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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN AWESC 2017/02/07 (2016-2018)Committee on Agriculture, Water and Energy Sustainability 2°d Session Hawaii County Building 25 Aupuni Street Hilo, Hawaii February 7, 2017 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee on Agriculture, Water and Energy ORDER: Sustainability Committee was called to order at 10:02 a.m., in the Council Chambers, Hilo, by Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Herbert M. "Tim" Richards, III, Chair Ms. Eileen O'Hara, Vice Chair Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member (came in later) Ms. Karen Eoff, Member Mr. Dru Mamo Kanuha, Member Ms. Susan. L. K. Lee Loy, Member Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member Ms. Jennifer Ruggles, Member STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. (There were none.) COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm. 86: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY THE BIG ISLAND INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL FOR AN UPDATE ON THE LITTLE FIRE ANT PROBLEM WITHIN OUR ISLAND COMMUNITIES From Council Member Tim Richards, dated January 19, 2017. Motion to Close File: Ms. Eoff moved to close file on Comm. 86. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter. CHR. RICHARDS: And we are on. AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 (Note: At this time, Communications Director Franny Brewer came forward and gave a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 86.) CHR. RICHARDS: First of all, thank you very much, I have to say that was quite comprehensive and you galloped along at a great pace. MS. BREWER: Sorry, I was like this is a lot to pack in. CHR. RICHARDS: No, that was a great presentation. Unfortunately, with that comes more questions but what I'm going to do is I'm going to turn it over to the Committee Members here. Does anybody have any questions forI see Councilwoman Lee Loy. You're on deck. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Franny. A couple of questions, the voucher program that you folks are talking about, is there a sunset or expiration date for that? MS. BREWER: Yes, absolutely. That was money from the Hawaiian Invasive Species Council, it came to County R & D (Research and Development) and so that grant needs to be finished up by the end of the fiscal year. And so the coupons expire on March 31st and the program expires on March 31st and Glenn's (Glenn Sako of R & D) been very clear that that is the final date. So that's why we're kind of pushing to get as much fit in before then as possible. MS. LEE LOY: And part of the voucher program requires that they do the mix, right? Is there a plan to extend the voucher program past the June deadline? MS. BREWER: Not from what Glenn has told me. And we've asked that question and not that I've heard of. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Now there are a number of pieces of legislation at the Legislature, I've got a few here but I guess I just wanted to hear from you folks. What is the most effective piece of legislation going through the Legislature right now that helps your program? MS. BREWER: I think there's one of them that's trying to basically set up a similar voucher program where people get the coupons or the money. I think that's really effective. It is something that costs, like I said it's in the top it's always, at every single meeting it's something that we're told by community members that they need help with that, and we're trying to address those other pieces. So I think that anything that can put more financial assistance, especially in lower Puna, we have a lot of communities where people do not have a lot of Page 2 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 money, and the best approach is to get together and buy everything in bulk and it's still—the Tango is $500. So I mean that's just—even though over time, it comes out to like being a small amount per treatment, that's still a huge initial investment for anyone to have to make. So anything that's going to reduce the cost for the residence I think is probably the most effective thing right now, at this point. MS. LEE LOY: So do you have any particular House Bill number or Senate Bill number you folks MS. BREWER: I don't at the top of my head but I can definitely email them to you today. MS. LEE LOY: Sure. And then the initial purchase it's very expensive. How long does that initial buy last for the community? MS. BREWER: So it really depends on the size of what you're doing so for instance, HPP (Hawaiian Paradise Park), is kind of the easiest one because they're one acre properties and so if you can get a group of 10 people together, they buy that, it's 52 one acre treatments for that large size. So that pretty much will last that community throughout the amount of time that they need to do the Tango. And at that point, they can either go to something else that might be a little lower cost or they can move into just surveying. Because we have people that are successful at the end of that first six months, they're ant free. So at that point, we can move them into a management so it's not something that they have to do forever. And that's one of the things that we really try to emphasize, is like our goal is to get you fire ant free and then you're in a management mode. But you don't have to do Tango forever. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. And then my last question, have you had an opportunity to read the Council's Resolution 61-17? MS. BREWER: I have not. MS. LEE LOY: I just want to share that with you and then I'll yield at this time. Thanks. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman Ruggles. MS. RUGGLES: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Franny, it was really good. I just had a few questions. Is the training schedule on your website? I see it's here as well. MS. BREWER: Yes. Page 3 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. RUGGLES: Okay. And do these treatments? because I notice you had Siesta on there. In my experience, Siesta isn't effective if it gets wet. Is that true? MS. BREWER: None of the—well Siesta is a little bit more effective than AMDRO when it gets wet, none of the granules are particularly effective if it's wet or if the ground is even wet while you're applying them, which is another reason why we really emphasize the Tango. We just feel, especially in Hilo and Puna where you're getting these weeks where it's just wet all the time, that the jailbait is much more effective. MS. RUGGLES: Okay. So Tango is the number one suggestion for treatment? MS. BREWER: Yeah. We found—and Tango's more universal in that it's approved that you can use it in food trees, you can use it in your papaya or your avocado or oranges or whatever, and so we just find that it's a lot easier for people. I mean it's kind of a pain to do the mixing, but it's not that hard once you get it, and it's just easier I think that you don't have a lot of restrictions. The only restriction is streams. You have to be careful of any kind of streams so that's much easier than trying to explain all the other products to. "You can't use it on this day and you got to be careful if it's around a tree," and all this kind of stuff, so we find that Tango is the easiest and highly effective. MS. RUGGLES: Okay, thank you. So after six treatments, four to six weeks apart, for that location is it—how long does the extermination last? MS. BREWER: So it should last until there's a new introduction of ants onto the property. So what we recommend and why we go out at that six month point is that we will actually survey and we will help people survey and say, "Okay, what's going on? Do you still have ants, where might they be coming from?" So at the six month point, we get a little bit more detailed and sort of try to look for is there a hotspot, is it crossing over from a property? And then we talk about things like barrier treatments, we talk about whether they just need to go to a toxicant bait for a couple of treatments to kind of treat hotspots, or just knock the ants down so—at that point, we try to get more into teaching people the different aspects so that they can be flexible in doing what's right for their property. But if they are fire ant free after that, we just say survey. You need to survey every two to three months and be very comprehensive with your survey. And that's pretty inexpensive, that's chopsticks and peanut butter. So we say if you noticed that your neighbors are bringing in building material or cinder or something, it's probably a good time to survey for the next couple of months after that. You never know when things are coming in. So the emphasis is on get fire ant free, get your property fire ant free and then survey, survey, survey. Page 4 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. RUGGLES: Okay. MS. BREWER: Don't wait until you get bit. MS. RUGGLES: Thank you. MS. BREWER: Sure. MS. RUGGLES: And I wanted to also thank Council Member Richards for bringing this presentation to us, I'm really excited to get this information out to Puna. Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Councilwoman O'Hara. MS. O'HARA: Thank you, Chairman and thank you, Franny. I've had the pleasure of working with Franny on a number of occasions and her crew and everyone, they're fantastic. It's hard to remain positive in the face of some of these challenges and threats, so I really appreciate all the work that you do. One thing I wanted to point out is the signage that—when a community is involved intensely in combatting the little red fire ant threat, they can erect these signs, they're about the size of a realtor's sign, at the end of a driveway, the front of the property. And it was such a pleasure, I was out in Wa`awa`a recently and driving up Akaka Road and seeing all the signage side-by-side, and you're absolutely right, this does more than just control the red fire ants, it brings the community together. And that's a real value here because it isn't just the little red fire ants, there's also the albizia, the rat lungworm and all the other things we're combatting. So bringing a community together is really an important element of it all. With regard to the voucher program, I understand that the current one was basically funded through State funds, but there is perhaps it's something that the County needs to consider as something that they do just at the County level since the little red fire ant is now present in most districts. I know I've seen it in downtown Kailua-Kona and you're absolutely right about the denial factor. I'm very active with dog agility and I do that practice all over the island. We have several different venues and I went to Kona, my dogs were getting bit, they're particularly susceptible, they're little terriers with bare bellies. I actually hardly get bit at all for whatever reason, but anyway, I can always tell by looking at their bellies that there's little red fire ants around, then I start surveying and then I find them. And it was interesting. It was very difficult to convince the folks in Kona that they were facing a problem so I had to carry my peanut butter sticks with me everywhere now. And people don't welcome the news, but at least they know then that they do have a problem and it's great to give them your organization as a Page 5 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 resource to go to because you do such a fantastic job of educating the public and getting the community aware. So thank you for that and we'll try and see what we can help you out with in terms of the voucher programs moving forward. MS. BREWER: That will be great. It'll be very appreciated by the community. Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman O'Hara. Councilman Chung. MR. CHUNG: Thank you. Good morning, Ms. Brewer. Thank you very much, that was a wonderful presentation. I also wanted to echo the sentiments of Ms. Ruggles in thanking you, Mr. Chairman, in bringing this up. I also wanted to mention the efforts of our former Council Member Fresh Onishi who was really a champion at trying to get funding for these little fire ants, so kudos to him. My question relates to something that I read in the paper the other day. It's Mayor Kim's intention to cancel a composting facility or project that we were which was authorized by the Council and a contract was made. One of the subsidiary benefits to all of that was how it could address the fire ant population as well and its distribution. Can you tell us what kinds of effects—or what do you know about its distribution, fire ant distribution at our mulching area? MS. BREWER: We don'tI don't know a lot personally about that. I know that we had tested at the Hilo facility, so we did find some at the Hilo facility. When I talked to the previous director of Environmental Management, she had told me that people should just assume that if they are getting green waste that there's unwanted pests in there because often the green waste come in, there's no way to identify what's on it when it comes in and sometimes it gets mulched and is out of the facility within a day. So there's—if you can treat the facility and make the facility fire ant free so stuff sitting around, it won't necessarily have it but if it came in with it, then there's nothing you can do. So you may want to have the researchers from the Hawaii Ant Lab send a representative here because I know that they were working with Environmental Management on a way to try and control that, and I'm not sure if that was tied in with that plan or not. MR. CHUNG: Right. But I'm just talking about our current mulching operation. MS. BREWER: I just had somebody on the phone this morning that called me to ask about that, and I said I would treat it as if it has fire ants. I would always just assume that you need to act as if it has fire ants. MR. CHUNG: There's certainly the potential. MS. BREWER: Absolutely. Page 6 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MR. CHUNG: Thank you very much. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilman. Councilman Kanuha. Oh Maile, I'm sorry. Go ahead. MS. DAVID: Mahalo, Chair. Aloha, Ms. Brewer and thank you very much for that presentation. I know we had several meetings in Kona and I thank you for that too. I'm looking at your community information sessions and I know that you're strapped for funding, but do you have any plans in the South Kona/Ka`u area for community sessions or information sessions? I'd really like to work with you to get started out there so I just wanted to thank you and just put that bug in your ear and MS. BREWER: We don't have any right now. I have been talking with a couple of residents in the Na`alehu area, trying to get something set up. I'm aware that the ants are in Pahala so that's a concern and I've actually been trying to call the Pahala Community Center to get a date set and I never get an answer so—nobody answers the phone. MS. DAVID: Okay. I'll help you with that. Just call my office. MS. BREWER: That would be wonderful. MS. DAVID: Okay, great. MS. BREWER: Sometimes it starts like that. And so we did help the Hawaii Ant Lab that had done a program in Na`alehu about a year ago.We were working with them down there to treat the ants that were right in Na`alehu town so I'd love to go back and revisit Na`alehu again and try to get some more going on down there. There is a group in Ocean View that we support from time to time, they'd go out and they'd do the table at the Farmer's Market, and they're an invasive species group. I haven't met them but we email and they seem really enthusiastic and so far I have no reports of fire ants in Ocean View. MS. DAVID: Those are three areas that would really help I think. The information would help whether you have reports of having them or not at this point. MS. BREWER: And the same with Waimea. We haven't had reports but we want to get into Waimea. Right now, we've been really focusing on the areas where we know that people have them because of the voucher program. But as I said, we're funded to the end of the year, so past March, our hope was to get into more of these communities where it's just more informational and encouraging surveying. So that's a big push for us coming up after the voucher program is completed. Page 7 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. DAVID: Perfect. Well thank you very much and we'll keep in touch because I really want to get that done. MS. BREWER: That would be great. MS. DAVID: Okay. Mahalo. MS. BREWER: I'd love your help. Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman David. Councilman Kanuha. MR. KANUHA: Thank you, Mr. Chair and mahalo for bringing this up. This is something that we were talking about the last term, specifically trying to get out information about what's going on our island because really, we never really had a solid—especially on the west side, a solid look, a solid mapping of the infestation that's going on. I know east side is pretty bad and I know there have been cases here and there on the Kona side. Can you justI know a group was formed in Kona and I did want to thank Carolyn Dillon for her big push in forming this group. And I know you guys are a big part of that group to address a lot of the LFA issues, specifically in a small portion of Kona, but is there any progress on the testing and mapping that you guys are doing? MS. BREWER: Yes. I'm so glad you asked that question. MR. KANUHA: Thank you. MS. BREWER: Working through—and what Mr. Kanuha's referring to is we there is a coalition forming which some people are a part of here already and it started on the west side, but it's really looking at issues of the Big Island as a whole. So there is some involvement from County Council people, there's some involvement from the State Legislators and it's really community driven, it's actually our very first community that we did this program in Holualoa. The person who organized that decided that just wasn't enough to treat her community, she wanted to take it to the next level and so that was Carolyn Dillon that Mr. Kanuha referred to. And she's actually being honored next month as the Hawaii Invasive Species Award Week nominee from the Big Island for being our most valuable player, our MVP for doing all the work that she's been doing. So we—as part of that group, we connected with Nancy Redfeather and Donna Mitts of the Hawaiian Island School Garden Network, if anybody's familiar with those fantastic ladies. And we're going to be offering training to teachers in April and May with a focus on—and that will be on the west side. Because as you said, we're pretty sure we—if someone comes to me from Puna and says, "I think I have fire ants," I'm like, "Probably," so it's not too much of an identification issue but on the west side, it's still spotty and we don't really know the extent. Page 8 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 So the training that we're going to be doing with the teachers is the Citizen Science Project to basically have the teachers have their kids go home and map and survey their homes in their neighborhoods and then bring that information back. If they need identification help, Rob Curtiss of Hawaii Department of Agriculture there on the west side has offered to do the identification work. So it's really nice everybody kind of working together through this group. And we'reBIISC (Big Island Invasive Species Committee) will be doing the mapping so that we will have an idea of not just where it's positive but also negative, so where we're getting negative samples back. So that push is going to happen as I said, the end of this year. So it may be something where we don't really—it's end of the school year I should say, so we don't know if we will be able to have that information by this summer or if it will take a little longer because we might have to wait until the teachers come back in August to really get that information going. But that will be something in the next six months that we're going to be trying really hard to do is to get that mapping data. And we found—that's a program that they've been doing on Oahu and they have found that the schools were their best avenue absolutely for getting that data back. It's really hard to just get it randomly so we're trying to model off of the program where they're getting the most feedback. CHR KANUHA: Thank you for that. MS. BREWER: Sure. CHR KANUHA: And I'm glad that this is really how it happens within the community, everybody getting together, neighbors coming together and figuring out—let's—we have to do something because—especially Hawaiian Island we it seems like every couple of months there's this new outbreak of infestation or invasive species and it's kind of troubling, you know? Like what are we doing wrong, or what are we not doing enough of? MS. BREWER: Biosecurity. CHR KANUHA: Yeah. And I know the State came out with their new biosecurity plan or whatever it is. I just hope it's really serious about what's going on. Other countries take this extremely serious and we have some of the most endangered species in these islands. Compared to the rest of the world, it's something that these all have an effect on. Like you said, our environment, our economics, it's us, people so it's just frustrating. But I'm glad that the County is helping out in the small aspects that we can because we do take it really seriously. I know just in terms of—for Hawaii State Association of Counties (HSAC) we're going to be—we're part of this national organization, NACo (National Association of Counties), that we're going to be going up to Washington, D.C. I Page 9 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 think one of the topics that we're going tohopefully we'll be discussing in D.C. is to ask—it's kind ofI won't talk about the federal level type of issues that they have, but one of the topics hopefully that we can talk about to our U.S. Senators and Representatives is on the invasive species and how they can help out. I know a few of our federal—our Congress people have been helping out in their own capacity but we got to keep pushing for that, for funding or whatever it is. It is a serious issue that we face here so hopefully we can get that on the ticket to go advocate on the federal level but just want to let the rest of our Council Members know what we're doing for HSAC and on the state and federal level. But thank you for everything you do. Always glad to support something so critical to our island. MS. BREWER: Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilman. Real quick, Councilwoman O'Hara, then back to you. MS. O'HARA: Thank you, Chair. The question came up and thank you for presenting that question, Councilman Chung, about the mulch. I was visiting the site very recently just in the last couple of weeks, and they do tests daily for the little red fire ant. What's happening at the mulch site is—there is mulch that is fresh today that is undoubtedly contains little red fire ants, you can pick that up if you want to carry that away, but you would be best advised to compost it before you put it anywhere. And then they have wind -road mulch, it's kind of a weak composting system but it heats up enough and it's wet enough in our environment that it takes care of the little red fire ants. So they're getting pretty much zero findings daily right now, but people have to pick up what they're calling the enhanced mulch in order not to be concerned about little red fire ants. I would still test just because that's how I am but I agree that's good advice. MS. BREWER: And we talked to Rob Curtiss, the entomologist in Kona and he shared that he did not think that they had it because he worked on fire ants on Oahu, and he said they had not found a temperature which they felt that it was 100 percent. So I would treat it cautiously. MS. O'HARA: Of course you're going to and continue to treat it cautiously. Councilman Kanuha brought up an interesting thing in that we have to consider all aspects of this, the environmental aspect of course, and the social aspect in how it affects our health and the health of our pets and livestock. But also the economics of it, and your slide speaks of that in terms of the economic losses that we could see from not being able to contain this. It also affects our school programs. We talk about growing farmers, but when kids get involved in a school ag program and they go out on site and they're bit by little red fire ants, they immediately retreat and they'll go, "I don't want to take any more ag classes." So Page 10 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 I'm really glad you're working on these programs to resolve some of that because we do need to grow more farmers. MS. BREWER: We're actually going to Laupahoehoe ag class later on this month to treat for fire ants at Laupahoehoe School, so we're going to be teaching the kids how to do it. MS. O'HARA: Exactly. And then they could take that home and—that's the best way to get it out in the community. Thank you so much for the work. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Councilwoman Eoff. MS. EOFF: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for bringing this presentation to us and for the opportunity to share it with the public who watches this on public TV. And thank you, Franny, for all of your great work. I've been sitting in on the meetings in Kona and the coalition, and I think that's wonderful we're going to recognize Carolyn for most valuable player because I keep thinking how do we clone her? Her energy is so great and her effort has been step-by-step but at a rapid pace, progressing towards solutions in their neighborhood and then wider coverage. So I think it's—and thank you for your support of coming over to these meetings, to the coalition, and your advice. But something that we haven't really talked about and maybe it's a sensitive topic, but there's some legislation at the State and my staff informed me that it includes allowing testing in, you know like—forcing private property owners to allow people to come onto their property to test. And I know that was one of the issues that was brought up in our meetings, that it's a problem because if a neighborhood gets together and wants to eradicate the problem in their area but a couple of neighbors refuse to let anybody on their property to test or don't participate, that kind of thwarts the effort. But I'm kind of hesitant to support something like that, but I don't know, what are your thoughts? MS. BREWER: I think that actually originated more out of the need on the other islands because there was a case in Maui where the people refused to allow treatment and had to go to court. It was a pretty ugly situation and it delayed the treatment over a year so that is one of the concerns. I think that legislation came more of concern of allowing the Department of Agriculture or one of the ISC's (Invasive Species Committee) on the other island to be able to go on and test and treat if necessary. And I'm not sure if that legislation, if it applies to the Big Island or only the other islands, just because I know that was a huge concern for the Hawaii Ant Lab and some other bodies that are responsible for trying to eradicate this on other islands. And again, not let that window slam shut on Maui or Oahu or whatever. Page 11 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 But I'm not exactly sure that would play out here, I know that there is a lot of interest in the community. Currently we're working with Joy San Buenaventura on a bill that would allow people in neighborhoods to treat for albizia, so that if their neighbors refused to treat, the community could get access and treat for albizia. And I know that people have said, "Well why can't we do that for fire ants, why can't we just force it?" And I don't know what the legal ramifications of that would be. We certainly would—from our perspective, we'd want to err on the side of like, "Yep, we can go in and take care of it, and lots of other invasive species too." But right now, we don't have the legal ability to do it so it does put people in quite a position. MS. EOFF: Yes, that could be a big issue I guess. Again, thank you and keep letting us know how we can help and if you could, like Ms. Lee Loy asked, forward us the bills that you think are worth our time to support, then we can take a—help out with that. MS. BREWER: Absolutely. MS. EOFF: Okay. Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you and thank you, Committee Members. Couple of quick bullet questions for some bullet answers, and I will try and stick to a timeline here. 2017 budget, approximately what is it? MS. BREWER: For the Little Fire Ant Program? CHR. RICHARDS: Yes, MS. BREWER: For us it's probably around $120,000. CHR. RICHARDS: You made a comment about $1 billion lost over the next 35 years. Question on that, is that a production loss, or is that a market loss, or is that a balance between the two? MS. BREWER: I think it's total but I'd have toI can forward you the actual report. CHR. RICHARDS: I'd appreciate that. MS. BREWER: Sure. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Are you affiliated with other state organizations to get all this done? Page 12 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. BREWER: Affiliated with—this is a BIISC program, we do try to work with other programs, but we don'tI'm not sure what you mean affiliated I guess. CHR. RICHARDS: Work with other— save money so we don't have redundancy of efforts. MS. BREWER: Yes, so we do try toanytime that we can partner up with somebody we do, although nobody's really doing this particular kind of work right now. For instance, we're working with, like I said Rob Curtiss over on the west side to do identification and help us with the school mapping and stuff So anytime that we find somebody willing and able in another agency, we definitely try to jump on that. CHR. RICHARDS: And then back to the Invasive Species Committee, total budget for that for the year? Did I understand? MS. BREWER: For BIISC? CHR. RICHARDS: Yes. That the funding is year-to-year looking for grants? MS. BREWER: Yeah, so I'm not exactly sure what grants we did receive or not, my manager Springer Kaye is responsible for that. I think last year we were at something like $486,000. We just got a big—we're going to be working with, for instance, JB and the other researchers who are working on Rapid `Ohi`a Death. BIISC is part of the Rapid `Ohi`a Death response team, we just got federal money for that. We get HISC (Hawai`i Invasive Species Council) money to fund my position and fund several other positions. One of the teams that didn't get much funding this year was our Albizia Team so we're going to be having to cut back on our albizia work unfortunately. So from year-to-year, it's whatever we get. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you. We're coming up on the top of the hour and in my traditional style, we're going to break on or about the hour. Before we go, I do want to thank you very much from the agriculture, water, energy perspective from this committee. As we set policy going forward, if we're going to be truly honest to ourselves and support agriculture, we have to pay attention to things that will affect agriculture. And I have to agree with you Dru, it seems like every other week we're finding something else, and I realize that influx of things coming in, biosecurity coming in is important. Right now biosecurity going out so we maintain our markets. That's also a big concern for us and we have to pay attention to that. As we discussed outside prior to this meeting, this is an educational process for all of us as Council Members to better understand what's going on, what's going forward so we can make better recommendations and better decisions for our County as a whole. Agriculture is near and dear to my heart and anything I can Page 13 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 do to promote that and cause it to grow is what we want to get done. With that, again, thank you very much, looking forward to that extra information coming forward and then we'll distribute it amongst the Committee Members. We are just about ready to—we got one more quick question here. Councilwoman Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. It's going to be quick and I'm going to put you on the spot. I just handed over to Kawehi a copy of a resolution that's going to be heard a little later today urging the legislature to support any and all legislation related to the Little Red Fire Ant Program and Iin true legal form, I'm going to ask very boldly, do you support that resolution? MS. BREWER: Most of this looks pretty familiar. Yes, BIISC would support this legislation. MS. LEE LOY: Thank you. I do want to say, Jade and Kawehi, they were just a pleasure to work with down in Pana`ewa. I'm just so proud of Kawehi too, from the homestead, the family is from the homestead, and this is where we make a difference with the youth, and stay at it. Thank you. MS. BREWER: Thank you all for having me here today. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you very much, Councilwoman Lee Loy. And I appreciate the brevity of your answer. Yes. So with that, I'm going to call for closure. I'll take the vote to close the file. Vote on Comm. 86: The motion to close file on Comm. 86 was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kanuha, Lee Loy, O'Hara, Poindexter, Ruggles, and Chair Richards – 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. RICHARDS: And with that, we're going to stand in recess for eight minutes. Recess: At 11:08 a.m., the Chair called for a recess. Reconvene: The meeting reconvened at 11:17 a.m. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, we're going to call the meeting back into order. Mr. Clerk, will you read in Communication 87, please? Page 14 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 Comm. 87: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY JB FRIDAY AND CORIE YANGER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII COLLEGE OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURE AND HUMAN RESOURCES ON A RAPID `OHI`A DEATH SYMPOSIUM FOR WEST HAWAII From Council Member Eileen O'Hara, dated January 20, 2017. Motion to Close File: Ms. O'Hara moved to close file on Comm. 87. Seconded by Ms. David. CHR. RICHARDS: We are on deck. Go ahead. (Note: At this time, Extension Forester JB Friday came forward and gave a PowerPoint presentation to the members of the Committee. For viewing of the subject presentation, see the DVD copy of the meeting proceedings on file in the Clerk's Office. A copy of the PowerPoint presentation is made a part of the record, see Comm. 87.) CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. First of all, thank you very much and again, comes back to the whole premise of looking for biosecurity and all that. With that, we do have some questions. Councilwoman O'Hara. MS. O'HARA: Thank you, Chair and thank you, JB for coming and giving us that presentation. I just wanted to fill you in. I had responded to you on the question about the arborists and thank you for bringing that up since I wasn't on the Council when the change in budget was made. But there was an action by the Council, I think it was in June of this year, to modify the budget. We had a fund for addressing albizia and it was I think $180,000. Of that, $140,000 was moved over to hire two arborists and equipment for those arborists. That has not yet happened, apparently because of our transition to a new administration. HR (Human Resources) had some questions about creating those positions and they're questions were not responded to immediately, so the people in charge of that at Public Works, which will house the two arborist positions, will proceed to answer the questions and get those positions created. So hopefully, we will at some point have two arborists on staff to help not just with ROD (Rapid `Ohi`a Death) but also with albizia. So that's the situation there, and thank you for bringing that to my attention. The other thing is you were talking about the project with kiln drying. Is there any way that we can utilize geothermal energy for that? I know that initially, in the experimental stages of geothermal in Puna, that was something that was looked into and so I'm just wondering if there's any way we might be able to utilize that energy in terms of kiln drying. So that's another question. And then I wanted to say, aren't we planning an East Hawaii Summit at the University of Hawaii on March 18th? Page 15 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MR. FRIDAY: Yes. So the last one is yes. I had it in mind to do that and then I got distracted thinking about trees, but yes. So we had the statewide summit in Honolulu, kind of to bring it to the attention of the legislators and the downtown people. A lot of feedback of course from the, "Hey, how come this isn't brought to us?" So March 18th we're doing an East Hawaii Summit and inviting people from around East Hawaii. And we're going to have a full morning to go through the detailed presentations plus some other topics I wasn't able to touch on there. They're at leastI just organized for the Hawaii Conservation Conference so we have at least a dozen separate talks going on with that. We're still finalizing I believe, the West Hawaii one because we'd like to give this to a West Hawaii audience as well. MS. O'HARA: Do you need help with that West Hawaii one? MR. FRIDAY: Yes, we do. MS. O'HARA: Okay. Well maybe some of our West Hawaii Council people can help with venue and—is that the issue? Getting an appropriate venue? MS. YANGER: So venue and scheduling and also Mayor Harry Kim agreed to provide an introduction at the East Hawaii Rapid `Ohi`a Death Symposium, and we're hoping he would do the same for the west side. MS. O'HARA: Thank you, Corie. That's Corie. MR. FRIDAY: So geothermal, the main expense in running a kiln is electricity. It's very expensive here, so absolutely. That would be a potential if we worked out. To my mind though, an even larger expense is getting trees down and getting them to a facility. And again, it's just trying toa lot of the people don't have a lot of resources, how can you help them deal with this? As a forester, I'm particularly concerned with things on the periphery that may be spreading the disease further, but the people in the subdivisions where the disease is pretty rampant, they're concerned with cleaning up their properties. So any assistance the County can come—and I'm afraid we're still again, what are treatments that work? Certainly treatments that work are things that were working out, like this vacuum steam business. Dry kilning a log—the reason you don't put logs through a lumber kiln is that it would take months and months to dry a log out. I've seen `ohi`a posts of—two foot diameter posts, it would take, I don't know, nobody has any idea, maybe a year in the kiln and you'd spend so much on electricity, you could never do it for lumber. So some sort of technology for doing that, but for smaller stuff, probably you could kiln dry the whole thing. Page 16 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. O'HARA: Okay. Thank you MR. FRIDAY: And I'm sorry, but you had three questions and I've already forgotten your first one. MS. O'HARA: No, the first was just some information about the arborist positions. But there is another thing and that is, we do have a resolution pending in our committee this afternoon, I believe I sent you a draft of it and that resolution is 62-17. I'm going to use Ms. Lee Loy's approach, do you support that resolution? MR. FRIDAY: I cannot speak for the University of Hawaii so—our policy is that we're allowed to testify on our personal behalf, but not speaking as the university. So personally, yes, I would support that. The university, you would have to ask the university officials whether the university supports it. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. While I was listening to the presentation, I had lights light up like Christmas trees over here so I missed the order on this side. Okay, we'll start with Councilwoman Eoff MS. EOFF: Thank you. Do you think that the West Hawaii Civic Center would be a venue you would like to use? MR. FRIDAY: Yes, I think that would be appropriate. MS. EOFF: Okay, so do you know the number to call when you get a date to reserve it, or would you like me to just give you that? MS. YANGER: I do have the number and I think the issue was more just having Council—somebody from the Council approve to be able to make the reservation but I think we have that as well so now it's just figuring out the date. MS. EOFF: You can contact probably any of us, but—or Scott, he makes reservations once you get a date. If you need us to help in any other way organizing, I'm sure all of us out of the West Hawaii Civic Center would be more than happy to host or help host. MS. YANGER: Thank you very much. MS. EOFF: Thank you. I know it's so sad, but thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman. I'm going to go with David and then Ruggles. So Councilwoman David first. Page 17 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. DAVID: Mahalo, Chair. Aloha and welcome. Thank you very much for your presentation and all your efforts. Like Ms. Eoff said, this is very sad. My question is, in your studies, and especially concerning the Cultural Practitioners that utilize the `ohi`a, lehua, and every aspect of that tree, how has that to date, given the no movement of flowers, how has that pose an impact on say the Merrie Monarch and that sort of thing? Or has this restriction—was this implemented after? I am just wondering how that restriction will affect things that are economically driven for this island. It's not only sad, like Ms. Eoff said, but economically, that will affect some of our practitioners and that is even sadder. Not to mention our water shed, I mean everything is connected so what you're telling us is very concerning and I'm really afraid that this might, if we don't find a solution, everything is at risk because of this. So that's just my question. In your opinion how it will impact, given your research up until this date. MR. FRIDAY: So I've been—in terms of the economics which is a little bit the simpler part of your question. The other thing that I think is probably the biggest economic impact is the amenity loss of people who lose their `ohi`a forest around their properties. As you know, they are a couple hundred thousand Puna subdivision, no not a couple hundred thousand, but there no, I'm sorry, there's hundreds of thousands of acres, there are tens of thousands of property owners now. What's the value of a property that's in a lovely `ohi`a forest and what's the value in three years when the `ohi`a are all dead? And then multiply that by the tens of thousands of properties that are affected. That's a huge economic hit. The post industry and the fire wood industry and these things are tiny compared to that. The potential impact on tourism, there have been no positive cases inside Hawaii Volcano's National Park on the Kilauea side, but there is in Volcano Village. So obviously, it's such a big driver. Any small impact of tourism to that is a potential huge hit. The watershed values, we're just rolling diceagain, it's a huge amount that water—what's the difference in watershed recharge if you end up with patches of waiawi versus a `ohi`a forest? It's a hard question to answer, but the answer is likely it's not going to be as good. And it's going to be—so those are—I've been trying to recruit someone to do more formal economic study, but that's kind of my outline to the main things that are going on. As far as Cultural Practitioners, people are really hit by it, especially people that watch their trees go down, Hawaiian or not, watching the trees die. Last year with the Merrie Monarch— I'm certainly not in a position to tell A kumu whether or not to use `ohi`a in the Merrie Monarch. We did discuss with the halau what was going on. there was a voluntary, "Okay, we will not use `ohi`a right now." In terms of—and the concern there was just moving the disease around as they go to gather and go from place to place with it. It's a—really just saying not to use it. The legal quarantine was in effect so people were not allowed to take leis home. You could bring leis to Hawaii, if you made one on Maui, you could bring one to Page 18 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 Hawaii. It's kind of unfair, but that's the way it was, you're not allowed to take it home. One thing that we did do, and again I say we in the big picture, but I was not instrumental in that, was to have a ceremony to respectfully dispose of leis so not just chuck them in the plastic bin trash on the way out the door. But we collected them in baskets and disposed them as a ceremony down in—burning the lei with a ceremony there. So this year they're working on, and Corie can discuss some more about what we're doing at the Merrie Monarch, but it's definitely an impact on the gatherers. And you said economic, but just in thinking cultural values, maybe things that aren't economic, but just the value of passing on this tradition of picking liko for making leis. There are whole areas now that nobody's going to be able to do that because the trees are all dead. And so what we're really concentrating on is trying to stop them from spreading to new areas for that, but also reaching out to people that do that forest—so people don't unwittingly spread it. One thing that's beenI'm trying to use—think of the right word here—one thing that's been positive about this is this is an invasive species issue that everybody is on the same side. I guess it's the same as fire ants. Many of the invasive species issues were banging heads, there are people that like strawberry guava, people that don't like strawberry guava. But this one, nobody wants it so everybody's on board with trying to not move it around. So that's been positive. Did you want to say anything about the upcoming Merrie Monarch and what planning on that? MS. YANGER: I think this year we're just trying to ramp up our visibility to make sure that all of the halau are aware that we're there to assist them if they need help with properly and respectfully taking care of their lei materials. And so that's part of it. So we were stationed outside of the stadium last year and this year we're going to have a station outside of the stadium and we're also trying to get into the craft fair as well. We're thinking those will be two places where we'll have the most interaction with individuals. We are also looking at working with the Merrie Monarch organizers for public service announcements. We also had some representatives from our working group attend one of the organizational meetings where they gather all the kumu to prepare for Merrie Monarch, and we were able to present at that as well. So it really seems like all the kumu are very concerned and you know they filter down to their halau, their haumana, to explain what the situation is and like JB said, there was a lot of self -policing in a way. They basically placed a kapu within their community and so this year, we don't suspect there will be a need for a fire ceremony because we believe that there will be very little and likely no `ohi`a use this year. Page 19 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. DAVID: Thank you. Could you state your name for the record? MS. YANGER: Yes, of course, my apologies. My name is Corie Yanger, I am an Educational Specialist for the University of Hawai`i's Cooperative Service. I work very closely with JB Friday. MS. DAVID: Thank you. Mahalo, JB. And that was my first concern. I mean economics was a trickle-down effect of what the, what my first concern was and it was the Cultural Practitioners and so thank you for explaining that. And I suppose you do include that topic in your community outreaches for our Cultural Practitioners and stuff MR. FRIDAY: One of the things that we try toand of course we try and tailor our presentation to each audience. We think the audience—do they need an introduction to `ohi`a? So when we give something to the Hawaiian Cultural Center in Kona, there are people there that don't have day to day experience. Here in East Hawaii, you see `ohi`a trees everywhere, every day, you know what `ohi`a is. If you live in a Puna subdivision, you live it, you don't need to be introduced to `ohi`a. If you live in a new subdivision in Kona, maybe you need that so when we go there, we start out with a whole presentation on "What is `ohi`a, why is it important?" And the habitat, the watershed, the cultural values, the associations with the various Hawaiian deities and all that stuff We do discuss that to audiences where we think need that introduction. And as I say, some of the audiences, they are already beyond us in that. MS. DAVID: I think everybody on this island needs that information that you give. So thank you very much for all that you do and thank you for answering my questions. Mahalo. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman David. Councilwoman Ruggles. MS. RUGGLES: Mahalo, Chair. Thank you for the presentation, I just had a few quick questions. How many species of `ohi`a are there? MR. FRIDAY: There are eight named varieties, metrosideros polymorpha when the molecular biologist gets done there may be more, but right now if you look in the botanical text books there are eight named varieties. There are four other species in metrosideros here. So for example on Oahu, you have metrosideros tremuloides, ahihi I think, the leaves tremble like `olapa. I was thinking—but yes, `olapa. So that's the native Hawaiian ones. Across the Pacific there are about 25 species. I'm actually headed to New Zealand soon, they've got half a dozen of their own species there and they're very concerned about this disease. But New Zealand has really draconian biosecurity. Page 20 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MS. RUGGLES: And if I heardI just want to make sure I heard this correctly, you haven't' been able to experiment with every strain or every species? MR. FRIDAY: Absolutely not, we're just starting the experiments on a couple different species. MS. RUGGLES: Okay. And my last question is, have you reached out to ISA (International Society of Arborists) to access all of the arborists on the island to make sure that they're being educated in how to properly take down an `Ohi`a? MR. FRIDAY: The sanitation stuff, we have been working with the arborists. Thank you for the reminder because I owe them an article from Hawaiian Landscape on the 12th. We put in articles on Rapid `Ohi`a Death in Hawaiian Landscape, we're working on developing training for credentials for the certified ones who want credentials. However, I think that's only about 10 percent of all the people who cut trees, but we're going to do what we can and start with the certified ones and then recommend them and hope that percolates down to some of the other ones. MS. RUGGLES: Yeah, I know a lot of arborists who really care deeply about this issue and from what they say, they haven't heard anything from the International Society of Arborists that helps—that's making sure that all the arborists around the island are properly disposing them and taking down the trees, so I think that's pretty important. MR. FRIDAY: Yes. Agreed. MS. RUGGLES: That's all I have, thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman O'Hara. MS. O'HARA: Again, this strategic plan that we're encouraging the State to adopt in the resolution that's upcoming, helps with identifying best practices, does it not? MR. FRIDAY: Yes. MS. O'HARA: Yes, it does? Okay, so those are things that can help with educating arborists and also educating our County employees who work in areas where this is of concern, where they could be tracking the spores or the fungus. Also, what suggestions might you have for the County to implement in terms of sanitation? I know that foot baths are needed for trekking into say the National Forests and things like that. What other suggestions might there be for things that the County can do and implement, for say our parks that might be at risk and things like that to prevent further spread? Page 21 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 MR. FRIDAY: The same things for arborists, I think the main thing there is sanitation of equipment. I think one other thing that could be very helpful would be steam pressure washing because then you're heating metal up to a degree that will kill the spores on it. And the main thing is moving material around and I'm actually—it's a good question, what does Parks (Department of Parks and Recreation) do if they have to cut down an `Ohi`a tree in a park? What do they do with it? We should probably talk with Parks about what they do with things like that. We have talked both with—we have talked with the State Department of Transportation and yes, one of the difficulties is they have road crews and they just zoom around and trim things here and there and move around. So that is another way of moving things around on the road sides. MS. YANGER: I have a little update to that. So the Big Island Invasive Species Committee had scheduled couple trainings, one on the west side, one on the east side with DOT (Department of Transportation) and I will be involved in those as well. MS. O'HARA: It would be great if we could extend that to our guys as well at Highways, so maybe something that we can work towards. Also, Corie may be able to speak on this, after the summit in December I think it was, that was held up at the capitol MS. YANGER: November. MS. O'HARA: November? Okay. We had a little discussion and your facility here in Hilo where I watched the presentation, there were many of the stakeholder groups that you identified at the beginning of your slideshow where they're including nature conservancy and others. There was talk about putting on an `Ohi`a love festival which will tackle public awareness more from the cultural side say than from the scientific/technical side and I'd like to know the status of that effort is. MS. YANGER: Thank you for asking that question. Yes, so we have collaborators from the State Division of Forestry and Wildlife and we are working to host an `Ohi`a Love Festival that's scheduled right now for August 12th Saturday. It will be held at Imiloa Astronomy Center and we're definitely looking to make it a holistic celebration of `Ohi`a so the cultural aspects, economic aspects, as well as the biological and ecological aspects of `ohi`a forests. So we're looking to get many, many people involved and we're getting the organization off the ground now. MR. FRIDAY: I think one of the things we're trying to do is have positive messages. It's easy to be problem -focused, I know I tend to be focused on the Page 22 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 problem and think problems but it gets depressing after a while. So to have a positive message about things is something that I think with the `Ohi`a Love Fest is they're working on pulling that together. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Councilwoman Lee Loy. MS. LEE LOY: Chair, I know you have a strict rule of an hour, so I'm not sure if you want to take a break or CHR. RICHARDS: No, we'll finish this. MS. LEE LOY: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Friday, thank you so much, there's a few things that you touched on. The watershed issue, could you repeat that piece because I understand fog drip and how important that forest is for the fog drip, which leads to the health of our aquafers. Could you repeat that piece again? I just want to understand that clearer because of what I also heard you say is you haven't been able to fully evaluate what would happen if we lose that piece. MR. FRIDAY: Well I've actually done community presentations on Forest Hydrology, but I guess the simple thing is that the rain's falling on the land, some of it is fog drip, most of it is going to be rain. Trees use water, but trees also trees and the forest as a whole also protects from soil erosion and it's particularly the stuff on the ground that protects soil erosion. So if you—if a bunch of trees die, and other trees come in, what effect does that have on how much water runs off, how much water percolates in to recharge the ground water? That's rolling the dice, it's really an unknown. It's actually very dependent on—well the faster trees grow, the more water they use. One set of studies that you see quoted a lot is someone looked at `ohi`a forest versus `ohi`a forest invaded by strawberry guava and found the `ohi`a forest by strawberry guava, the trees used a lot more water. It has a bunch of fast growing trees, the end of story. So all the water that trees use is not ground water recharged. That's just a one forest type. So if `ohi`a dies and these other weeds that come in, that's going to change the amount of water that's available for water recharge. So that's going to change. But a quantitative number on how much that is in a lava rock landscape is a very complicated answer, it's not here's the answer I'm at. The value of the watershed recharge is enormous though. And again here in wet East Hawaii, we don't have this—our water turning salty, certainly in West Hawaii they're pushing up against that as they are on the other islands. If you look at what would cost to desalinate sea water instead of tapping our fresh water, it's in the billions of dollars. So again what you're doing—the potential economic cost is changing a little fraction of something that is billions of dollars of value, so it's a very Page 23 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 potentially expensive thing toand it's clearly better to protect the forest that we have. MS. LEE LOY: Right. And that's the message, right? A little bit of prevention here saves us billions down the road. MR. FRIDAY: It would be absolutely ridiculous to let our forests go because we don't want to bother protecting them now and have to turn around, and the next generation have to be desalinating sea water for our drinking water or our irrigation water. MS. LEE LOY: I also had a question regarding your LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) mapping. There was aI guess somebody had been doing some flyovers. Have you folks been able to apply that to some of the GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping that we have available here at the County? MR. FRIDAY: I'm not sure how—so this is Greg Asner, the Carnegie Institute and I don't know that he has worked with the County GIS at all. The GIS layers that he is adding to his lighter imagery are mostly state there's a statewide GIS program so he's putting in mostly the state layers which tend to be the geophysical layers. I think the County is more planning and property layers than the geophysical stuff MS. LEE LOY: Absolutely, but from a planning perspective and a land use designation, if we could get that layer to show some areas whether it's through elevation through these mapping tools, where we could actually begin to protect areas or conserve areas which would then rehabilitate our forests. So I just was wondering if there was an ability to kind of use that layer and add it on to the ones we have here. MR. FRIDAY: Yes, he'll be—they're still crunching—there was a lot of data, they're still crunching to come up with their results. But he said that the results of that will be publicly available and probablyI mean I believe it's going to be including actual layers that you could incorporate into the GIS system. MS. LEE LOY: Great. And then the one last piece I wanted you to repeat, what's going on at our East Hawaii landfill facility? There's a mulching piece, like you heat up and then the composting piece. Could you repeat that one more time please? MR. FRIDAY: Sure. So currently, what is going on is the—you can bring in a pickup truck full of green waste and they grind it up and they make a pile of it and someone else can pick it up in an hour and take it away. They've also started grinding up and putting it into wind rows, these long piles and those wind rows are turned, they have to be turned five times, and they monitor the temperature of Page 24 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 that. They're transitioning—so there's a whole separate area right below the regular area, they're transitioning to make it so when they chip the stuff up it's not available for people to take, but they're going to compost it all. So everything will be run through that composting process and it won't be the pickup stuff that was chipped an hour ago, it's got the little coqui frog that missed the chipper and the fire ants and the `ohi`a death in it. MS. LEE LOY: Because you also mentioned the piece that the Mayor cancelled the contract on. Because I have a community who thinks composting is composting., so I wanted to be clear that mulching and chipping is different from a particular type of composting. And then the organic—adding in that food organic piece, so I need help explaining a very complex situation through these different processes. MR. FRIDAY: The green waste composting is just done on a flat area with turning the stuff on it. The food -waste composting is another facility that is building another facility in another location which is a separate facility. And I didn't know until Friday that these were two whole separate things and it was only the food -wasting composting, then it got into the other stuff So that's a separate facility than the green waste composting and I don't think there's any of the issue with noise or odor or certainly the—at least was giving an understanding down at the buffer. There's no additional noise or odor other than the chipping that's been going on for years and years. MS. LEE LOY: Great. Thank you, that's helpful. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilwoman O'Hara. MS. O'HARA: I understand Ms. Lee Loy's concern because the use of the word composting can set off—well it justin understanding what we're doing in East Hawaii and I'm glad that you recently visited on Friday because I recently visited it as well. The mulching is the mulching. It's just shredding green waste wood, whatever is brought in and if you take it away fresh, you're at risk of all kinds of pathogens as well as insects, etc. The wind row approach is kind of a low tech form of composting for lack of a better term. And all they're putting into the wind row is the mulch so we have sufficient water here in East Hawaii for that to naturally compost by turning it as you say, five times they turn it and that material is what they are now testing to see if there's little red fire ants and other invasives. And they're getting really good results from their testing. That's only occurring in East Hawaii. In West Hawaii, we don't have anything but saline water to work with at the West Hawaii Sanitary Landfill, so they're not doing that process there. And the good news about the Kona side, is at least in terms of little red fire ant, there's less. I can't really speak for ROD, but the material there has been tested and they aren't Page 25 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 finding much in the way of little red fire ant, can't speak on ROD on that because you can't really test it. So what I think Ms. Lee Loy is concerned about is the news about the Mayor cancelling the compost contract. It refers primarily to a facility that would be built to do in vessel composting and that's in the same area as the current green waste mulching area but a little bit down the road there. And that would involve the food waste and other types of organic waste that could then be made into a very high-quality compost that would be reusable by even organic farmers. So that's why there's some confusion here about using the term composting for the wind row, the turning, and I think that the term the company is using is enhanced mulch. Just so we're clear on terminology. Okay, thanks. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you. It looks like we have finished the questions from the committee. A couple quick ones for myself. Has radiation been used at all in the young saplings or anything like that to see if long-term effect—and if maybe that would clean them up since you said we can't test those prior to distributing them? MR. FRIDAY: I don't know at all if any radiation—there's been some radiation treatment for wood treatments, for living plants I have never heard of that. One thing I didn't mention is the thing too for living plants, I think would be fungicides, we're starting to work on some fungicide treatments. Fungicides for vascular wilt disease in trees however are actually—they could be prophylactic and prevent infection say for a nursery -growing seedling so that's one possibility. For mature trees, fungicides will stop the progress of the disease, but they won't get rid of the disease. So this is similar to Dutch elm disease for those of you who know the northeast and all the elms that died. Any elm that is still alive on a college campus in the northeast gets treatment every other year to keep it alive. So that kind of technology might apply to `ohi`a and we have to see if the same mechanisms delivering the fungicide work for `ohi`a as worked for elm because they're different trees, they're different vascular systems. So radiation, I think I heard something about that is another method for treating something like mulch or wood, but it's not the first thing that we're working on. It's more the vacuum steam treatment for that. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, and then as far as the antemortem sampling, I know it looks like you sectioned the trees and look at the growth rings or whatever. Can you do like a drill and drill a sample out of the core of a tree and sample that? And this is a DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) testing? Is that what I'm hearing? MR. FRIDAY: Yes, with the sampling procedures we have different procedures depending on how invasive we want to be. The best way to make sure that we see any disease in a tree is cut it down and cut it up. We can also see disease by just taking a hatchet and chopping at a tree. Often—almost always, if the fungus is in Page 26 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 the tree, it will be within half an inch of the bark, but that will kill the tree too. If we don't want to kill the tree, we've taken a drill and drilled at several points around the circumference of the tree and crack through the shavings. Now for the shavings, the lab does two tests. First, it looks for the DNA which could be done in a few hours . Second, it tries to culture out live fungus because you could have fungal DNA that's dead, but it does both. So yes, drill sampling is one thing that they want to do, it's quicker and easier than anything else. It's less disfiguring but it's still not good for trees, so we don't have a non-invasive way of sampling trees. We don't have a way we can just take a swab without hurting the tree. But the drill sampling is the closest we go to that. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay, thank you. I think that comes to the end of our questions, so I'd like to thank you again for your time and information. Again, this is educational, hope you enjoyed this. With that, we'll call for the vote on closure. Vote on Comm. 87: The motion to close file on Comm. 87 was carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kanuha, Lee Loy, O'Hara, Poindexter, Ruggles, and Chair Richards — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. RICHARDS: We are closed, thank you very much. And now we come to the end of our committee meeting. ORDER OF The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, RESOLUTIONS: Order of Resolutions. (There were none.) BILLS FOR The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, ORDINANCES: Bills for Ordinances. (There were none.) Page 27 AWESC-2 February 7, 2017 ADJOURN There being no further business, at 12:30 p.m., Ms. Poindexter moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Ms. David and carried by the Following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Eoff, Kanuha, Lee Loy, O'Hara, Poindexter, Ruggles, and Chair Richards — 9. Noes: None. Absent: None. Excused: None. CHR. RICHARDS: We stand adjourned. Approved: L Z'I I Zb t7 Mr. Herbert M. "lint" Richards, III, Chair (Date) Agriculture, Water, and Energy Sustainability Committee HRJm Page 28