, at this spot on the property, there is a constant seep of water, allowing the palapalai to thrive here. Also on the property is a small pond with tadpoles and small fish living in it. It has been a dry summer, so I wonder how fish can survive here unless there is an underground source of water to keep them alive. Surely the sun would have long ago evaporated standing water, so it appeazs that these fish live because of another, refreshed source of water. The water must be coming from underground, unrelated to immediate rainfall. Is it possible a pazt of the aquifer surfaces here? And if so, just how neaz the surface is underground water on the rest of the property? I do not believe the developers or their engineers really know the status of water here. I do not believe they have appropriately accounted for either surface and sub-surface water in planning for development on the property. 2) I've been listening with interest to the reports of recent hurricane damage in the Caribbean. Several times on the evening news I have heazd it reported that Haiti suffered such horrible flooding damage "because it is largely deforested." The Dominican Republic, which occupies the eastern half of the same island, has not suffered such problems; the Dominican Republic has not hazvested a huge percentage of its trees as has Haiti. Can we not learn from the mistakes of Haiti? Is what we want for Hilo deforestation in watershed areas in the name of development and the possibility ofeven more devastating floods than we've already had? 3) Mr. Tulang, when you visited my house campaigning for the primary election, we talked about the chazette you proposed during the May meeting of the Council when University Terrace was on the agenda. You proposed the chazette to assist in determining how this development might be able to assist the community with its needs for housing in away that would be acceptable to all the parties ("most palatable" as I remember it, were words Planning Director Chris Yuen used to define the term "chazette" and its purpose). You told me you took the lead from your fellow council members to include only the service agencies in the first chazette. I don't believe a single person in the room that day imagined that the community would be excluded from the chazette. In fact, the definition of chazette, according to Mr. Yuen and Mr. Tulang, is a method for developers, government agencies and communities to come together and discuss the concerns of all parties and try to come to an amicable agreement. I protest the meeting of the agencies with the developer without input from the community who is most affected, and whose input may prove to be most valuable in realizing the problems inherent in the property. 4) In short, I believe that some azeas of land should be left undeveloped. This azea, the 172 acres the developer calls University Terrace, lends itself in the strongest terms as being one critically suited for non-development because of its function as a watershed, and as a watershed how it helps to protect downtown Hilo from even more frequent serious flooding than we have already experienced. I see this parcel as the funnel, the last point through which water from uphill, from Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, flow, both surface and sub-surface. The funnel is being pushed further and further mauka with each