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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMIN AWEEMC 2020/02/18 2018-2020 Committee on Agriculture, Water, Energy, and Environmental Management 16th Session West Hawaii Civic Center 74-5044 Ane Keohokalole Highway, Building A Kailua-Kona, Hawai i February 18, 2020 CALL TO The regular meeting of the Committee Agriculture, Water, Energy, and ORDER: Environmental Management was called to order at 11:02 a.m. in the Council Chambers, Kailua-Kona, by Mr. Herbert M "Tim" Richards, III, Chair. ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Herbert M "Tim" Richards, III, Chair Mr. Matt Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Vice Chair (via videoconference from Hilo) Mr. Aaron S. Y. Chung, Member Ms. Maile Medeiros David, Member Ms. Ashley L. Kierkiewicz, Member Ms. Susan L. K. Lee Loy, Member (via videoconference from Hilo) Ms. Valerie T. Poindexter, Member Ms. Rebecca Villegas, Member Absent& Excused: Ms. Karen Eoff, Member STATEMENTS Chair David directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, FROM THE Statements from the Public on Agenda Items. PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: (There were none.) COMMUNI- The Chair directed the Committee to proceed to the next order of business, CATIONS: Communications. Comm 744: REQUESTS A PRESENTATION BY JEFF KNOWLES FROM THE KONA SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT REGARDING RESOURCE CONCERNS From Council Member Maile David, dated January 30, 2020. Motion to Close File: Maile David moved to close file on Comm. 744. Seconded by Ms. Poindexter. CHR. RICHARDS: Councilwoman David, I'm going to turn this over to you. MS. DAVID: Mahalo, Chair. And good morning and aloha, Mr. Knowles, for being here today. And just briefly, Council Members, Mr. Knowles will be AWEEMC-16 February 18,2020 presenting or describing to us the Kona Soil and Water Conservation District's work with farmers and ranchers in resolving some resource concerns when it deals with our soil. They've also done a lot of community outreach and education with the non-resident farmers which is an important thing. And also their work in informing the public of land management practices to improve our fragile soils. Of note,they have also worked and partnered with the Leo's Club from Konawaena High School. And that is very exciting. So Mr. Knowles, thank you for being here. And you can proceed whenever you're ready. Mahalo. (Note: At this time, Mr. Jeff Knowles, District Conservationist with the Kona Soil and Water Conservation District came forward to address the members of the Committee.) MR. KNOWLES: Aloha, County Committee. I'm really honored to be here. Just a quick introduction of myself. I've spent the last 40 years in the field of soil and water conservation, natural resources protection. I started in Iowa. Graduated in 1980 in Agronomy. I spent the 80's in Iowa working with Iowa farmers in four different Counties. The 90's in Wisconsin, 12 different Counties in the western part of Wisconsin. Transferred here in 2002 as a district conservationist for the Kona district, the Natural Resources Conservation Service. My wife came along with me. She's a register at Konawaena. We're both very integrated into our community. I am honored to be a part of this community. The last 10 years I've been retired. But I've done a lot of international work. Twelve assignments with international agencies for international development. Last December I completed an assignment with the Fulbright Specialist Program in Tunisia. Anyway, I'm here today to explain a little bit about our efforts to outreach to the Kona community. It's my belief that Kona is some of the most fragile land of anywhere in the United States, for that matter, the world. And I believe we have a lot of ignorance here within our community. So our efforts are basically to inform our community on some of our fragile concerns we have here within the Kona district. So I'll move along. I have about a half hour. This presentation, by the way, summarizes the resource book that we put together about two years ago. So this is a summary of that. And I thank, Maile, Karen, and Dru at that time for helping to fund this. (Note: At this time, Mr. Knowles came forward and provided 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. 744.1.) Page 2 AWEEMC-16 February 18,2020 MR. KNOWLES: So anyway, last summer, I think it was in June, I gave a presentation to the Leo's Club of Kona. I asked them for their help. I said that, you know, we've got to get this message out to the public, the district. I believe we have not done this. We have not done a very good job. So they are very enthusiastic and they do want to help. What they've done is they've taken the resource concerns that we have in this booklet and they put it into five posters. So what they're doing, they've sent out about 100 letters along with these posters to businesses here in Kona. And that we're trying to seek some funding to do additional mailings to, I think, the 400 businesses that are listed in The Source. The magazine, The Source. And this is theI have some copies of this. If you'd like I can leave these with you. But that's what we're trying to do. So you may hear some messages come out from some high school students. We're going to probably do some poster distribution around businesses. And at one time we hope to have a planting, maybe if we can talk a business into, instead of leaving your area bare rocks, continue to spray, let's get it vegetated and try to get a message out. Any questions? MS. DAVID: Thank you, Mr. Knowles. Council Members? Go ahead. I'll defer right now, Mr. Chair. CHR. RICHARDS: You're going to turn it back to me? MS. DAVID: Yes. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Thank you, Ms. David. So opening up to the Council for any questions. I'm not seeing any here in Kona right now. Hilo? Speak up because I don't have any visual of you guys. Matt or Sue, do you have any questions? Hearing none MS. LEE LOY: No, Chair. Sorry. Sorry. CHR. RICHARDS: Do you have a question? MS. LEE LOY: Matthew does. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: I do, Chair. Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Okay. Go ahead, Matt. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Not so much a question. I just appreciate the information, Jeff. Thank you for putting this presentation together. And for Hilo, we have a lot of water. And our soil ranges from wonderful to going mush. That's what I have in my yard. So this is a really—it may not be the most interesting topic but it is very important in regards to Ag and how we continue to build out. And for Kona, even more so because there really is not a lot of soil in Page 3 AWEEMC-16 February 18,2020 Kona. And the way we use it and the way we build it is incredibly important. So I just appreciate what you put together today. Thank you. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you, Matt. Ms. Villegas. MS. VILLEGAS: Aloha. Thanks for being here, Jeff. Great presentation. Lots of incredible information, personally and professionally. It's also fantastic validation of a lot of the topics of conversation in presentations that happened around Bill 101. I am still hopeful that at some point it will become law that we will transition any and all usage on County properties. But I just wanted to thank you for putting this together today and for your hard work, not only here in our County, but what you're doing internationally. We have the privilege of so many more resources than a lot of places do. And it's just about survival. And I'm just really grateful for your sharing of that knowledge with people who may inadvertently be sabotaging and injuring the longevity of their soils and their ability to farm. And with that I hope for and would love to continue to work together to make sure that we aren't doing that here as well and jeopardizing the long-term health and wellbeing, not only of the people but of our soil. Because it is our largest carbon sequestration resource. So thank you for all that you're doing and the work that you're doing with the youth in our community to inspire them and show them ways that they can get their hands dirty, quite literally, and help to protect that sacred soil that we have so little of. But that what we have we want to make sure isn't flowing into our reefs and transitioning other ecosystems in a negative capacity. So thank you for being here and sharing this with us. Really appreciate you. I yield. CHR. RICHARDS: Thank you. Any other question? Seeing none. Last time Hilo? MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Chair, I have one more comment. CHR. RICHARDS: Go ahead. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So in your presentation you said, or you quoted, "Where the rain goes, the forest follows." If we were to plant and start reforesting Kona, do you think we could rebuild a watershed in Kona? MR. KNOWLES: Well we haven't lost our watershed. We've lost a lot of the trees in the watershed. But, yes. We can certainly improve our watershed by further planting trees. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: What would it take? It's a big question, but Page 4 AWEEMC-16 February 18,2020 MR. KNOWLES: We have a lot of—most of our uplands and ranch lands, and most of it is still active ranch land as far as I know. Most of our big ranchers, they all have a fairly large chunk of native forest along with of course a lot of ranch land next to it. Instead of problems that will entice ranchers into converting from ranch land to native trees I don't know any other way to do it. They have had some federal programs that's done that. We had a grass land reserve program. But I'm really not aware of any ranchers here in Kona taking the government up on that opportunity. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: So what is that program? MR. KNOWLES: Well there was the grass land reserve program. But it's since gone away. And there has been some other easement programs. I can't remember them off the top of my head. We did have one go take place in Kona on the Pace property (Tom Pace property). But I don't know the name of that program. I can get back to Maile and maybe she can get it to you. MR. KANEALI`I-KLEINFELDER: Yeah. That would be great. Anything we can do to get more water on that coast, given our population growth and our climate change. The effects of it I think will be amazing and much needed. MR. KNOWLES: Well thank you very much, Committee. And I'll leave these if you'd be so kind as to take a look at this just to respect what our high school kids are trying to do. And also if you have any comments on how we can maybe further our efforts and educate the public more, please let us know. CHR. RICHARDS: So I'm going to wrap it up here pretty quick. Any other questions or comments? Seeing none, I do also want to thank you for coming before us. You said 1980 you graduated, so you're old enough to have worked with SCS (Soil Conservation Service) instead of NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service). MR. KNOWLES: I started with Soil Conservation in Iowa, yes. CHR. RICHARDS: Yeah. And that was the original predecessor to NRCS. And I do want to again thank you for your efforts in education. I think as the conversation has pointed out,the direction that we're headed is good. And I won't argue the point that we have to do a better job stewarding. To follow up on the question on the ranchers. Our native forests exist because of our ranchers, not in spite of our ranchers, because they manage those resources. And we're fortunate. The national statistics of our nation in forest is about 28 percent of our nation is forested. Hawaii, our State is 48 percent. And so we're doing actually quite well. Page 5 AWEEMC-16 February 18,2020 To the point of soil management, that is something we need to do a better job at it. And I also appreciate your fact that the conversation around the invasive species. That is a tough one. And we have to do better at our ports in preventing things from coming in and managing. And I love your comments concerning appropriate use of herbicide. Limited, but be sure you use all their appropriate directions and follow appropriately. So with that, again, thank you so much. I do look forward to talking to you offline. Seeing nothing else, we have a motion to close file, all signify by saying LC " aye. Vote on Comm 744: The motion to close file on Comm. 744 was carried by the Filed following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Villegas, and Chair Richards —8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Eoff— 1. Excused: None. CHR. RICHARDS: So with that,that is the end of our agenda. Motion to adjourn? ADJOURN- There being no further business, at 11:32 a.m., Ms. David moved to adjourn the MENT: meeting. Seconded by Ms. Villegas and carried by the following voice vote: Ayes: Committee Members Chung, David, Kaneali`i-Kleinfelder, Kierkiewicz, Lee Loy, Poindexter, Villegas, and Chair Richards —8. Noes: None. Absent: Committee Member Eoff— 1. Excused: None. Page 6 I { AWEEMC-16 February 18,2020 CHR. RICHARDS: We stand adjourned. Approved: 15 r 1 t• : Mr. Herbert M."Tim"Richards, III, Chair, (Date) Agriculture, Water, Energy, and Environmental Management Committee HR/tk Page 7