2007-02-15 twaikoloadevco - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

WATANABE: I have a question for the Director. You know, and I would tend to agree with you; science changes over time and we learn new things whatever, and so you are talking about holding a conference, so that we can have some type of consistency in the monitoring. However, the conditions were written at earlier periods for much of these developments. And I’m wondering if there are other vehicles besides these conditions that would help us to establish some standards for monitoring as well as enforce them. If that can be done through like some kind of law or - that we can impose upon development at a future date when we are able to agree on some type of monitoring standard, so that these projects, the conditions or what we monitor for can be revised at a later date when we learn more things. That’s what I’m really looking for. C. YUEN: I believe that the conditions of the various SMA permits, I know you see , permits are broad enough to modify what kinds of monitoring is done as a result of updated information. In the course of doing this follow-up work we have to look at all those conditions. And if they are not, the permits themselves can be amended to require different kinds of conditions. I don’t like working on the conditions of something like the environmental monitoring in the context of this permit for a time extension for two golf courses. I think that we certainly have reason to be cautious about development in the area. That’s the reason for the conditions on the golf course that are designed to minimize potential for nutrients reaching from the golf course into the anchialine ponds or near shore environment. But at any rate the short answer to the question is that I think that if a result of this is a set protocol, we will be able to impose it. WATANABE: Okay, I appreciate that, and I -. Can I follow up? I kind of tend to agree with you because we are mostly concerned about nutrients when we are talking about the golf course and what not, and we have possibly conflicted testimony here. But I would venture to guess that even ocean temperatures are going to affect coral growth and algae bloom, etc., which is nothing to do with the golf course. And if we have a vehicle then to amend some of the monitoring conditions as we move forward with these SMA requirements, then for me personally I feel comfortable with it. GRAHAM: Thank you. We are trying to direct questions to the testifier here at the moment, if we could. Commissioner Alameda? ALAMEDA: I have no further questions for the Applicant or the testifier, but I’m ready to move forward to the next step. GRAHAM: I do have a question for the testifier, if I may. Since the algal blooms are the most obvious degradation in water – we see on Oahu and Maui and all – and presumably there are monitoring requirements on those islands. Here we have concentrations given to us by the periodic monitoring at different depths and locations of what the nutrients – the nitrogen phosphorus – are. Do we have anything from, let’s say, Maui which says when the nutrient levels were such and such, we didn’t have algae; when it passed some boundary, then we had development of algae? Is there any way we can kind of use any numbers coming from other place and foresee what we might be walking into here? WALSH: I think that’s possible. There is recent research underway by Dr. Celia Smith who is in the Botany Department of UH Manoa. And she has established, I think, sort of unequivocally that there is essentially a nutrient gradient that rolls out from areas where there is EXHIBIT C 11