HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0358.001 1998-2000 c~{ctcvaii oTo2s~talEs c~\~ ~,c:
P.O. Box 2791 Kamuela, Hawaii 96743
'99 JUL 20 RIB 10 31
NEW Board of Directors
Bishop Estate CCUw; r;~~;;;.,
COUN11' GF HAW,NI
KSBE
Honolulu, Hawaii 96743
I have enclosed my year old testimony but it refers to November 14, 1997 and the
outpouring of anger toward Bishop Estate and the State Board of Land and Natural
Resources and Mayor Yamashiro -33 separate organizations and hundreds of
inidiviuals from all over East and West Hawaii denounced the crass attitude of
Bishop Estate and its lessee, Prudential Timber (alias Prudential Insurance, with all of
the heman kindness of a rack), in burr~;ng gists and fielfCds with no fire safety
precautions, after inundating the areas with heavy doers of poison so that the resulting
smoke could take the paint off a car or melt the cilia in a child's lungs, not to mention
poinson our catchment water systems and poison our fields.
The latest, and the last straw is the ridiculously unfair land swap being perpetrated
right now, and we prided that once again Bishop Estate will be dragged rightfully
through the mud. Why should we the citizens of Hamakua, lose 66-0 acres of prime
land with two standing forests in return for what, a two acre parking lot at a Hilo Surf
spot?
WHere is your conscience? Gone the way of Marjorie Bronster? I feel that you
new members of the trustees may not even know that for years now Bishop Estate (and
its lessee Prudential Timber) have been pumpiong tons of Garlon and Round-Up into
our ground (and thus ground water) and planting a devastating 15000 acres of weed
trees for pulp production -permanently defgacing the land and renderinig it utterly
useless as faun land or pasture or any other type of agriculture, because eucalyptus
is diffecuit -read impossible-to get rid of, and the stumps are like steel and will last
five generations longer than you folks. This to produce trees that will be worth 90
cents each at the eage of 7 years. THis land abounded in Ape , a strong indicator that
you could have grown enough taro to supply all of Polynesia and California as well as
Hawaii. Corn se!!s for 99 cents an ear in our supennaricets. une cornstalk prduces
several ears, wouldn't that have been a faster, easier, more profitable, and certainlyl less
Comm. No.
Pile No. _
Kef. To: - . ~ ~
Ref. Date 2 4 1999
destructive crop to raise? Besides, you wouldn't have created the unbelilvable fire
hazard that has already reached a height of fifteen feet in many of the fields. Oh, you
say, quotiing Mike Wilson, "wet forests don't burn." We are now in the third month of
the second drought in two and a half years at this location-and I am just across the fence
from the 660 acres you are planning to steal from Hawaii County this week. During
the last one, in 1996 we did not get ONE DROP of rain for five months. OPnce
cigarette and we would have had a holocaust, had the eucalyptus trees been up and
mm~ing . Bishop Estate is going to be remembered by posterity as the underlying cause
of the most devastating fire ever to hit the islands, and it will probably happen before
the yeaz 2010, taking out homes, schools, utility lines, closing roads that might provide
escape, and making Kilauea look like a kitchen fire by comparison. You are in the
drivers s eats now----YOU can stop this disaster.
As a first step, I ask, i BEG you, DO NOT EXPAND THIS HORRIBLE MENACE<
THE PULPING AND BURNING OF HAMAKUA!
Please put someone witih a conscience on this matter and have them exert some
control over the brain-dead planners who do care a whit about the Hawiian Peole or
the People of Hawaii . Plow some or all of these sprouting Eucalyptus under befrore it
is too late, and get some food crops or coffee or some nice controllable TIMBEWR
tree on that land. Koa sells for $35 a board foot. Eucalyptus is trash, used world
wide to make paper. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that in the long run (and
BIshop Estate purports to be in it for th a long haul) KOA would make much more
sense than eucalyptus.
THere has abeeis a change at the tope---you would be seen as conscientious to change
in mid stream now, because it iwas the likes of Jarwis and Lindsay who put the
almighty dollar first and education and Hawaiian culture last. THese lands aze on the
very brink of historic Waipio, and valueable in and of themselves. PLEASE come over
here and let us show you want is going on.
Myl telephone number is 987-1441. I belong to a group called Friends of Hamakua,
of more than 2000 membership ---a group formed in 1997 to confront Bishop Estate
and its heavy handed spraying from thair over out landscape and the policy of bruising
poisoned fields no matt ewhich way the wind blew.
We are still here. We are still devastated by Bishop Estate Policy. You can change.
Please pleas look Tinto this matter and for gods sake stop the immdiate effort to take over
and cut down our precious WAIKOEKOE FOREST on the 660 acre parcel along Mud
Lanes!t!!!!!!tt!!t!!i!!!!!!!!!!!!i!!!ii!t
Thank You ~j ~
p~~~% ~ i' hN~
Lynn Nakkim
I
Peat I?i~fce Box 2781 KamtueMa Basoati 88743
August 28, 1998
TESTIMDNY Lynn Boerner Nakkim
Good Evening. My Name is Lynn Boerner Nakkim and i own and operate a Paint Horse
Breeding Farm in Hamakua at Waikcekoe. I own 57 acres, and lease an additional 123 /
acres.
Because my 199#, 199Rand 199,j lease proposals to the Bishop Estate, Hawaii County, and
the State of Hawaii were turned down, I was forced to lease 4 pastures in Pahala, 100 miles
away, for the period from 1993 through 1996,
In the summer of 1997 I wrote up a business expansion proposal for an equestran
educational program and made a formal request to lease the 660 acre paracel along my malcpi
border. Mayor Yamashire wrote back that the land belonged to the State. f requested a leasg
from the state, and the State BLNR responded that the land belonged to the County.
I did not get the lease. One reason I am testifying today is because I still want to lease that
land, and I could easily share it with a cattle operation and a koa reforestation project so long
as they were done without chemical poisons. This parcel is part of the lands under
consideration for a swap to Bishop Estate.
Please, please, do not put any more of Hamakua's land in the hands of Bishop Estate. They
will only lease it to Prudential Timber, which has proved itself to be a very bad neighbor indeed,
repeatedly inundating their fields with garlon and round-up sprayed from airplanes and
helicopters.
Eucalyptus Monocrops are generally planted in Third World Countries around the globe, on
dry otherwise worthless wastelands. How many times must we point out to government officials
that Hamakua is not an arid wasteland, and that our land would be put to much better use
growing sweet com, taro, sweet potatoes, bananas, papayas, cattle, horses, koa, vanilla,
cocoa, and hundreds of crops that are more valuable than pulp timber crops. And the good
part is with these other uses you can change your mind, and the land will still be productive.
After four or five eucaly ptus crops this landscape will be a useless wasteland of stumps-
hardy, almost indestructible eucalyptus stumps. Once committed, you realty can't go back.
And then there is the fire hazard. Oakland California exploded in flames a few years ago,
and the property damage and loss of life were shocking. What fueled that fire? Eucalypptus.
Just decorative stands, not closely planted stands. Imagine the conflagration when thousands
of acres of Eucalyptus suffer the kind of four month drought we had at Waikcekce in 1997.
Prudential Timber has not set ouot 120 foot wide fire lanes around their plantings. One stray
cigarette from a passing car and homes and power lines will bum, exit roads will be closed by
fire. Hilo fire stations coudn't contain the tow brush fires that Turned for days near Pahoa
this year, imagine what it will be like with a forest of tall inflamable trees.
Hawaii should be turning toward production of food, educational activities, and recreational
areas for ourselves and our tourist guests. We are not a Third World Country. Hamakua is not
a wasteland.
Please lease this land to Hawaii ranchers and farmers to make out future bright and
prcuctive, and don't put us in the shade of the pulp timber industry and ita biggest promoter,
Bishop Estate. -/7/'„
Thank you.~t~ (f~~i`EJGc-~-~- //la"~„'""`"-~.
Lynn Bcemer Nakkim
Hawaii Horsetales Ranch