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Home My WebLink About2021-09-19 Game Management Advisory Commission Minutes Game Management Advisory Commission County of Hawai’i Minutes Meeting Date: September 21, 2021 Time: 6:00-8:00pm Place: Mayor’s Hilo Office 1. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL: st AA: Good evening. Welcome to our September 21 Game Management Advisory Commission meeting. Barbara could you make sure everybody’s here – that we have quorum? District 1 - Stanley Mendes, present - in person District 2 - Kean Umeda, present - in person District 3 – Rhon Leomana Turalde, Zoomed in at 6:06pm District 4 – Brian Ley, present - Zoom District 5 - Abraham Antonio, present – in person District 6 - Grayson Hashida, present - Zoom District 7 - Vacant District 8 – Cortney Okumura, excused District 9 - George Donev, present – Zoomed in after roll call Quorum Established with 5 members. One excused. L. Turalde and G. Donev were absent at roll call but will be calling in shortly. STAFF: Sinclair Salas-Ferguson, Attorney with Corporation Counsel –Zoom Pomai Bartolome, Executive Assistant to Mayor Roth – in person Barbara Kossow, Admin. Specialist Mayor’s Kona Office - Zoom 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Action: S. Mendes motioned to approve the July 20, 2021 minutes. Seconded by K. Umeda. Motion passed with 5 ayes. (L. Turalde and G. Donev, absent) 3. FINANCIAL REPORT: 1 Action: K. Umeda motioned to approve the financial report. Seconded by S. Mendes. Motion passed with 5 ayes. (L. Turalde and G. Donev, absent) 4. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: Chair Abraham Antonio, welcomes anyone that may want to say something regarding an agenda item may do so anytime throughout the meeting. 5. PRESENTATIONS: a. Michael Walker, Hawai’i State Fire Protection Forester will give an update on the recent fire load damage in West Hawai’i summarizing the cost and resources used for firefighting. AA: At this time, we were supposed to have one presentation by Michael Walker but he wasn’t available to be here tonight. He’s off-island and in a remote area so, um, I found another video – a presentation - that we can move forward with and then we’ll move Michael Walker to next month’s meeting. So Pomai can you play that video for everyone? PB: Hi, can you see us? AA: Yes. PB: OK. VIDEO: Watch “Mana Road Fire Fight - A Community Effort” on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/600644715?ref=em-share Fire Chief Todd: The fire originally started – on the first night it was about a 4,000-acre fire. We had dozer lines going around and it seemed to be under control. We were concerned because the following day the weather patterns had indicated that the wind would be picking up and the region of which the road, ah, Mana Road where it started is known to be an area where wind gets funneled between the two mountains in the area. ?: So from the start of the fire within a few hours we got notified of it by the county that it would be coming our way potentially and so we kind of went out ahead to scout and determine where we thought it would come through and what kind of assets we could deploy before the fire got to us. ?: When the fire kicked off on Friday afternoon – the fire department team here immediately launched to go to the line and put themselves into the overall incident command structure and they had prepared themselves to fight the fire throughout the multi-day fire, throughout the weekend. 2 ?: Chief Todd: And the following day the dozer lines that had been put in the night before – the wind started picking up into drastic levels – were jumped by the fire and berms and other things had been whipped around and by-passed everything. And so by day two the fire had expanded to about a 14,000-acre fire and we realized we were rapidly losing the ability to manage and control it – at which time we started bringing in units from pretty much anywhere we could find them. ?: So we got word that the fire had lost control in the evening time on Friday – so Friday night – so my wife and I, my daughter and son-in-law – we went up, you know, to pray and watch and see what we could do and watch – this fire was just out of control heading our way. ?: So for the Mana Road fire we provided several ground base trucks as well as their assets. We were able to call in assistance from Oahu to augment the usual medevac crew that’s here. We were able to deploy dozers, bull dozers from our Department of Public Works as well as fire engines, water tankers, brush trucks, ETVs and we also brought in a six-person hand crew from Oahu. ?: My commanders in Oahu – the Commanding General of U S Army Hawai’i pushed as much support as he could as quickly as he could. I called him on Friday afternoon and told him this fire is something that could potentially get out of control. I’d like to put some helicopter assets at the ready and did so immediately and then on Saturday he pushed two Black Hawk \[interruption\] and then on Sunday he pushed 3 additional helicopters over – two more Black Hawks and then one \[interruption\] helicopter – their assets were incredibly important. I think when you talk to the experts – the fire captains and chiefs – when these fires get so large it ends up being an air fight and a dozer fight with the fire fighters on the ground – being very strategic with how they attack the fire from the grounds. ?: We were really fortunate on this Island that we have a really good relationship with the Pohakuloa Fire Department, Hawai’i County Fire Department as well as the National Park and we all come together to combat these fires together but without the community support there’s no way that we would be successful especially on an incident this large. ?: Chief Todd: Through the concerted effort of all of the local county agencies as well as state and federal we were able to – basically try to do the best we could to put down the fire and eventually prevent as much damage as possible. ?: You know in this time and age, you know, it’s hard to find those times where people can come together and neighbors, friends, there’s good people out there that came together and helped save property and, of course, people’s lives, yeah? I’m really grateful for that - that was awesome – thank God. \[Music\] \[End of video\] 3 AA: OK. First we’d like to thank all the federal, state, and county fire departments that all cooperated with each other and battled that big fire. Any public want to comment on that video or anything else at this time. NP: Ah, Nani, here… AA: Hi, Nani… NP: Hi, you guys, I heard that just today the red flag warning is up again for more fires. Have any of you heard about that? AA: I don’t think it ever got taken down. NP: Yeah, so I guess it’s an ongoing problem. AA: Yes… Any other comments from the public? OK. Right now we got Councilman Tim Richards, District 9… b. Tim Richards, District 9, Hawai’i County Council Member will discuss community response to the recent wildfires in West Hawai’i and solutions that the community would like to see. TR: First of all thanks everybody for the invitation to talk story and have a little bit of, I guess, de-briefing as far as what went on with the fire and I think that video is a pretty good overview of what happened that day and their response that from my perspective and council seat it all started Friday afternoon and we had a little fire and things were going OK and it looked like things were going to be OK – the county had responded and were going to be hopefully getting out arms around that – that Saturday morning the wind started to pick up and again, I’m kind of rehashing what everybody knows about this – the wind started to pick up and very quickly things started to get out of control and it’s because of those high winds because of the super dry conditions that we were facing – we ended up with the fire taking off and as Chief Todd said, went from maybe a couple thousand acres to 14,000 acres very, very quickly. That’s when the fire department responded exceedingly fast, in fact, there was a brand new fire truck that they’d dedicated that morning in Kohala – a brand new – and within 15 minutes of wrapping up the ceremony the fire chief had sent it to go start fighting fire. The – what do they refer to them – the assets started to pour in to start taking care of the fire. Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Cronin and he jumped in and getting Pohakuloa – a big shout out to Pohakuloa fire fighters for jumping in and, you know, I like the comment – a great working relationship between county, state, federal, military and then, of course, the volunteers. That’s what we’re going to talk about here in just a little bit. The fire started getting out of control that Saturday and so things we reacting and responding very, very quickly. I shout out to Pohakuloa and the Lt. Col. ‘because he made a call and asked for 4 those helicopters to come in and respond as quickly as they could and they made that call early, which I think helped us out a lot. At one point I was talking to Chief Todd last week and this was also previous to Chief Bergin the west side battalion commander – this is at one point the fire was going so fast that the bulldozers couldn’t even keep up with it because the fire was spreading that fast. Puukapu – the Hawaiian Homes area – that was also being severely impacted and we had a bunch of issues going on there. About Saturday afternoon is when the community really started engaging – that’s when my phone really started to ring. At one point we had 27 bulldozers working the fire and a lot of those bulldozers are contractor bulldozers that called and said, hey, we can bring a dozer – what do you want us to do? And so my phone was ringing on that and I connected them to the fire chief or the battalion chief and let them direct because these are our – these all have to be directed. Last week – I have a radio show once a month – and I had Fire Chief Todd on there – it’s just a talk story – and we were talking about the fire. He says, you know, it’s one thing when you have maybe a couple thousand acres and 3 or 4 bulldozers, going, it’s another thing to have 40,000 acres and 20 bulldozers going and 9 helicopters \[unclear\] they had – very, very different – and you start almost running a battlefield, you know, I was interested in some of the comments that were made. So what happened was we started to shift very, very quickly. Puukapu – I tell you – that community jumped in and they worked really hard to start backing each other up and supporting each other going forward. The first bulldozer that went out – went to Puukapu, ah, Chief Bergin had sent it directly there, as well as, the first firefighting units started fighting fire in the Puukapu region and the reason for that is because that’s an area that has houses and the primary charge of the county is to save houses so that was the initial push to get that handled. But that’s when things started kind of going off the rails and in Puukapu they started to work very, very diligently to support each other, help each other out. We started to see the problems going on out there. One of the problems we encountered was not enough water and we also had trouble out there with the roads and also trouble with enough resources out there. And this is where the community jumped in and started volunteering and helping each other out. I know there’s some construction companies that went out to Puukapu and just started working. They hadn’t signed up officially with the county at that point – they just started to help and started to get things done. And, again, that was the community response to what needed to get done: pushing fire breaks, trying to haul water – and they’re using anything to haul water to put out the fire. They’re getting the fire breaks cut but some of those mounds of kikuyu grass as everybody on this call knows – those things can smolder for quite a long time and so they were trying to work on that while still cutting the fire breaks and now this was where the fire ebb and flows and it changed so much throughout the whole thing. The community was working there – my office – I started to realize that we didn’t have a great communication ongoing between everybody and so that’s when on Sunday we decided to start communicating – tried to get regular updates – now I was in direct communication with the county fire and also the military as far as helping give updates to the community so they would know what is going on – now conversely and it worked the other way pretty well – when we did that what was also happening was that the community started watching the fire and watching for 5 flare-ups and outbreaks and so what would happen throughout the day I was either getting communicated messages via Facebook or text, whatever, and I was getting pictures from the community of the whole – I tell you is interesting – from Mauna Kea, Puukapu all the way down to up above Waikoloa Village. People were taking pictures from far and then circling where they saw flare-ups of smoke and would – then I could direct it to – I let the fire department know that they could, you know, we had a flare up in this area – so it was kind of interesting because the community was helping watch the fire while the military and the county and the state and the federal people were actually fighting the fire. So it was kind of a back and forth. It continued on and that reporting back and forth helping each other out making sure things were going on and communication probably was the biggest concern going forward. A little bit forward into the week, as far as fighting fire, one of the problems we ran into – now I was out there with Councilman Sue Leeloy talking story with Puukapu – finding out what their needs were. They didn’t have an ability – they had water tanks but they only had gravity flow to fill the little tanks that they were using – a 2” line gravity flow without much head – it took a long time – again we were able to work with the community putting into this – worked with the Sayre Foundation – got them quickly to get a pump purchased as well as correct pump pipe to hook the pumps to the water tanks out there – we had to fill up the water tanks quickly – and these are the ones that the farmers and ranchers that were out there – those big transport – those big plastic things they use for different chemicals and all that – they were filling those – anything to haul water to put out these hot spots – that worked well. Additionally, another thing came up and again this was all communication coming from the community – we had one road – well, actually a couple of roads – as we were starting to get into the fire and these mounds of grass were smoldering they couldn’t get water to them because the roads – out there was all damaged and because of that damage the water trucks couldn’t get there so with a memorandum of understanding between the county and DHHL the county was able to get in and fix the roads so then the DHHL water trucks could get in and get water on to these mounds of grass. So, again, it was a back and forth communication and lots and lots of communication ongoing from the community and the community really stepping up, especially in that Puukapu region to help each other and help out to make things go forward… AA: Excuse me, Mr. Richards… TR: Yes? AA: Hold on. To the public some of you guys need to put you guys mics on mute – we getting interference in the background so whoever’s not speaking please put your mic on mute. OK, Mr. Richards, continue please, sorry… TR: OK. No problem. OK, so again it was that communication back and forth and keeping – touching bases with the communities and seeing where they were – that takes care of Puukapu for the time being. As the fire was spreading more and more towards Kona 6 side and we had a lot of smoke going down that side, of course, the concern came up – are we going to jump the mauka road 190 and pose a problem for Waikoloa Village. And again, lots of concern, lots of communication going on. We have those winds, yes, in fact, and we all know this the fires did jump and, again, communication I have to give a lot of credit to our county fire department – they were watching the weather reports – the predictions of the wind reports and seeing how they could best manage this. When the thing jumped there was a concern that it was going to sweep all the way down to Waikoloa Village and there was a concern whether or not that might happen. The winds were able to die back a little bit and I believe that would have been Sunday night and so they were able to set a back fire which, again, to burn some of the fire load to get it out of the way of the fire so we wouldn’t have to worry about that coming back and flurry back up later and possibly jumping the Waikoloa Road to jump onto the Kona side of that and this was all done – I think it did jump in one place but they were able to put that out. Cause everyone knows we had that Waikoloa evacuation, again, talking to the Chief on this – this was something they were watching very, very closely because it depended upon our weather patterns. If we had had more gentler trade winds the call for evacuation probably would have not come – the problem was that 60 mph winds that were gusting and it was predicted if we got a good fire started on the makai side of Mamalahoa Highway it would be less than 2 hours to the Waikoloa Village and if we got to the Waikoloa Village that’s where the deep concern – we had so much fire load down in there and the concern was if we got it into the village it would be very, very difficult to stop it. That is what triggered the concern for evacuation – that’s why the Fire Chief issued the evacuation order. Many people evacuated but a lot of people didn’t and we’re actually going back and having to talk story about that – because of the concern if you didn’t evacuate – that could pose a problem. I’ll come back to talk about that in a second. After action report of how everyone discussed this – this is something the Fire Chief and I talked story on – what happened was – I think it was noon he actually made the call. The evacuation route in the Waikoloa Village – which is at the end of Hulu Street that goes straight down to the Queen Kaahumanu Highway – that was opened up about 10:00 in the morning. In the cautious position – that if we needed to evacuate the road would be open and it’s a partially paved mainly graded gravel road that’s easy for all cars to go through. Anyway, that road was opened and they Fire Chief, I think it as at noon, made the determination to evacuate. We learned a lot through this evacuation. The police learned a lot as far as how we’re gonna manage the intersections coming forth – we had 3 intersections to manage – the one right by the helicopter – right above Waikoloa Resort – they one coming down from the Waikoloa Road – we had the evacuation which is right near the fire station and then we had the Kawaihae Road intersection because we ran into a problem with all these cars coming out – we started running into traffic problems. Major Bird who is the relatively new major for the west side – she was the captain in Waimea previously – this came under her command and I talked to her about and they realized very, very quickly that we were running into some bottlenecks as far as the evacuation. So that was corrected actually quite quickly and they were able to get more officers on the scene to better direct traffic but we learned about that – talking to the chief said, you know what it probably would have worked 7 better is if they issued a warning that there may be an evacuation order coming – ‘because that would allow people to prepare themselves to get ready for evacuation. I had a whole spectrum of comments on the evacuation from people saying that was real simple, real easy, worked real well, no panic to people saying I didn’t want to evacuate, other people saying they were afraid to evacuate, other people saying they should’ve evacuated but they didn’t. And, again, we got to go back and have a talk story about this. What one of the big problems with evacuation was the misinformation coming up out about that evacuation. What could go down that Hulu Street access point – whether or not the evacuation was reissued and all that – this was one of the reasons I established early on in my office that we try to be very, very consistent and no information came out of my office that number one I didn’t either personally verify – it came from a very, very reliable source. Again, it all came back to the communication and the communication we exchanged back and forth between everybody. Long story short – at the end through all of this stuff what we learned – communication has to be better. We had great communication between the county and the federal – the military – we had some stutter steps with the state as far as firefighting. The communication from the county out to our constituency – we need to improve that and there are some things we need to change as far as handling overall. So that’s kind of it in a nutshell and I appreciate you letting me give an overall summary on this – I’m wide open for questions and however you want to handle this going forward. AA: Any public or commissioners have any questions for Mr. Richards? BL: Yeah, Brian Ley, District 4… Hey, thanks for all the information. Hey, do we have a total dollar amount on what this fire cost the county? TR: Yeah, um, we, you know, we have damage assessment and then we have actual out-of- pocket assessment as far as what this cost. From the county out-of-pocket we know that our bulldozer cost for the 10 days’ worth and those 27 some bulldozers is somewhere around a million dollars. Out helicopter cost is probably and it depends on how that gets handled because some of its military but I’m gonna guess it’s got to be at least half that if not approaching a million – it just depends how that gets charged out. A lot of this stuff is gonna be covered by FEMA but the designation for that FEMA support didn’t come, I think, until midnight Saturday night, so there’s the first 36 hours probably that didn’t come under that. As far as damage – and then we have all the firefighters themselves. I am guessing – well, it’s better than guessing this is putting numbers together from the Fire Chief – we’ll probably looking at a couple of million dollars’ worth of fighting fire costs to us. How we get that funded there are some block grants that are gonna help pay for that and it just depends on how that comes out. As far as damage assessment overall – it would appear somewhere around 10 million dollars’ worth of loss – fence line, pipeline, housing – all of that – coming through I think it’s estimated as somewhere around 70 or 80 miles worth of pipeline of all different sizes, fence line – I 8 think it’s over a hundred miles of damaged fence line and then another facet that, again, we’re working on this because – seeking help to get this taken care of – the cost to the overall industry – what I mean by that is most of that is grazing land – and we have to look at the graze land from a couple of perspectives – first of all we have just the industry itself – the cattle industry and I – the numbers I’ve been putting together we’ll probably have a couple million dollars lost in grazing capability over the next couple, three, four, five years. It kind of depends how quickly we can recover the range but our range production is not going to be there. A second facet of that – just as the overall economy itself – when you impact that much grazing you impact that many ranchers – the economy of the whole overall agriculture economy in the region gets severely impacted. So that’s a concern and I don’t know how to quite evaluate that one yet. And then thirdly we have an environmental cost and what I mean by that is the damage to the range – we have 47,000 acres estimated that we have lost – the recovery of that range from a fire standpoint – well, excuse me, from a grass standpoint – that doesn’t come back right away and that’s pretty much a seasonal growth area and so we have this open, bare soil – we have lots of dust concerns and the concern was air quality in Waikoloa Village – as it worked out it was more of a problem for Puuanahulu region cause the winds were carrying the dust that way. But that’s one concern. We also have all these denuded plains that if we have huge flooding it could take a lot of that top soil and take it down to the coastline –that’s another concern. We have aquifer recharge that without the grazing or the grasslands to hold some of that moisture our aquifer recharge is going to be impacted. How do we measure that? We really don’t know so these are other areas that have a value – I know I’m trying to recede all of this – we were talking within the millions of dollars to try and get a different - or some sort of coverage on this land going forward. Overall, the question was – how much is it gonna cost the county to fight the fire – several million dollars at least and it’s still being tallied. Impact overall losses probably over 10 million dollars and probably I’m gonna guess at least another 5 million and those are pretty educated guess as far as the loss of productivity in those range lands going forward. So, you know, if you add all that together it’s somewhere probably between 15 and 20 million dollars total economic loss to the region. BL: Thank you very much. TR: Any other questions? WC: Yeah, Tim this is Willie-Joe. TR: Hey, Willie-Joe. WC: I have not a really a question – I have a suggestion that may be – we can work on in the future – we can sit down and talk about it a little more, but, this is kind of regards to the dozer operators and by no means am I trying to say that they’re not capable operators but I think it would probably be a good idea and maybe we can work with the Fire 9 Department or somebody to have maybe some educational classes for some of these operators, I mean, a lot of these guys are younger – they may have been first time on a fire and, the only reason I know is my dad, as you know, fought a lot of fires in his days as an operator and there’s fire, I guess, knowing about fires, right, and how fires work, how fires move and all that stuff might be helpful for some of these younger guys ‘cause it can be a dangerous deal for some of these guys and I’ve heard the stories of people getting caught up and getting, you know, caught in fires moving very quickly getting around and, I just feel like maybe it would be beneficial for these operators just to have a quick course on fire and fire management and, you know what I mean… TR: Yeah… WC: …. just to know how to fight these fires and how fires work because, you know, the average Joe doesn’t know that. TR: And, you know, to that point Willie-Joe I think you bring up a real valid suggestion is - and maybe this would come under, you know, this commission could help host it or whatever, but invite everybody who was there and have an open invitation to guys with bulldozers that if you want to fight fires – and this would be kind of a civic volunteer deal – come and have a presentation about the safety of fighting fires cause it’s dangerous – we completely agree – but then also from the county’s standpoint we have some sort of set-up, sign-up that if you want to be part of a designated bulldozer operator for fighting fire going forward – if we do all that paperwork ahead of schedule and the county has the who to call or w hatever or if they show up this is such and such, OK, yeah, jump in I’m gonna send you here. So, again, doing that paperwork ahead of schedule so we have the people all signed up, ready to go and they have a level of education as they go forward. This is something that Chief Todd was talking about and he said there’s technology out there now that what happens is and I don’t know if it’s using – everybody has these cell phones but there’s an app that a bulldozer driver can activate and put it in his pocket and he’s just driving and there’s a GPS that’s tracking where he is so you have a command post that’s telling everybody at the command post where all these different people are and, but we need to have an education thing beforehand so we know how to do that – so that’s a good idea Willie-Joe and I’ll take that back to the Chief and talk story cause we’re not done talking about this, you know, the question, Brian, you asked about all the cost – the reason I know these is cause I’m trying to write something for our federal delegation but gathering all these costs is difficult because there a lot of estimations right now and we’re still probably couple weeks away from sitting down and looking back and say how can we do things better – communication number one – but I like the idea of training the dozer drivers. Any other questions? ?: I chime in on that dozer… 10 AA: Abraham – District 5, Mr. Richards… The main reason why you got invited was at one of your town hall meetings, I guess, or, one of your talk story sessions – it was brought to our attention that you wanted to introduce grazing into the state lands and introduce the cattle into the state lands and that’s not really a good idea we feel cause the cattle would do more damage than what the sheep has already done in our state lands and in actuality if – what we’re trying to do is really try to get our sheep back into our state lands instead of bringing the cattle in cause the cattle would do a lot more damage. So we just wanted your point on that. TR: OK. I’m very happy to touch on that, I think what we’re talking about – I think we’re actually talking about the same thing and it’s grazing the fire load and fire load management… AA: Yes… TR: ….and I am all for that and when I referred to about getting cattle in there, it may have been a little bit misconstrued or maybe I didn’t say it quite right – what I’m talking about is getting grazing animals in there and it doesn’t have to be cattle – it needs to be something that is gonna graze down the fire load and when I was referencing cattle – what I was doing was saying pulse grazing – what I mean by that – in your area you put in a bunch of cattle for a short period of time – take down the fire load and then get them out of there. They don’t stay there – this is not set stock this is in and out, again, just to knock down the fire load. Now as far as what you’re talking about – game management – cause that’s what this commission is – getting the sheep back in there to help control – I’m all for that – I’m not saying it needs to be cattle and not sheep – we need to have grazing animals in the area to help mitigate and manage that fire load cause without that we were very, very lucky that the fire didn’t take off up into the mamane forest – we’re very fortunate that they were able to stop it and mother nature worked with us – so whatever it takes – I’m not a proponent of cattle necessarily – I’m a proponent of grazing – whatever that happens to be. Does that clarify it for you? AA: Yup. That sounds like it’s clarified enough for us. I see a bunch of people shaking their heads yes… TR: Yeah, that was my point. My concern is grazing it – cattle you pulse in and out, you want to get the mouflon up there – whatever it is – the point is doing nothing is the wrong answer. We have to do something… AA: That’s pretty much what – it feels like that’s pretty much what the state does is nothing besides take our grazing animals out from our areas, our public hunting areas or just gathering areas. TR: Yeah, and like I said – I’m very supportive of putting grazing animals in that area to help mitigate that. If they’re hunting animals – I’m good with that one too. 11 AA: We just don’t support the part that you said – the cattle because… TR: OK. AA: …. are much more damage than what any other smaller grazing animals will do. TR: I hear what you’re saying – the point is we need to get it grazed. If the cattle are managed in and out I think we would definitely mitigate that but that’s not the point – the point is reduce the fire load – it’s not about the cattle. AA: Right, exactly, yeah… TR: It’s about the fire load… AA: Right. Kanalu would you like to touch up on any of this? NP: Did you say my name? AA: I said Kanalu… NP: Oh, Kanalu… KS: Sure, sorry I came on late I thought the start time was 6:30pm. AA: No worries… KS: Yeah, I know now, yeah, I mean, it’s real easy to say we gotta get cattle or whatever up in there to graze but we just have a lot of regulations and restrictions that don’t allow for that to happen so trying to work around – I’m open to trying – for now, as you guys know, I said it,\] many, many times there is federal mandate that really ties our hands on what we can and cannot do. But I’m open to trying to find ways around something – because I agree that the field loads up there are dangerous and we did get very lucky that the fire didn’t get up there this time. AA: All the fire departments was very quick on their response to protect the palila habitat and the mamane forest but it’s a good thing tonight we get Jason Sanborn – he’s our state GMAC representative and we go work very close with him to try to figure something else on the state GMAC side. Any other questions or comments for Mr. Richards? BL: Brian – District 4, again. At one point I know that PTA and Parker Ranch were trying to get into a thing to run cattle on PTA – is there any talk about opening that up since they’ve already, basically, wouldn’t take much to set it up, I know Parker Ranch is not, 12 or, PTA is not considered critical habitat – is there any chance we could get cattle back in there to help keep the load down? TR: The short answer to that one is yes and that’s what we’re working on. Again, you know, to the point – we were able to focus fighting mauka and take care of the mamane forest because people didn’t have to focus makai and protect Waikoloa Village and in part it’s because we had cattle grazing down there and so we mitigated the fire load – the problem for Waikii Ranch and then also Waikoloa is that there’s a huge fire load in what they call the Keamuku Section of PTA. And there’s ongoing conversations even prior to the fire to get cattle back in there – it’s at, actually, a very high level of conversation right now to try and nudge this forward to get that grazing agreement \[technical difficulty\] … AA: Hang on Mr. Richards – we’re getting technical difficulties… Hand on, try again… TR: Do I need to go back and say that again? AA: Yeah, please… TR: OK, so, what I said was, yes there’s high level conversation right now working on getting lands of Keamuku grazed by Parker Ranch. Right now as an emergency because it’s – we don’t have feed right now. We lost 47,000 acres but also long term for fire mitigation going forward. So, yes, working very diligently on that one. Any other questions? SM: Stanley from District 1. This is for Kanalu. Kanalu, every time the subject be brought about putting back the animals there we come down to the point where oh, we cannot do anything because the federal government, the federal mandate. What can the state do to go back to release this mandate – to get it so that we can put animals back there, I mean, you guys get from all these years the amount of – the data that shows that the palila never come back and the mamane is there and so you guys have now arrows in your quiver now to go back to this federal government and try convincing them to put back the animals on Mauna Kea. KS: Any reversal of the federal mandates or any attempt to do so – would have to come from our Attorney General. That’s not a conversation I’ve had with them. I do remember Hans saying that he brought it up one time with one of the assistant AGs and they kind of laughed at him. I’m willing to go and try and ask if that’s possible – probably the best I can do for now. So I can go walk story with our admin and our assistant AG and just find out if that’s even something that they would consider and what information they would need to try, but it would have to come from our attorney general. One thing I didn’t mention that I forgot about – so we actually do – we did work out a – what is that – a temporary permit that allows Parker to graze – there’s about 300 acres at the bottom of the \[unclear\] mitigation area between that cross fence that goes down to the Old Saddle Road – so Parker Ranch did get some cattle in there and so 13 – because that area is not critical habitat – so they had some cattle in there – they just put ‘em out this week – I just talked to one of the cowboys and then they’ll put ‘em again at the end of the bird season. So it’s a small area – it’s not part of critical habitat and it would provide a buffer, a lower fuel load between \[unclear\]lower Saddle Road and \[unclear\]. We’ve been trying to see if there’s other areas that might be appropriate for that same type of thing but we’re not there yet. SM: So the thing is you gotta try – the state has to go back in and try to get the federal government to back off on this cause, like I say, you guys can prove to them that what they did never create anything great for our palila, I mean, actually the palila had declined instead of – back fire what they did and all going take now is one spark and that whole thing going so… KS: So, I will have a conversation with our assistant AG just to get information from them on what – cause that’s gonna come – anything to reverse that federal mandate is going to come from our attorney general \[unclear\] and we would give them information – they would be the ones that have to want to or whatever \[unclear\] I don’t know but it’s a conversation I’m willing to have so I can report back to you guys in a couple of months on what they tell me… \[Unclear, too many talking at the same time\]. AA: OK, Kanalu, yeah we going put you off till November’s meeting and I’ll bring you back in November and then you can give us a report on that… KS: OK. AA: OK. Any other questions or comments for Mr. Richards? TR: Just let me finish up… from a political standpoint – I would certainly help you guys advocate for a change to the policy because I agree with you. I don’t think it’s a good policy. AA: OK. Can you stay on… TR: So I can stay on for a little bit… AA: Yeah, till we go to the discussion of the letter. That’d be fine. TR: Sure… c. Dr. J.B. Friday of the University of Hawai’i Forestry Cooperative Extension Service will speak on the relationship between wild ungulates and the spread of the Rapid Ohia Death. 14 AA: OK. Thank you. OK. Moving on to Dr. J. B. Friday from the University of Hawai’i. He going be discussing the Rapid Ohia Death and the widespread with ungulates. Go ahead Mr. Friday… JBF: OK. Thanks for having me and thanks to Councilman Richards – I was up Monday with Parker Ranch to have looking around some of that fire it’s really devastating and it’s really great to see how well the county responded to that, um, yeah – Rapid Ohia Death – what I want to do today is present some fairly recent results – we’ve been seeing it for a couple of years but we’ve wrapped it up and we’ve got some good results and throw it out to you as to what we’re observing happening in the ohia forest – so if I can share my screen and start the presentation – let’s see – are you saying one slide with my name on and some ohia forest on it? AA: Yes… JBF: Thank you. So I’m the Extension Forester – I’m with UH Cooperative Extension Service – I’m based here in Hilo – I work statewide but about half my work for the past 5 or 6 years now has been on Rapid Ohia Death because it is a huge threat to the ohia forest. This is a – and I know I’ve addressed the GMAC before – we’ve had a lot of turnover in those times. This is a picture of an ohia forest down in – below Pahoa that I visited in 2005. Nice canopy ohias, some deep soil – all kinds of interesting native plants underneath it – this is what it looked like 10 years later. So this is the worst case scenario. The Rapid Ohia Death is worse in some places than others but you know when we saw this happening in 2015, I mean, I was afraid that this was going to be like a fire and just keep moving up the mountain and take everything out so – but this is what the disease can do. What is Rapid Ohia Death? You all probably know but I thought I’d review it quickly – it’s a fungal disease – it’s a new fungus – new here to Hawai’i – comes in – so the fungus itself is an invasive species, um, genus of the fungus is Ceratocystis and that genus is a genus of pathogens all around the world – so there’s a Ceratocystis that’s a pathogen of oak in US mainland that causes a lot of damage – there’s one that causes damage on plain trees in Europe, there’s one that kills mangos in India and Pakistan, there’s one that kills acacia trees – so related to our koa in South East Asia – so another potential disease on the horizon. So we know a fair amount about how this fungus works – one of the things is the fungus grows in the sapwood – it is not – it doesn’t attack the leaves – it can’t get through bark – but it grows up in the sapwood and in this photo these black streaks that you’re seeing here and here – that’s the fungus killing the tree – killing the sapwood and then what happens is when it kills the sapwood there’s no sap going up to the leaves and the leaves turn brown and that’s the thing that you see – the external symptom of it is the leaves all turn brown. We gave it the nickname Rapid Ohia Death because to the outside observer the tree goes down really fast. Subsequently, we’ve learned that the fungus will grow in the tree for months or even years and then suddenly it collapses – it’s like a guy getting a heart attack. You may not know it – and then boom, it hits. So externally what you see is the whole crown of the tree will turn brown and then when you cut into the tree you see this staining 15 forward. One of the things that really struck us with this is often the largest and healthiest trees in the whole stand were getting killed and other diseases, you know, they tend to take out the weaker trees – the ones that area shaded out and the disease will take ‘em out. This is a really virulent disease and it will take out the biggest and healthiest trees in the stand. So it’s a really virulent pathogen. So over the – we – I’m not the one who figured out what the disease was – it’s pathologists and both by the morphology and DNA analysis of it – so it was just named and discovered in 2014. By 2020 we had detections across the Island – so pretty much every district of the Island has at least some detections – so this is a map of the laboratory detections of the disease across the Island so it is worse in some areas than others. You’ll notice in some places it follows the road – like up Saddle Road. We’re not taking samples from the middle of the forest in Hakalau, no – or places like that or really deep in the Kau forest but there are some detections all around the Island. Now one of the things that we know about this pathogen is it’s known as a wound pathogen. The fungus can’t go through bark – bark is a really good protection against disease – it’s just like you’ll get an infection if you get a cut and go in the water but not if you don’t have a cut. The pathogen in the oak wilt pathogen – they found it’s a disease of urban trees – so when they prune the trees the trees get the disease. One of the things that we’ve seen here is that when trees get injured they tend to get the disease. So this is a tree down in Kau, it’s growing on the lava and people passing by notice why are those trees there turning brown – they went out and looked at it – animals had been killing the bark – I’m not sure if they were goats or sheep but there were both goats and sheep in the area and so when you look at this – this is the fungus growing on the peeled bark – so the trees probably wouldn’t have gotten the disease but the animals are peeling the bark and injuring them so, um, now there are a lot of ways that trees can get an injury – this disease took off in Puna that’s a little different question – probably the fungus was brought in with plants with the nursery trade – just like a lot things started in Puna in the trade it was brought in and it jumped to ohia – we’re not really sure – we may never really know. But what happened in Puna in 2014 – we had a hurricane hit the Island so, you know, trees were damaged by the hurricane across – especially in that area and in the following years we had a huge outbreak of disease – so wind is nothing we can do anything about but what we are finding is that in a number of sites – the same forest but it’s a property boundary and the two sides are managed differently – we see a lot more disease on one side than the other. So there’s a little complicated maps – this is kind of the heart of my presentation so I’m gonna spend a few minutes on this – this is Kahuku – so this is the Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, Kahuku section – so it was the old Kahuku Ranch – you see the paddocks there – the pink line shows the outline of the helicopter flight – so this was a map and a survey done by my colleague Ryan Perroy in Hilo and what he’s done is mounted cameras on a helicopter to map trees that show symptoms from the air. And as I mentioned, the symptoms of the Rapid Ohia Death are the whole crown of the tree turns brown. In this site – the sort of red dots are trees that have very sure – high confidence is Rapid Ohia Death – the yellow ones are medium confidence – when we do on the ground sampling those numbers and I forget off the top of my head but high confidence there was 98% or something, medium confidence 16 80 something percent for sure that those died a Rapid Ohia Death. Now what you’re seeing on this map, though, is this vertical green line up and down is the border of the park. To the right – the east side of the park – it’s a State Forest Reserve. The west it’s the park. Now by 2020 they had pretty much removed the sheep and feral pigs from the park there and you see an enormous amount of disease on the state side of the forest and not on the park side. Same forest, same environment – the one’s got animals one doesn’t have animals. So this is something that we’re really looking at – what can we do to protect our forests from Rapid Ohia Death? We can’t control hurricanes but we can control where the animals are. So here’s another example of a similar situation – this is up in the Olaa – so above Volcano – so up at the end of Wright Road there – the green lines are the fences and are the national park. This blue line is a helicopter flight path, again, the dots are the same thing. Trees that show symptoms from the air showing Rapid Ohia Death and you see a lot more outside the fence in state forest reserve than inside in 2020 – oh, sorry 2019 – this was a photo from 2019. This area here the koa unit was pretty much big free – this area outside in the state forest reserve – it is a hunting area – has a lot of pigs in it – so this, again, is showing that to protect the native forest from Rapid Ohia Death one tool that we have is keeping the animals out of it. One other study that I want to mention and, you know, I want to brief and have some time for discussion on this – this was a pod study – just looking at the effect of woundings – so this was a study – it was done in the greenhouse with seedlings – they - and partly to see do the trees take up the pathogen through their roots – we wanted to know that so seedlings in the nursery mulched with saw dust taken from infected trees – so cut down a couple infected tree – chain sawed them till you got a bunch of chain saw dust for mulch – mulched the seedlings. So what they saw is that if they put down seedlings with the mulch – the sawdust on top of it and nothing else – none of the seedlings got the disease. If they dinged the seedlings – they put a little slice right down at the root collar – the woody roots right at the base and put the mulch on it – those all got the disease. So that combination of the pathogen and the injury to the trees led the disease. Then after 3 months when they took trees that had been healthy for 3 months – those trees – went back – nicked the roots on ‘em again – right at the base of the seedling then they got the disease. So it just showing that the disease – the injury – allows the plant to get the disease in that – so evidence to that’s possibly the mechanism. Pigs don’t tear the bark off the way, I mean, goats with nothing to browse they’ll start browsing bark. Cattle will browse bark. Pigs don’t browse bark they do rub trees but they also dig around and tear roots up – that may be the mechanism – we’re still working on looking at what the mechanism is on that but, um, we’re really coming down on if we want to protect some of our native forests fencing ‘em and keeping the animals out is the way to protect them and really looking at, you know, most of our forests – people on the other islands are writing off the Big Island but most Big Island forest is still pretty healthy – but we want to keep it that way. So I wanted to give you my contact information and then we can stop sharing have some more discussion on that. I wanted to keep this short and have an opportunity for discussion. That’s my contact information up here in Hilo: 969- 8254. Probably better to email me jbfriday@hawaii.edu and I will shut this down and then I’m happy to take whatever questions you folks have. 17 SM: Stanley – District 1. So why is it that the sheep and the goat goes after the bark from the trees? JBF: In Kau that was in an area with no grass – it was on lava so it’s trees growing out of lava. SM: So Mauna Kea, for example, that – you have the mamane and the goats and the sheep eat the bark – why is that happening? JBF: So I’m not – well, first of all, I’m talking about Rapid Ohia Death. As far as the mamane goes they eat the seedlings. I mean I see mamane trees \[unclear\] leaves above that. SM: The question is why does these animals go for the bark on the trees? Are they lacking water or, you know, why are they going for these trees? So if it comes down to the animals are lacking water –maybe if you put water in these areas you won’t have the animals eating the bark, right? JBF: If you put out water – well, I think they’re browsing it. I mean goats eat bark. I think they’re browsing it. Now the cattle and, again, cattle are not game animals – they’re a different issue – we do see a lot of cattle damage on trees but I had a really good day driving on Kapapala Ranch – they are grazing under the ohia forest and I didn’t see that damage in the grazed area. If you go above Kapapala Ranch where there’ll feral cattle you see a lot of damage. And now Mr. Richards could explain this a lot better than I do but it doesn’t seem that the domestic cattle that are given – cause the ranch gives them salt and water – and it doesn’t seem that the domestic cattle do the damage that the feral cattle do. SM: So that’s what I’m trying to get to is – maybe if you provide these animals something they won’t go for the bark. I mean, I don’t know. You guys are the scientists so but maybe if that’s the case then, you know, we can try and everybody live together. JBF: So providing feed and water for the feral goat and sheep populations on the mountain? SM: Not so much feed – providing supplements like maybe, you know, so they can go and lick salt blocks or something and maybe then we going get them away from those trees. JBF: Well, for goats, I really don’t know much about goat raising or goat management, um, for the cattle, I would be interested to hear what, you know, some of the people have more cattle management because we do see that difference between feral cattle and the domestic cattle that are in the forests. I don’t know anybody that is seriously proposing maintaining populations of feral cattle in the forest, though. They’re not a game animal. SM: Well… 18 JBF: …. the ranchers… SM: …. State of Hawai’i … JBF: …. don’t like having feral cattle there either…. SM: In the State of Hawai’i there’s no such thing as game animals… ?: Say that again… SM: In the State of Hawai’i there’s no such thing as – according to the state – that is game animals. Everything is invasive species… ?: Everything is invasive species… JBF: Well, you can be both… ?: In the common sense world you can be both… But in the eyes of State of Hawai’i it’s… SM: My point is maybe we can – instead of fence, eradicate – maybe we can find areas where we can support the animals too – not just kill ‘em all. JBF: And I think there are a lot of areas – and you all know this – there’s a lot of areas of ohia forest that have got so many weeds in them now – the lower elevation forests – those forests have very little biological conservation value and, you know, some forests can be managed for hunting some can be managed for preservation at least, and, again, I’m just reporting from university, our colleagues here that are on this meeting are from Forestry & Wildlife – they’re the ones making the land management decisions. But I think some areas can be managed for conservation, some areas can be managed for hunting. I don’t think you can do everything one every acre. I think you have to make some decisions. ?: Yeah, I agree… SM: Yeah, I agree too. You know, it’s like I mention Puuwaawaa – they’re fencing areas – I mentioned about instead of – after you fence those areas to keep the animals from them – places to have food for these animals to go to. Oh, we cannot because the federal government not going give us money. Well, no use the federal government’s money – use the state’s money. ?: Or use volunteers… SM: You know? 19 JBF: And again, I would pass on the actual management of Puuwaawaa but I will point out that we’ve seen no Rapid Ohia Death at Puuwaawaa. And I want to point out that the issue is more – the issue is complicated like any disease – what I think happens at Puuwaawaa is that any injuries in the trees dry out before they get infected. So it’s encouraging to me that at Puuwaawaa we know the pathogen is there, we’ve detected it all the way down to Waikoloa beach but we haven’t covered any disease in Puuwaawaa even though most of Puuwaawaa is open for grazing and hunting. ?: And most of Puuwaawaa has every single animal you can think of… JBF: Yeah, yeah… But it’s in a dry environment and I think that is what is saving that forest. Ocean View – we see some disease – there’s a saw mill in Ocean View that cuts up ohia and blows sawdust all over the place and, you don’t see that much disease in Ocean View. Whereas, like that first picture I showed you – they just wiped out the forest in, you know, thousands of acres in Puna. So I’m just saying it’s complicated. We only discovered this disease 6 years ago – really learning a lot – but this is something that is a pattern that we’ve seen repeatedly across the Island. AA: Abraham – District 5. I’m a lifelong Puna resident and I seen when the pictures that you showed is right next to Leilani Estates and Brian Ley lives and when this virus first came along – the first question is – why did the state take so long to get involved with it because I heard, you know, there was some of the community was actually taking samples themselves and taking them to the university and they was actually getting turned away in the beginning until things really got out of hand and then now the state want to come in which is good but kind of late – it’s similar to the coqui frogs. What takes the state so long to act on these real invasive species? JBF: The big difference between this and the coqui frogs is we knew what coqui frogs were. We knew what little fire ants were. Now we could have stopped on that. We could have stopped on coqui frogs. I want to point out – this is a new disease – these fungi – this species that are hitting ohia – were not known to science before we figured out what they were – so this was a disease that nobody knew what it was and it was very much an unknown. Yeah, we could have jumped on it earlier, I mean, we could have made better decisions sooner. Nobody turned people away – but you’re absolutely right – it was the community members who lived in the forest who brought it to people’s attention. It wasn’t general survey of forest, you know, I mean, the first time I had a community member talk to me about it I saw a couple trees dying and there’s always a couple of trees dying, you know, the background level of mortality – there is a background level – but he was right and I was wrong. He said, no, this looks like a new thing. I didn’t believe him at first and so I could’ve been faster on the pick-up – my colleagues could have been faster on the pick-up – but especially because that area and I don’t want to imply that it started in Leilani but I will say people in that in lower Puna were the first people to bring it up to our attention and that’s absolutely true. 20 AA: Right. And like you said now that the forest is pretty much dead in those areas – like you said – the weeds are just taking over in private land, state land – the weeds are just out of control. JBF: The weeds are absolutely out of control – now I will say that, again, it’s complicated a lot of areas – so if you go down Kamaili Road at the very top of the road in that exposed ridge – those trees died more than 10 years ago, eleven, twelve years ago. If you go down to the bottom where it’s that sheltered forest, there’s still a lot of healthy ohia down there… AA: Yeah… JBF: …. the pali there… So it – I’m not saying Puna is hopeless but I’m saying we’ve lost thousands of acres of ohia forest in Puna. AA: Yeah, we still got the Nanawale Forest Reserve – that’s still pretty, fairly healthy and some of the other forests around that area… JBF: Yeah… AA: …. not like 100% healthy but, you know, they’re still pretty healthy but there’s a lot of forest that’s actually been taken out and a lot of them is in private land. JBF: Right… Most of Puna is private land and… AA: Right… JBF: …. most of the ohia forest is private land… AA: Right, right… So why does the blame – seems like you guys picked blame to go to the easiest and it’s not really just you guys it goes too for everyone – it’s kinda like corona virus – I don’t want to say it but, you know, you just pick the simplest and easiest thing to blame so let’s just blame the ungulates for spreading the Rapid Ohia Death and then last – not last year we didn’t have weaners lasts year – 2019 I think or maybe 2018, um, what was that guy’s name – some state guy came in – can’t think of his name right now – he came in and he was kinda blaming the hunters for scarring up the trees and marking up the trees and damaging the trees – you know, it’s like you guys or everyone kind of goes for the simplest things, well, like you said earlier in your presentation – you cannot pick when the hurricanes are gonna come – that’s a difficult thing – what about the birds? Have you guys been up in the trees and documenting how much damage the birds do or the rats? 21 JBF: We don’t think it’s birds at all, um, again it’s in the sap way – if we had woodpeckers, maybe, yeah, but we don’t. And they’re not gonna interact with it. But, you’re right, and like I say it’s a complicated – there are many ways the trees get injured, I mean, another way we that we often see it – someone puts in a fence line, right, and they cut down a row of trees, cut branches or someone puts in a driveway… AA: \[Unclear\] their property then it damages the neighbor’s property. We see that all over. JBF: All of those things happen. I saw someone go in – an old ranch that had grown up waiwi under big, old ohia and they went in with a mechanical clearing but he scalped all the roots of the big old trees and then they died. AA: Yeah. JBF: There’s a lot of reasons and I’m just trying to think of what can we manage. We can’t manage the hurricanes, ah, yeah, so you know that part of the equation we can’t manage… AA: Oh, Mr. Friday, our job is to help protect our game and our forests and we as – us as being commissioners we also gotta find that happy medium but we protect our resources at the same time too – as our forests. So it’s like you can’t just pick on a simple thing, which is the ungulates, when you can’t say, ah, let’s say the Hawaiian crow or the Hawaiian hawk went and landed on a tree and broke a branch – now the branch is broken now they just infected the tree or a rat went inside and started digging in the tree – you can’t just blame the simple things is what I’m trying to get at. JBF: Yeah, no, absolutely, there are a lot of different causes but we really believe and based on the side by side – they’re not experiments like we put in a fence to see what happen but we go out in the forest and we see these areas. AA: Well, Mr. Friday, the fence is already there so it’s, you guys didn’t put it in but the feds did and the state did. Kinda like yes you did it even though it wasn’t the university, you know what I’m saying. JBF: Well, just what I’m saying is it’s not a real pure experiment – we’re observing what we’re seeing on the land but these… AA: That’s what’s existing, you’re right, I agree with you on that… JBF: It’s pre-existing things… AA: Yeah. But let’s say if all that fence wasn’t there and the hunters and the community that was fighting against the fence actually didn’t put, you know, the state didn’t win – it didn’t get all the fence in those areas then what would you guys research on. 22 JBF: Then we wouldn’t have that particular contrast. AA: Thank you. JBF: You know, so one thing that I’m – and I didn’t bring it out for this – I’ve got a couple maps on Oahu that show pig density and watershed recharge in the Koolaus. And what was really interesting to those maps is that most of the pig density on Oahu is in the foothills – the Koolaus – not way back up in the valleys. But most of the watershed recharge is way back up in the back of the valleys and what that indicated to me is it indicates there are some areas that are going to be better managed for hunting, some areas should be managed for watershed recharge. I don’t know how that shakes out on Hawai’i Island and I think people are still trying to do those kind of maps for Hawai’i Island but that’s how I see a way forward could be. KU: This is Kean – District 2. This question is for you Mr. Friday. You know you just said management – here’s the biggest problem – we don’t have any game management program here in our state – so from what you’re saying – maybe you can bring that up and maybe we can start a game management program. And that would be big for Rapid Ohia Death and the palila bird, I mean… AA: And everything else… KU: That’s what we’ve preached all these years, you know, get a game management system so, you know, we can maybe stop Rapid Ohia Death or, have the palila bird get back into population – but I think that’s something that maybe you just said, a management… AA: Is there some way that – Abraham – District 5 – is there some way that the university would actually come in and support to make a game management? JBF: What I could see – what we are doing and so we have exactly one professor of wildlife at the whole University of Hawai’i system. For every game and native beast, creature, whatever – so there’s one professor of wildlife – she is working on doing maps of game density to help inform some of these decisions of where you’re going prioritize game density of that. I would be happy to share with you some other work or she might be able to address this commission too. AA: Yeah, maybe you can contact Barbara later on and share her information with Barbara and then we can contact her and to bring her to one of our meetings. JBF: Yeah, that would be great. I will do that… I’ll copy you and Barbara on it with her information if she wanted to talk about that… AA: Yeah, OK… 23 JBF: I’m sure she’d be happy to talk to the commission. AA: Thanks, J.B. BL: Brian Ley – District 4. If I can get in? AA: Yeah, go ahead Brian. BL: Hey, thanks for your presentation. Hey, what about the borer beetles? I know we have problems with borer beetles they puncture the bark and put holes in the trees. I mean, has anybody looked into the borer beetles? JBF: Yeah, yeah. I will say that – I showed you guys 10 slides – I have 125 slides for presentation so… The beetles are we believe a key part of this whole thing because what happens – what we believe is happening is the trees get the disease – they get attacked by the beetles that drill into it and I’ve seen a lot of places with trees you can just see the sawdust from all the boring beetles on the trunks of the trees. That sawdust is hot – that’s a pool fungal spores because, again, these beetles they’re not landing on the bark they’re drilling right into the sapwood. That sawdust blows around and that and that’s the inoculum blowing around so if you put that sawdust created by the beetles on an injury it will infect the tree. Now, we don’t think that beetles are directly carrying the disease to healthy trees. One of the things for me is just anecdotes from loggers – millers that cut down healthy trees they don’t see holes. They cut down a diseased tree then there’s a million holes in it. So, but the beetles creating a lot of sawdust blowing around is – that’s the inoculum that blows around – the fungus does not have windblown spores. What can you do about it – the beetles are everywhere, in fact, one of them that you find at higher elevations like the Volcano is natives, you’re not supposed to kill it – the other ones are not but anybody who has cut wood knows that, you know, you cut mango or even like fresh koa it’s gonna get hit by the ambrosia beetles. On Kauai where there’s just a few incidents – we’re starting some experiments with beetle repellants which is something used for bark beetles on the mainland so if you just had one tree in a healthy forest maybe if you notice it goes down put these beetle repellants on it and keep the beetles off it – other than that, you know, we’ve been doing – in the beginning when there’s just a tree or two felling it and getting it on the ground so it doesn’t form a beetle hotel in that but absolutely the bark beetles are a big part of this and it’s small ones like the black twig borer that attacks coffee, not the big long horned beetles don’t really seem to be involved with it. BL: Like I said, I lived in Leilani and I brought it to the, well, actually, my girlfriend and her friend brought it to the attention of the university in the department of forestry, because I was taking walks – I’ve lived in a lot of places – I’ve seen the pine blight and sudden oak death in California and realized something was wrong – they took samples in and they got boo-ha-haed and 3 years later after it blew out of the area it was, it was too late. We could have contained it but, you know, past is past… 24 JBF: Yeah… BL: ….and I see the wind thing and cattle are a game animal – I’ve hunted up in the water thing with the state and I was seeing more ohia damage in the preserve area than I was in Hawai’i an Homelands with all the cattle and like was brought up – Puuwaawaa – we’ve got every game animal there living and co-exist and I have pictures of the cows and everything and very little rapid ohia death and like I said the fire that we had a couple years ago decimated the forest on the makai side – there used to be a healthy population of goats there – no RODs – the fire came through and what the bulldozers didn’t kill or the fire burned down, you know, got… AA: Sorry, Brian… BL: Sorry… Sure… AA: Ah, JB you want to touch up on that real quick we gotta move forward… Yeah, as far as the – I just wanted say – the first samples that I took, too, I saw these trees dying – I was convinced 2012 there’s something wrong – but I didn’t get any new pathogens. We were finding the same old pathogens – it wasn’t it – so when a tree dies there’s a lot of different fungus – you know the first guys to die of COVID or AIDs they didn’t know what was going on and you know we weren’t that many people working on it until I hired someone we had exactly zero forest pathologists in there, but, yeah, we could have picked up the disease a year or two earlier. I don’t know if it would have been in time – looking back at aerial images it was pretty widespread before anybody really started noticing it was out of the ordinary. But definitely the local people picked up on something before I did – I’ll give you that one. Oh, if game animals, oh, I just – do people hunt hem, I mean, is it on the list of game when you get your hunting license – the rules and regulations – it doesn’t include cattle. I just mean legally; I don’t mean whether you eat ‘em or not. So thank you for the opportunity to talk – let me say that, you know, we’re in COVID lockdown still, blah, blah, blah. I can meet with small groups – if any one of the groups around the islands wants to have a meeting – I’ve met with different groups around the picnic table in the park – whatever, if you want a follow-up discussion – I’m happy to come around and talk with anybody. I’ve had discussion with different hunt groups in different places around the Island about what we’re seeing and Rapid Ohia Death in general so let me know, um, JBFriday@Hawaii.edu – I’d be happy to come around and talk. AA: OK. Thanks, J.B. KS: Hey, this is Kanalu. Can I ask just one quick question? AA: Ah, got to be real quick Kanalu… 25 KS: OK. So what you notice about fence – no fence – there’s ROD outside the fence, there’s not ROD inside the fence – is that – do you see that everywhere where there’s a fence and no animals within the fence or is that just in those 2 sites and then you have any idea how much more that does affect the ROD spreading because of the animals, you know what I mean, because you say there’s so many variables that plays into it and so that’s one of them – is there any idea to say OK, now that we have a fence and no ungulates it’s gonna be affected by ROD this much more. Does that make sense? JBF: Yeah, ah, so, and this is something I was going to mention so thanks for the question. So out of the 5 sites that we set-up and looked at this comparison – four of them really showed this – way more disease outside the fence than inside the fence where the animals are controlled. The other one around the summit of Kilauea you don’t see that difference and there’s something else that’s not ROD that’s killing the ohia trees around there, so, yeah, it’s complicated and so that pattern is repeated across the Island but it’s not true in all cases. I’m sorry and what was the other part of your question? KS: It’s probably harder to get to but if there’s a way for you to say OK, with the presence of ungulates the chance of ROD spreading is this much more than without or… You know what I mean… JBF: Well, the paper and again I’m happy to send Ryan’s paper around anybody that wants it the comparison we see that anywhere from twice to sixty times more disease in the area with ungulates than in the area without. KS: OK. ?: It’s common sense. AA: Yeah, moving on. Thanks. I’m gonna turn this one over to Brian – discussion to a letter being – going to the Mayor regarding the wild fires. Go ahead Brian… BL: Brian – District 4. Hey, a couple months ago we brought up a rough draft about a letter to the Mayor saying that the County of Hawai’i needs to file suit against the State for mismanagement of Mauna Kea creating a fire load that is endangering the palila bird and the State has no intention of doing anything so the County needs to step up and file suit and the lawyer jumped up and we had to sit down and we had a meeting and we had to go through the whole Sunshine Law so we’ve got it on the agenda and we need to bring it up to a vote that we go ahead and propose – send our letter that we wrote up several months ago to the Mayor Mitch Roth that the County seriously think about doing something legally because we heard the state talking about, you know, somebody’s gonna have to sue somebody to get them to do something and the state doesn’t really seem to want to jump in there and do the right thing because I’ve sent pictures to Barbara – I don’t know if we got ‘em – but I took some pictures of the fire 26 load on Mauna Kea cause most people don’t realize how bad the fire load is on Mauna Kea is nothing compared to what we just had on the fire so we need – we got the letter so we need to bring a motion to pass it forward to the Mayor if we can. 6. OLD BUSINESS: a. Discussion and action on a draft letter to the Mayor regarding wildfires and the State of Hawai’i AA: Did everybody have a chance to look at that letter first? Grayson, did you get a chance to take a look at that letter? George, um… GD: Yes… AA: You have any comments or anything about the letter? GD: None… AA: Grayson? GH: No. AA: Kean? KU: No. AA: Brian you got any comments or anything about the letter? BL: No, I think we ought to pass it and send it on… AA: OK. Would someone like to make a motion to move the letter forward to the Mayor? Action: B. Ley motioned to finalize the fire letter and forward to Mayor Roth for his consideration. Seconded by L. Turalde. Motion passed unanimously. BL: Brian – District 4. Make a motion that we send the letter that we drafted several months ago and send it to the Mayor’s office for his consideration. L: Leomana – District 3. I second that motion. AA: All in favor? \[The ayes have it\] Barbara, Brian made a motion to forward the letter, Leomana - second. All in favor – no nays. Seven ayes, no nays. Sound like Mr. Richards, I 27 know you didn’t have a chance and I can forward over the letter to you, just for you to take a look at it, but would you be in support of some of kind of letter in that regards? TR: OK. Yeah, I’m very interested in supporting something like that. AA: OK. Barbara can you send Mr. Richards the letter so he can take a look at it and maybe he can comment on it later on or at least he knows what we are doing. BK: OK. So are we talking about the letter that was presented at the last meeting? AA: Yes. BK: So you have to meet with Sinclair to go over it at all. AA: Yes… No, we didn’t… BK: You did? AA: Yeah. BK: Do you have a revised letter or? AA: No we didn’t revise it. BK: OK. AA: We just going go forward with the one that’s made. BK: OK. Thank you. TR: Yeah, thanks Barbara. I look forward to reading it. I think that’s maybe a way to – at the very least to start the conversation to try and move forward. It’s very intriguing and I look forward to the letter. AA: Thanks, Mr. Richards. BL: One thing, Abraham. Hey, Barbara is it possible to pull up those letters I emailed you a while ago showing the fire hazard on Mauna Kea? AA: The pictures? BL: Yeah, to show how bad the grass is on Mauna Kea because I don’t think a lot of people realize how bad it is up there. 28 BK: OK. The photos that you sent I did send it to Barret so I’m not sure if we put it in as a slide show for tonight. AA: Ah, maybe Pomai can put it up cause Barret’s not here. BK: OK. I’ll look for your email. BL: OK. Thank you. AA: I think she just stepped out of her office so we’ll get back to that Brian. BL: Alright. b. Update on the Makahanaloa legal public access by Nani Pogline, committee member from the public and Commissioner Leomana Turalde, District 3 AA: OK. Thanks. Right now we’re going to update on Makahanaloa – Nani Pogline talked to Steve Bergfeld about it and she’s gonna update us about it with the assistance of Leomana. Go ahead Nani… NP: OK. Can you hear me? AA: Yes, ma’am. NP: All right, OK, I would like to just give the information about it – this is Nani Pogline GMAC Government Affairs meeting member from the public – a quick update on the Makahanaloa access in North Hilo, this paper access goes to the Makahanaloa private property lots but it actually is a continuation of the Kaupakuea Homestead Road so it is actually called the Kaupakuea Access, actually, that’s actually the real name of the access. The county public access plan provides an easement for the public access through the Makahanaloa lots of a distance of a little more than an acre then it crosses over what was Finance Factor land for actually just a few yards before it enters into the Hilo Forest Reserve. The Finance Factor land was recently sold to a fast moving buyer that unfortunately beat the state to purchase the property which Steve Bergfeld was talking about so this access is designated to be 50 feet wide, pedestrian and vehicular public access with just a short distance to get into the Hilo Forest Reserve so altogether the access really is just a matter of about an acre so it shouldn’t be a big problem to finance. I visited the county planning department with a copy of the grant of easement public access plan and it was signed by Mayor Billy Kenoi in 2012 and I went there to enquire why this plan didn’t materialize and what steps to take to open this access to the public. The official I spoke to with – who went by the name of Kamuela – did some research while I was there. Apparently, an actual work order is missing and that’s why it never was developed. But he said he would have to do more in depth research to be sure if there was an actual work order to assign responsibility, cost and then if there 29 isn’t one than one would have to be made so, this would entail designating responsibility and action on the part of both the county and the private landowners and possibly the state. As the access enters with the state Hilo Forest Reserve it may be the responsibility of the state to clear a parking space and possibly put up signage. So Kamuela at the County Planning Department suggested the best way to go forward would be to compose a letter requesting the County do an extensive search into the case and if no work order can be found – to request the County pursue the development of a work order agreement. So I suggest that GMAC write such a letter if decided by the commissioners to do so – I would be glad to help with the contents needed in the letter – I have all the information, so thank you, so I’m gonna turn it over to Leomana. LT: Hey, aloha, Leomana – District 3. Just some updates on top of this project – I did speak with a couple of people that live in the area – one is Lewis ohana there – one of the main hunting families in the area and they just wanted to give their point of view on the topic and I talked to 2 hippie farmers that sell right at the waterfall down the road and all of them agree on three main ideas that if it brings a little more business to the community down the road they’re fine with it – but a lot of people think the money should be spent on the roads in town – they don’t really know about the project and where all the funding is coming from and one last thing was if you bring trails into the area it’s not good for the forest it’s more for the people and if they can get more people hiking the national parks they’d rather do that. But that was just my update from speaking to some of the residents in the area. NP: Nani here. GMAC represents hunters and this access is an important access for hunters in the Hilo Forest Reserve of which there are a few. So I would encourage GMAC to pursue this public, pedestrian vehicular access at the Hilo Forest Reserve. AA: Abraham – District 5. And it’s not just hunters, we also represent gatherers and other foragers. NP: Of course. AA: And fishermen. Anybody would like to make a motion to write a letter to move it forward to make better access to the area? Well actually, Ian Cole - do you have any comments to say on that to this topic since you’re the east side wildlife biologist? OK. So I guess he’s on but not on. So would anybody like to make a motion to forward this letter, ah, make a letter? Action: Motion was made by L. Turalde to write a letter regarding public, pedestrian and vehicular access into the Hilo Forest Reserve. Seconded by B. Ley. Motion carried unanimously. LT: Leomana, District 3 - I would just like to make a motion for this letter. 30 BL: Brian – District 4. I second the motion. AA: All in favor. OK. We got 7 ayes, no nays. Everybody’s in favor to draft the letter. BK: OK. So this is to draft the letter and Nani is gonna be the lead on that? AA: Yes, she’s working with Leomana so they can work together. Thank you. NP: Oh, excuse me. Right. If someone from GMAC could actually volunteer to compose the letter as I don’t know if I should be the one to compose the letter. BK: Well, you’re working together as a team. AA: Yeah. BK: And Leomana is a member as a commissioner. I don’t see a problem with that. NP: OK. 7. NEW BUSINESS: a. The State Game Management Advisory Commission, East Hawai’i Commissioner, Jason Sanborn will report on the recent State GMAC meeting. AA: Moving on. Welcome Jason Sanborn – he’s our State GMAC representative. I think he went to his first meeting last month, I think. Some of us missed it so that’s why we brought him in here today to give us an update on what the state doing? How zit going? Welcome Jason. JS: Thank you. Jason – State GMAC… Yeah, that was my first meeting, like he said and I’m really green and just trying to learn – I was doing a lot of listening – not so much talking, so, but… AA: Well, we all do that at the beginning… JS: Yes… so I just look forward to working with everybody and trying to do my part and do my own way to help all our situations and issues so, yeah, we were talking about shoots a whole slew of stuff. AA: OK. You know what, I’d like to pull people out of the audience so – eh Jason Omick could you give us an update on your last State GMAC meeting? 31 JO: How are you guys doing today? AA: Good, how you doing? JO: Very good, very good. An update on our last meeting – well, of course, like most meetings we generally have commissioners provide an overview of stuff they worked on with staff in their district – so each commissioner provided their insight on that and, if they spoke to their district biologist and those conversations – we went over hunting program updates – we went over the new OuterSpacial app that was launched for hunter check-in – we went over the steering document that developed for Lanai Game Management… AA: Sorry – Abraham – District 5. Would you like to touch up on you guys – on the hunting program? Can you go more in depth with it? JO: I’m sorry, was that question for me? AA: Can you update little bit more on your hunting program that was discussed? JO: Ah, yeah, that was what I was just providing. You asked about the last State GMAC meeting that we had and what was being discussed. AA: Yeah, it sounds like you had – you was saying like 3 or 4 different topics. JO: Ah, there is a large – we had an agenda with maybe 5 different items on the agenda and I was briefly going over each one of those topics, ah, the agenda is available online. You guys can all do that but I was just kind of reviewing a few of the projects that the state hunting program was working on, and so – if you would like me to review those things I can. AA: OK, fine… JO: So, one, as I was saying earlier we discussed the OuterSpatial app which is a recreational app that the state launched for hunters to electronically check in and report hazards, see trails online whatnot – it’s just a mobile application to collect data electronically, we had some conversations about the Lanai Game Management Plan that’s being attended to right now – we drafted a steering document for a path to a management plan – that steering document has a five year management plan within and we just shared our information about that steering document and provided information to folks on how to read that or review that, which most of the GMAC members were part of creating. We talked about some deer issues on Molokai again and, a few meetings ago I worked with the State GMAC to develop a deer plan for Maui – that was provided to the State GMAC and they ran with that to the county and folks got different grants throughout Maui Nui to leverage those county funds using some of this information. One of the things that J. 32 B. Friday touched on about state doing research on ungulates, you guys kind of mentioned that we don’t do any game management and I provided an overview of the research projects that we are doing across the state from Oahu, Maui Nui, and Kauai for ungulate distribution – all that information for Kauai will be available shortly – we went over that ungulate distribution research, the past research that was done for Oahu and Maui can be public – so we kind of touched a little bit on that and that’s general distribution of ungulates through a project that we administered through University of Hawai’i and, um, what else did we go over? We talked about our minutes, um, we talked about – I’d have to bring the agenda up again – we talked about the Kanaio Plan that we’re working on in Maui – it’s a – we’re doing an environmental assessment for the area – we set aside 6,000 acres in Kanaio, Maui and are partnering with Ulupalakua Ranch to make an 8,000 acre game area over there – game management area – and we had just finished all our compliance documents – it’s been about a four year project – to draft – to basically get through environmental assessments so we can use federal funds to implement game management activities in the area – other than that I think Nicolai Barca from Kauai provided us the overview on the project that he was working on where he was getting hunters together that can – they make a formal list of hunters in the area that will assist landowners with dealing with nuisance animals on their property – so kind of like a wildlife control activity that he’s doing on the Island of Kauai – we do that here on Oahu also with the Pig Hunter’s Association and other folks so we kinda just talked about that a little bit and how we can broaden those efforts so we can help private landowners – other than that I’d probably have to look at the last agenda to kind of go over some of the other things we talked about – but just a brief overview ongoing st projects – we got awarded our grant for FY20 – for this next year starting September 1 for the game program and the non-game program – so we talked about those federal awards and proposals that went through back, through the game program we provided funding for the Napuu Project which is Puuwaawaa and maintaining the 75 miles of roads in there and other native plants and protections that happen in there and managing hunts so, that grant got approved and we had one other grant – I’d have to go back and look if we talked about that – but, mainly just a few of the items that we’re working on currently and then we just kind of left it up to the Commission to share their thoughts on what’s going on their islands. SM: Stanley – District 1. What kind of game management plans you guys providing on Maui and what is the management? JO: Well, um, first we have to have an area where we can actually manage and use federal funds, ah, of course, we can do certain types of management with state funds without endangering endangered species in the midst of it all and of course providing food and fodder or, you know, certain minerals and supplements to game animals to make more game animals and so some of those things we’re kind of restricted from a little bit but, for Maui, in general, right now, we’re – I think one of the things that we looked at it was trying to develop game management plans for smaller areas that we can manage, like a game management area – those that are designated. Like Kapapala, like Kanaio, once 33 it’s designated. Like Lanai – and so for those areas we have developed game plans to deal with the ungulates and provide hunting opportunity for the public. SM: So what is the restrictions you talking about from the federal government? JO: Well, restrictions from the federal government – so if you guys know the federal funds that we bring in from the US Fish and Wildlife Service – there’s restrictions set with that to where when we provide these monies for on-the-ground management we can’t enhance certain species that could damage and hurt endangered species. So…like plants… SM: So why use that money in the first place – why not use the state money for managing the game? JO: If there was state money to be used for that then we would. SM: So you using the federal money against the game? JO: No, we don’t use the federal money against the game – actually we kind of try to find that balance and we use that federal money to develop plans to where we can open up areas and use all different types of money. So I guess understanding the restrictions of what the federal funds could be used for is very useful and, yeah…? SM: So it’s not management of the game it’s more hunting… JO: Well, we’re managing people, we’re managing access, you know, we’re managing game in certain areas, um, when you’re talking about landscape game management – no – in some folks eyes no – I would say the management that we do is more based on access, more based on hunter participation, providing hunters with the needed things to be in the field as far as check stations, access roads, things like that, and so… SM: So no enhancement, no enhancement – just whatever is there kill ‘em. JO: No enhancement of game species, I mean, hunting as a tool, doesn’t really take away all the animals not even close to half, or, 25% I would think – so, yeah, hunting is used as a tool in a lot of conservation areas and forest areas and stuff like that but we’re not enhancing game species on the landscape in pristine forests – no. SM: You know that there is no such thing in Hawai’i as a pristine forest, eh? There’s no such thing… JO: Well, I would, yeah, I don’t know – I would think differently on that because I just spent five days in Hana B and it’s a pristine forest. All native everything… 34 SM: Nothing there that is invasive – not one thing, yeah? JO: No, there would be rats… SM: No the only pristine place on the island, you know, when that Pele went through – she took all that – that’s pristine – start from there. Anyway, thank you… AA: Thanks, Jason. JO: You’re welcome. AA: New Business – we got Ian Cole he’s gonna talk to us about – it’s not on the agenda but it’s under New Business. Ian Cole will talk to us about Act 90. He couldn’t have made it on the agenda at the time so let’s try and see if he’s live again – his name is still up – Ian? Ian Cole – East side Wildlife Biologist… OK. I guess that’s it, um, announcements. 8. ANNOUNCMENTS: AA: We have one space – one commission space open which is District 7 so if anybody knows anybody in District 7 that would be willing to be a commissioner – that would be great. Barbara, again, what is District 7 – North Kona, middle, South Kona? BK: Part of North Kona and South Kona… AA: So if you guys know anybody in District 7. Also, our District 1 representative Stanley Mendes – his term is gonna be coming up in December. So if anybody knows anybody in District 1 please let them know. Other than that we have two members going be terming out next year – which going be Kean and Grayson. So Kean is District 2 – District 2 is gonna need a representative next year and also Grayson is District 6, right Grayson? GH: That’s correct… AA: Other than that, that’s pretty much it so… Let’s move on to Commissioner Reports. Oh, no, wait – one more thing, one more thing we gotta talk about. Our GMAC Committee – we have one, two, three, four GMAC Committees. We want to get some updates on it. So, um, please do some kind of presentation for our next meeting. It’s gonna be Shooting Range which his Stanley Mendes, Kean Umeda, Tom Lodge and Jim O’Keefe. So, between the 2 commissioners contact the two private individuals and see what you guys can get updated on by next month. We also have a Cultural Practices Committee – that was under Teresa Nakama – Leomana – would you be interested in taking over that committee and maybe you can even work with Teresa? LT: Yeah. 35 AA: OK. So just contact her and just give us some kind of update at next month’s meeting. We also have the Legislative Committee which is Grayson, George, Stanley and Nani. So Grayson, George and Stanley work with Nani and just give us some kind of update, if not, let’s start moving some kind of legislative things forward like we had that one drafted letter that Nani pushed forward and it didn’t get moved this past legislative season because somebody dropped the ball – so if we can at least get that started and move that forward that would be great – we also have one Mauna Kea Task Force with Stanley and Nani, maybe Leomana, maybe you’d like to jump on this committee too because you’re always up on the mountain. LT: Can do… AA: OK. So Barbara we can Leomana to the Mauna Kea Task force and Cultural Practices. BK: Got it… AA: And then we’ll probably bring it up again because Cortney’s not here. Does anybody else want to be involved in any of the other committees that’s open right now like Brian and George, Kean, Stanley, you guys like be on any other committees? BL: I’ll jump on the Mauna Kea one… AA: OK. And the Legislative one too? BL: Sure… 9. COMMISSIONER REPORT BY DISTRICT: AA: Perfect… Good man… OK, that sounds good. Commissioner reports? Any Commissioners have any reports from their districts? BL: Brian – District 4. AA: OK, Brian… BL: We did a – well I used GMAC’s name – I had too much wild pork so I’ve been cooking up wild pork with a couple of ladies in my district and we’ve been giving away free pull pork twice – we would probably do more if COVID wasn’t such an issue – we plan on doing more – bringing awareness that the pigs have besides cultural thing also have a economic and food source – the community and, providing the service of getting the pigs out of the residential areas and putting ‘em in the cooking pot and with the Pittman-Robertson Act – I heard from Jason – he said I needed to contact DAR – I sent 36 an email to DAR requesting the information for 2019-2020 for the Pittman-Robertson funds spent – I haven’t heard back from DAR I’ll send them another email and see they’ve acknowledged it. So, that’s it for District – 4, thank you… AA: Thanks, Brian. Any other commissioners? LT: Leomana – District 3. Just a couple of points I wanted to make – just talking about some of the animals in District – 3 at the boat ramp down Suisan some of the fishermen today – they’re just feeding the pigs back there – the population got big – decreased the population – I guess one of the fishermen went hunting took out half and so the pig population right around the boat ramp is… AA: Leomana is that the Wailoa Park? LT: Wailoa Park, yeah. My Dad hangs out with his friends over there by the rock thing and so I’m always in the area and I’m always at – I always see the DLNR boat guys and I talk to them and then we talk about the pigs and stuff and then I asked the fishermen last week and I guess somebody came and caught plenty so… AA: Yeah, that herd kind of fluctuates up and down, ah? LT: Yeah, you know they run around in the parking lot and the last time I think the guy crashed his car in the water – you guys remember that? AA: Yeah. LT: Yeah, that time, I think I count like 20 one day by the dumpster and so I went oh, wow – but I was surprised that I went back this past week and then I didn’t really see ‘ems this past two weeks and then my uncle told me, oh, yeah, the guys caught some, so… I’ve been looking into the tilapia population – walking around in Wailoa and asking all the uncles who fish and you know how much tilapia if you guys can remember I’ll probably come back once a month and just bother you guys for some information like that and they were super receptive and wanted to help so I found that good and one more – I also stopped at the marine biology center – the one’s that at the old pump station in Keaukaha so I could get water testing samples. I figured they would have the samples in Keaukaha since the station is there but guess they don’t and I’m looking into DLNR next to contact and see if I can get the water samples for Keaukaha cause some of the – like I mentioned before – some of the ironwood trees put off chemicals in the water that, I guess, help grow some of that bad limu that takes over area, um, so I was looking into that and I then I wanted to make mention of the ohia – the ROD – I have a wood works company and I’ve been logging a lot of ohia trees down right now in Nanawali – and it seems where the road that I’m on is like 90% gone. The price for ohia wood dropped down to 4 to 6 dollars a board foot – and so even the loggers and the wood mills they’re not really caring about ohia at the moment as a hard wood and this is I talked to Hal 37 from Panaewa last weekend and this is what Hal told me. A lot of the beetles bore in and when you mill the wood they have a lot of the black specs and so the wood isn’t selling and the trees that I’m cutting is about 200’ so I’m kind of worried about a 200’ ohia tree that’s been dead since 2010 with all the beetles boring inside – if high winds come they might be falling on houses any time soon down in the Puna District. But, yeah, it’s \[unclear\]. 10. COMMITTEE REPORTS: None 11. ADJOURNMENT: Action: S. Mendes moved to adjourn. Seconded by L. Turalde. Motion passed unanimously. Meeting ended at 8:02pm Next Meeting Date: October 19, 2021 Respectfully submitted by, Barbara Kossow Secretary ATTEST: Abraham Antonio 38