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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024_08_20 Game Management Advisory Commission MinutesGame Management Advisory Commission County of Hawai’i Minutes Meeting Date: August 20, 2024 Time: 9:00 am to 11:00 pm Place: Zoom and In-Person at 25 Aupuni Ctr., Ste. #1501, Hilo HI 1. CALL TO ORDER/ROLL CALL: At 9:02 am by Chair Turalde the following. District 1 - Robert Duerr, Present, in person District 2 – Vacant District 3 – Rhon Leomana Turalde, Present, in person District 4 – Brian Ley – Present, in person District 5 - Vacant District 6 – Vacant District 7 – Natalie Reynolds, Absent District 8 – Cortney Okumura – Present via Zoom District 9 – Justin Ackerman – Present via Zoom Quorum Established with 5 in attendance. STAFF: Inha Kandatsu Kang, Deputy Attorney, Corporation Counsel – in person Barbara Kossow, Administrative Specialist – via Zoom LT: Aloha. A couple of housekeeping rules I’d like to make sure all the cell phones are turned off or put to silent – to all of us attending in person please remember to speak into the microphone. Under HRS. 92-3 – the Sunshine Law – GMAC may remove any person willfully disrupting a meeting to prevent or compromise the conduct of all meetings. All persons appearing before GMAC Commission are reminded to conduct themselves in a courteous manner. Testimony – those in person, if you would like to testify, please fill out the public statement registration form. Mahalo. And if you have Zoom, please write in the Chat the agenda item that you would like to testify on. For questions from the public, the Commission doesn’t really allow questions from the public but because we are a Game Management Advisory Commission and our Commission is responsible for inter-acting with a lot of our hunters, we might take questions at the discretion of the Chair. If you would like to pose a question – you can put it in the Chat and depending on how the meeting is going, we may or may not answer that question. Thank you. For those of you on Zoom – remember the Chat is not being recorded so please put your statements in there and we’ll allow you to speak. If you would like to speak or have a comment, please raise your hand on top of Zoom. And just a reminder to all the GMAC Commission members – when you wish to speak, please acknowledge the district you come from and your first and last name. Mahalo. 1 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: June 18, 2024, and July 16, 2024 LT: And now we can move on to our agenda items. We’re moving on to the approval of minutes – did everyone get a chance to look over the minutes? OK. Can I get someone to make a motion to pass the minutes? BL: Brian Ley, District – 4, I make a motion that we approve the minutes from last meeting. CO: This is Cortney, District – 8, I think we have two sets of minutes to approve, is that correct? LT: That’s right. The two meetings, yes, so we have the first set of minutes from June 18, 2024. We have a motion on the table. CO: Cortney, District – 8, I second. LT: We have a motion and a second to pass the minutes. Any discussion? Don’t see any discussion, ah, roll call vote in favor of passing the minutes… District – 1? RD: Aye. LT: District – 2, vacant. District – 3? Aye. District – 4? BL: Aye. LT: District – 7? Not here. District – 8? CO: Aye. LT: District – 9? JA: Aye. Action: Motion made by B. Ley to approve the minutes of June 18, 2024, as circulated. Seconded by C. Okumura. Motion carried by voice poll vote with 5 ayes, no nays, one absent. LT: We have all ayes. The minutes pass. Now looking towards the minutes for July – which his one sheet – you guys get that one, the real fast – our last meeting with Sylvia. OK. Can I get a motion to accept and pass the minutes from July 16 please? CO: This is Cortney, District – 8, so moved. RD: Seconded, District – 1. LT: OK. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on that fast meeting? OK. Roll call vote, District – 1? RD: Aye. 2 LT: District – 2, vacant. District – 3, aye. District – 4? BL: Aye. LT: District – 5? District – 6, vacant. District – 7, Excused. District – 8? CO: Aye. LT: District – 9. JA: Aye. Action: Motion made by C. Okumura to approve the minutes of July 16, 2024 as circulated. Seconded by R. Duerr. Motion carried by voice poll vote with 5 ayes, no nays, one absent. LT: Yes, sir, all ayes, the minutes pass. Thank you, guys very much. All right, moving on to statements from the public. Ah, just a reminder, if you have a statement here in person or on Zoom, please put it in the Chat – state your name, the agenda item. OK. 3. STATEMENTS FROM THE PUBLIC ON AGENDA ITEMS: LT: One of the public members, aloha. Can you please state your name and your testimony. NP: OK. Can you hear me? LT: We can hear you. NP: Oh, great, thank you, sorry, I’m having technical problems this morning. I was going to use my tablet, but it won’t work for me, anyway, you know how that goes – all of a sudden a last minute panic, but, hello, good morning everybody. LT: Good morning. NP: My name is Nani Pogline – a former GMAC Commissioner – I would like to make a comment from the public on agenda item 8 under Announcements, if I could please. I would like to th announce that Sunday morning August 11. There were 14 hunters and fishermen that gathered together at Mauna Kea Park on Saddle Road and it was a really beautiful sight to see all these people show up for the cause and they came to show concerns – share observations from the field and former Chair Abraham Antonio gave some history of GMAC and, there was discussion about working with GMAC, which I thought would be so fantastic and, then there was discussion of forming a possible group and, among the names of the group one might be Hawaii Wildlife Alliance, which for me this is these kind of gatherings are such a dream because being in GMAC you always want to see the hunters and gatherers become active and supportive and involved and so I just wanted to share that wonderful event fantastic 14 hunters and fisherman gathering together – smart and wanting to fight for the cause. I just wanted to share that wonderful news. Thank you so much. 3 LT: Mahalo, Nani. Thank you for the announcement, thank you guys for all of your hard work. Do we have any discussion from the Commission of the comments from the public? Nope? Thank you – just to get this correct – the name of the group is Hawaii Hunters Alliance, correct? RD: I think she said Wildlife Alliance. LT: Oh, Wildlife Alliance. OK. Ka la mai. Cortney, aloha? CO: Thank you, Chair. Nani, I was just curious, if any of the folks who attended the meeting were interested in serving from – in any of the vacant districts? NP: OK. I’m sorry, I’m still having problems. I’m sure, I mean, you know, I didn’t get to that point but, it’s just a tremendous resource for GMAC to have a group out there interested hunters and fishermen. CO: Wonderful. Hopefully, I don’t know if any contact information was shared but I’d be happy to talk to anyone or whatever. NP: I did get a list and I’m trying to make it all out, you know, handwriting with the sign up of the group, but, yeah, absolutely, so, you can contact me about that, or I could definitely email you the contact list when I get it typed up. CO: Wonderful, thank you, Nani. NP: Thank you. LT: Leomana, District – 3, I think right now one of the group members are actually signing in to become the Commissioner for District – 5, Mr. Wong Chong. OK, just one last one for me, Nani, if you can, maybe by the next commission meeting have a couple of ways that the GMAC Commission can help the group, maybe like three different points on how we can support the group and three different points on how the group can support and aid GMAC in our mission and if you can share that with us then, we’ll be set-up for the rest of the year on the communication and how to work together with the group – that would be amazing, thank you very much. LT: No more discussion from the Commissioners, all right, we’re moving on to statements from the public – we’re done with our statements. Agenda item number 4 – Commissioner Reports by District, so we can start at District – 1. 4. COMMISSIONER REPORT BY DISTRICT: RD: District – 1, Robert Duerr, just a general update on – I took my boat out of the channel – they working on the channel – they’ve basically dredged side areas – channel still is at low levels, it’s better than it was but it’s still low levels – they haven’t really gone into the channel yet. Another, just a couple of things of, there was a report that larvicide besides releasing 250 million genetically modified mosquitos throughout Hawaii, there’s also reports that they’re using 4 Larvicide – which is a poison to kill mosquitos, mosquito larvae, that report’s not been substantiated by DLNR reports with specifics. The other thing too is, there’s been reports that aerial spraying of herbicides is also happening on the mountain. It might be something of interest to find out just what these herbicides, how much and how the application’s going and taking a look at some of the details of this. Both of these would both seemingly have EA assessments with reports on exactly what they’re doing. That’s all I have for District – 1. LT: Thank you. Any questions? Nope? We’re moving – you know what property that is, I mean, maybe you can tell us a little bit more about that later, on herbicide \[unclear\]. Ah, moving on to District – 3. For District – 3, a lot of the big concerns are coming from the airport road – I don’t know what’s going on in back of the airport, or the mall area by the dump but it’s driving a lot of the – like always the pigs out back into the front of the entrance of the airport. Last week it caused a traffic jam. We had at the top of Waiakea-Uka a lot more people buying the properties up there in the last two months so, I think, oh, about a mile of fencing went in and it’s driving more pigs on to my road. Other than that, I spoke with most of the mayoral candidates about the water treatment facility and its pollution into our fishing village of Keaukaha – they all claimed that they have a lot of focus going into repairing our wastewater treatment that pollutes the water and, that is the update me for District – 3. Thank you. Next – District – 4. BL: Brian Ley, District – 4. A sustainable herd of pigs still in Puna. We’re doing really good, so we don’t have to worry about that – running out of food any time soon. \[Unclear\] And, I reported several months ago about an incident on Puna trail – Kololi Point – where some guy with a hatchet, half dressed, was threatening people claiming people he was a DOFAW officer and Jackson Bower said, ah, told the person that they would never see him again, but a couple weeks, months ago – I didn’t get a chance to share this at the last meeting – ran in to the guy, same place, same situation – screaming obscenities at her and everything and Jackson Bower went on vacation and is not answering emails on that one. Pohoiki ramp – I know they were supposed to start dredging on that – haven’t heard anything, \[unclear\] you know, it’s \[unclear\] all over the time on that one and there was a meeting with Dr. Kimo Sunday with a bunch of disgruntled hunters and gatherers talking to him about what he would do as Mayor as far as addressing these issues with – I know the one gentleman that was talking there’s a legal suit going on Hamakua Coast where some private citizens put a fence up, denying access to fishermen and the County’s not doing anything about it – it’s something the County should do – private individuals shouldn’t be fronting the money for a law suit with a guy that’s violating County code, and we were talking access to the hunting areas which the County has some easements but nobody’s enforcing it, stuff like that, we were just letting him know that there’s a lot of disgruntled outdoors people with the County situation with what they’re doing and not doing so that was my list of things for District 4. IKK: Let’s talk about that later. \[Unclear\] Yeah. See what I can do. BL: Thank you. Oh, one other thing. Welcome to the new Corporation Counsel. IKK: Thank you. BL: And I hope everything goes good and hopefully you we don’t catch you doing anything unethical like lying to us like the last person did on several occasions. 5 IKK: Oh. BL: As long as we keep everything honest and above board and nothing sneaky we will get along fine and we hope we don’t have to go down that road again and I apologize form outburst last month but I was \[unclear\] in the emails that we could have had the meeting last month even though didn’t have quorum – we just couldn’t vote on anything so, there’s another example of we were in the right and they were in the wrong and, the public was cheated by the fact that we didn’t have our meeting after we spent that time to show up and participate so, glad to see you and hope everything goes well, thank you. IKK: I’m here for you guys though. LT: Thank you. Mahalo. So, just a quick question, access was a big topic with Dr. Kimo then? BL: Yeah. LT: OK. Access. Thank you very much – moving all the way forward to District – 8. CO: Aloha everyone, this is Cortney, District – 8. LT: Aloha. CO: Aloha. I wanted since Natalie isn’t here, I was gonna talk about this – actually I’d hope to send out an email to everyone about this because the comment period from Keauhou Bay Management Plan has now closed but there’s still a way that folks can express their opinions – there is a website that I’ll send out the links to Barbara, so that she can send them out, basically this is regarding Kamehameha Schools planned development of the shoreline area in that area and putting the harbor – some changes being made to the canoe club that’s there, and possible development of a resort area. They’re also going to be moving the two lease commercial activities that are there – I think it’s Fair Wind and one other commercial boat operator that are there – they’re moving them to another area with a new planned parking spot, hoping to do some improvements to the harbor area itself, so, anyway, the time to comment on it has passed but there are still groups who are opposing – who are gathering signatures so I’ll send that out to everyone – if you can read it over – if anyone has any comments or wishes to or thinks that GMAC should take any official action – maybe we can discuss that at the next meeting and that’s all I have for my report today, thank you. LT: Thank you very much. Any discussion on that? No discussions – moving forward to District – 9. JA: Aloha… LT: Aloha. JA: Justin, District – 9. Only thing I have going on right now is we just need to get the word out to all the hunters that whoever is using the range up at Mile Marker 16 – Camp Morita – we need to start policing the brass up there – stop shooting trash – the State’s gonna end up closing that place down cause it looks like a junk yard, so, better off us taking the effort – picking up extra 6 brass when you’re up there shooting – pick up some trash – tell your friends – tell your friend hunters pick it up before they close it down. The other one was I sat in a meeting with the state – DLNR was trying to approve a buoy at Makaiwa Bay – a mooring buoy for a resort even though it’s right next to some of the ancient fish ponds – there was a huge outcry of local protest against it – it has now been suspended – we will see what comes of it – but the public really came out in force on that – trying to stop the resort from putting in two mooring buoys right next to a surf break, right on top of a thriving reef and right next to the fish ponds. So that’s good news, and that is all I have to report. LT: Right… BL: Brian, District – 4. Just to reiterate what you were saying. Not everybody that shoots on Mile Marker 16 is a hunter. There’s a lot of people that just shoot – so not everybody with a gun is a hunter so… JA: Correct. BL: So, you know, it might not be hunters trashing the place. JA: Agreed, agreed. Anybody who uses it – pick up an extra bag of brass when you’re there. 5. PRESENTATION: a. Stephen Holmes, representative from Sierra Club Hawai’i Island Group, presenting “Clean Water Act Enforcement and Policy Implications”. LT: All right, any more discussions – District – 9, OK. Thank you very much sir, ah, moving forward into Presentations, 5 a. Representative from Sierra Club Hawaii Island Group presenting “Clean Water Act Enforcement and Policy Implications.” Mr. Holmes, aloha. SH: My name is Steve Holmes. I first came to the Big Island in 1970 and worked as a National Park Ranger at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. I have a degree in law enforcement and have worked as a law enforcement ranger up at Hawaii Volcanoes, so I have a little experience dispatching pigs and goats up at the park so… But I’m here today to talk about the Clean Water Act. I was regional vice president of Sierra Club back in the late 80’s and it came to our attention after repeated discharges of untreated wastewater into Hilo Bay that the treatment plant that the County had in Keaukaha was in bad shape and I went down to the Department of Health and pulled the files, and it was awful. Basically, the stuff coming in was cleared and the stuff going out – if you can even imagine that, and, I have a science background – I went in and I toured the plant and noticed that the autoclave – which is used for bacterial monitoring wasn’t working. I asked them – did they send their samples out and the guy showed me a book where they basically were lying and putting in false numbers, so I took my information over to EPA region 9 and flew over and met with them and they stepped in and took an enforcement action, so there’s a couple of layers of enforcement action the EPA can be involved with under the Clean Water Act and one is called “an administrative order of consent – consent to create for short – and, so it has the effect of law and the County of Hawaii was forced – in this case – to build a 7 new treatment plant and now that treatment plant some 30 years later is a total train wreck and is subject to get another AOC. In this case, EPA officials toured the entire Island and found major deficiencies all around the Island with wastewater infrastructure – basically decades of neglect – and so EPA has sewed up county-wide consent decree that includes a number of treatment plants on the Big Island – Hilo is one of those and there and the AOC has a number of provisions and, Mayor Roth has described the impact of this is creating the largest public works project that County will ever see. So, it’s coming with a big price tag. So, the Hilo Treatment Plant is incapable of repairs – they’re going to have to replace it. It’s actually structurally unsound and unsafe for workers – it’s that bad. You couldn’t possibly take apart components and fix ‘em because they’re fused together by saltwater corrosion and it’s just really appalling conditions and Mayor Roth and Ramsey Mansour who heads Environmental Management are quite honest about this – they’ve talked to the council presented information but the AOC that’s been established by the EPA now has the effect of law and their on a time frame to do certain things and that includes replacing the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant, replacing a couple of other smaller facilities on the Hamakua Coast – Kulamanu and Pepeekeo – they’re also being required to connect thousands of homes on the Big Island to existing County wastewater facilities and part of that is to do away with cesspools but the second thing is to create revenue. You need paying customers anytime you have a utility and so EPA has recognized that a lot of the failures have come from the lack of revenue to properly do operation and maintenance. So, by requiring people to connect and putting in sewer improvement districts to connect homes they hope to create sufficient customer base to provide the revenue so that we don’t get in this condition again. So that alone is gonna be a big project as you can imagine. It also is going to address the cesspool concerns that you may have heard about – even up in Honokaa, for instance, while that treatment plant is not subject of the AOC – the requirement to connect more homes in Honokaa is going to greatly increase the size of the facility and probably also require it to be upgraded for additional capacity. The same is true in Kona. The AOC requires them to upgrade the pre- treatment equipment that handles solids that are in the waste stream to prevent them from impacting the treatment plant and the County is also under an enforcement action in federal court that was brought about under the Clean Water Act – Citizens Suit Provisions – so in this case Earth Justice representing a group called Hui Malama Honokohau has stepped up to – above EPA and Department of Health to take an action in federal court and, I understand they’ve had some pre-settled – but that’s not publicly available, they’re probably going to have to upgrade to R1 which is a higher level of treatment with disinfection and they currently are discharging to a hole in the ground and have been for 25 years now – scientists have clearly identified hydrologic connection to the ocean – Earth Justice has submitted scientific documents that show that this is the case and the coastal waters in this area are federally listed as impaired so it’s a fairly clean cut case under the Clean Water Act and the County has hired outside counsel and they’re in negotiations and so we’re hoping for good results from that. The EPA has also stepped in on two other enforcement actions. One is for Naalehu and Pahala – these are old sugarcane towns as you know – and they had gang cesspools so it’s technically not the Clean Water Act but the Safe Drinking Water Act and they’re requiring those 2 communities to have a wastewater treatment put in and have all the homes connected to it. So that would address not only the homes that were on the gang cesspools but all the other homes in those communities that are presently on individual wastewater systems. They also have an AOC regarding a pre- treatment program and basically this means that you need to take sampling of stuff that’s coming into the treatment plant when the happy do pumper guys are bringing in septic waste to the treatments plant, for instance, you’re required to do periodic sampling to make sure that bad stuff isn’t coming in. You don’t want stuff coming in from an auto-body paint shop, for 8 instance, that comes into the treatment process and upsets the biological processing of wastewater. The deadline for this under the Clean Water Act, by the way, was 25 years ago – so the County is a little behind the curve on this – this means that they have to – not only do grab samples in sewer collection systems and do reporting on that to EPA but they also have to sample waste that is coming in from septic haulers and that’s coming into the treatment process. That means that they have to have labs and/or they have to contract out to private laboratories to look for these types of chemical impacts to the treatment process. Ah, going back to the larger county-wide AOC – not only are they required to connect homes but they’re also required to fix the existing collection system – so we – in Hilo for instance we have sewer lines that date back to the 1960s. And they’re cracked and broken – we have a lot of earthquakes on the Big Island so not surprising – and there’s a process called Insituform that Honolulu has used successfully under their consent decree – that can line those old cracked and broken pipes and that will prevent saltwater intrusion that has caused much of the problems at the treatment plant – it will reduce the flows and allow more homes to be connected. About 400,000 gallons per day of saltwater intrusion is coming into the Hilo Wastewater Treatment Plant out of a total of 2 million gallons per day of average daily flows so it’s really quite excessive and it can lead to spills and bypasses, during high rain conditions the ground becomes saturated – water comes in through all those cracks and breaks and then it overwhelms pump stations and we see headlines in the paper about discharges into Hilo Bay. And, so, lining the collection system and addressing that deficiency is also part of the AOC. They are also required to establish a financial plan. I mentioned the need to connect more homes, create more revenues. In Honolulu I was on the City Council and we were facing a global consent decree there – we adopted what’s called a wastewater inter-prize fund approach and that stands apart from the general fund revenues and you have to create and self-sustaining revenue based for wastewater operations going forward – so you need to be able to prove that you can meet the obligations of the consent decree for all of the capital projects and to handle operation and maintenance in a proper way going forward so it’s going to be quite significant – the County is gonna need work with their bond counsel attorneys and to come up with a working plan on how to put that financing plan together. So, they’re gonna need new forms of revenue to address that so insufficient funding has led to all this, and so EPA is saying – show us the money – we need to be able to see from the County that they will have sufficient funds going forward to meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act. So that’s kind of a brief overview. I thought I would just leave it up to any questions that you might have on where we are on all of this. LT: All right, thank you sir. Any questions from the Commissioners and discussions? RD: District – 1, Robert Duerr. Thanks, Steve, for coming. That was very informative, especially as a fisherman and a surfer – as a surfer I can’t – as an, 71-year-old I can’t go into the water anymore with brown water. I could do it when I was younger – I can’t do it – numerous surfers – you can say every surfer has suffered from this and, as a fisherman I see this, this – the foam – the brown foam that’s in this Bay on a constant basis and works its way to two miles offshore, three miles offshore is ridiculous. This has been obviously a big, complicated and expensive project that’s been kicked down the road for decades. Is the County going to be able to perform to EPA decrees? SH: Well, as a former federal law enforcement officer I guess my answer is they have no choice. If they don’t – they’ve signed a hand shake agreement with the EPA in the AOC and there are conditions in that – that if they don’t meet the terms that are laid out: the deadlines, all of the 9 requirements, the satisfaction of EPA that it goes to federal court and then things get much tougher and much less flexible and they face large penalties, fines under the Clean Water Act, for instance, the AOC for Pahala/Naalehu is already cost taxpayers money in the way of fines because the County hasn’t been able to meet deadlines under that particular AOC, so, they really have no choice – they have to find a way to make this work. RD: Chair, District – 1, Steve – another question. Here’s – in the Honokohau injection well – now the supreme court ruled on this on the Maui case, which was very clear. Why do you think the County took the position that they were going to fight this – to clean up the injection well? SH: Yeah, as I indicated the science certainly doesn’t support that, Robert, it’s been well known that the flows that are reaching the coastline – one of the scientific studies that was submitted in federal court in Honolulu is in the litigation brought by our justice and behalf of the community group was an actual study that showed the transit time from the point of discharge – they’re not using an injection well – they’re literally using a hole in the ground – and, so there’s a transit time calculation based on Hawaii’s geology – USGS has put the methodology together and so UH-Hilo scientists ran the numbers based on USGS’s methodology and showed that the flows were in fact reaching the coastline well within the definition that was laid out by the Supreme Court case regarding Lahaina. So, once again, the science is there – it’s not magic that the coastal waters are consistently impaired under federal law, it doesn’t happen magically, it takes a significant source of pollution to cause that on a consistent basis so the science is well known so my understanding is that while the County originally raised – got the Council to approve a bunch of money to hire a private law firm in Honolulu that in fact, when the expert attorneys were brought in that they advised settlement and in fact federal judge scheduled a settlement discussion so, you’re right that the Lahaina case acts as a legal precedent and, when the Supreme Court finished the case – at their level they got remanded back down to Judge Susan Mollway in Honolulu. Her decision once again, went against Maui County after the Supreme weighed in and that acts as precedent within the federal court in Honolulu. So, this case was basically built on all of the work that was done as a result of the Lahaina litigation. RD: Thank you. LT: Thank you very much. BL: Brian Ley, District – 4. Well, I’m glad that closed down the only working dairy on the Island \[unclear\] so the County can do this. Ah, one question, is anybody in the County that was knowingly know this and falsified records – are there gonna be criminal charges brought against anybody that was doing this, ‘cause I know in the news thing lying and falsifying information like that would be prison term. Is anything gonna happen to the County for – to cover up and lying on testing? SH: Yeah, when I was on the Honolulu City Council I got a call one day from a whistleblower and EPA actually has badge and gun guys so I referred the whistleblower directly to EPA and there were subsequent criminal charges were brought in that, but that was a long time ago – I’m not aware of anything regarding the County and the actions that are being taken against them presently that rises to the level of criminality. I don’t expect any criminal charges to be brought. 10 BL: \[Unclear\] SH: I would point out, however, that the State Department of Health is primary under The Clean Water Act. And so, the very fact that you have EPA stepping in and you have citizens whose being brought into The Clean Water Act, tells you that the Department of Health is not doing its job properly. They’re required to do regular inspections of County facilities to ensure compliance so that we don’t get into this kind of a mess. So, I really think we all need to understand that this points the finger directly at the Department of Health is a colossal failure on their part. BL: Yeah, I just wanted to thank you. Just touching back I see you’re from the Hawaii Sierra Club and, I was a little leery cause we’ve had issues in the past with Mark Hansen of the Sierra Club writing bogus articles about the palila birds and the Hawaii Sierra Club would not recant their issues and stuff like that and so I came in here with a little doubtful – like I was mentioned earlier when I catch somebody lying my credibility and after listening to you talk and your everything else that brought back a lot of credibility and hopefully we can keep the honesty and the facts and the truth coming through and I appreciate your speech today. Thank you. SH: Thank you. I did receive an award from President Regan back in the 80’s for my work on The Clean Water Act so,I’ve been doing this for quite a while and, it’s important to keep your credibility and to speak truth where it’s necessary. I thank you and I’m sorry that you had a bad experience with Sierra Club previously. BL: Thank you, sir… LT: Anymore discussion for my Commission members? No hands seen – aloha, Leomana, District – 3, thank you, sir. I grew up in Hilo, I swam in the ocean in Keaukaha my whole life. When I was seven, I got scabies, when I was eight, I got staff, right from Puhi Bay, you know, growing up. I’m thinking it’s because I’m a boy and I might be gross and I never knew it was because of that discharge right there, and now as an adult I take my kids there to go swimming and I see the news and it hurts my feelings and I have such a down look on Hilo and I call ourselves pigs because we swim in our own poop and we don’t really change it and it’s just been stress for me this past two years because I’m a caretaker of eleven acres right on the coastline in Keaukaha – One Kahakaha Beach – the old zoo is our property now and I’m trying to revitalize the fishing community. My dad and my family were kinda like the leaders of the fishing community and the ocean clan – so this was a big stress, and I’d just like to tell you thank you for all of the information you shared because it helps me a lot, so thank you very much. SH: Yeah, when I first got involved in the treatment plant it was down in Keaukaha right next to Puhi Bay, as you know, we found that there was about a six-foot hole in the pipeline just outside Puhi Bay in the \[unclear\]. The County absolutely denied that it existed, so we took an underwater camera from UH-Hilo and shot a movie we called Jacques Cousteau Meets the tidy bull man and we showed it at a County Council meeting and immediately got emergency funding approval to fix the hole in the pipe but it’s just astounding how things have been allowed to get into that condition. You think of all the kids in Keaukaha that just loved Puhi Bay and go out to that floating platform and enjoy the water there and then to think that this big puka was in that pipe and it was allowed to happen for decades so it’s just astounding. And this generally been the sad 11 history of the outflow pipe in general. It’s under extreme stress – it’s on the windward side of the islands so, you’re getting a lot of wave action that’s very disruptive to an out-flow pipe. So that really makes the level of treatment at the treatments plant and some form of disinfection critical issues going forward so we need to keep the out-flow pipe properly maintained but we also need the treatment plant treating at levels that protect public health and our coastal ecosystems. LT: Yes, sir. Thank you very much and if there’s anything in the future that the GMAC can do to help you or collaborate on some sort of efforts to solve these kind of issues, please just reach out and let us know and I hope that we’ll be seeing you soon and, we get to work together in the future, so thank you very much. SH: All right. Mahalo. LT: Mahalo, yeah. E kala mai everyone. We have a question about this topic so we’re just trying to figure out what it is and see if we can get an answer or a discussion on this topic. We just have a question from the public on any water quality analysis for private wells – any hope for water quality analysis? I wonder if he’s still on… Looks like he signed off. E kala mai. Well, we can keep this information in our head and this question. Thank you very much, Nani. RD: Ah, Chair, District – 1, if we have the person who has this question – maybe we could follow it up and get the answer to that person. IKK: And, or, even if you wanted to bring it up again. Like if you guys feel it’s worthy enough to bring it up again. RD: OK. Sure. Next month… IKK: In a meeting, yeah… RD: Yeah, OK, right on… IKK: And keep, you know – get on that agenda. LT: I think this would be a good question for \[unclear\] rule changes, yeah. IKK: Yeah. b. Ryan Okano, PHD Division of Aquatics Resources Biologist, Hilo, Hawai’i presenting DAR’s Coral Restoration for Fisheries Habitat planning effort and an overview of current DAR issues on Hawai’i Island”. LT: Ryan Okano, PHD Division of Aquatics Resources Biologist, Hilo, Hawaii – presenting DAR’s Coral Restoration for Fisheries Habitat planning effort and an overview of current DAR issues on Hawaii Island. 12 RO: Good morning, thank you for having me. Ryan Okano, State of Hawaii, Division of Aquatic Resources - a biologist in – stationed in our Hilo office in East Hawaii. I was asked to talk about coral restoration for our fisheries habitat project but I’ll kind of step back and, to kind of set the stage with coral restoration in general. It’s something that is – seems to be gaining a lot of momentum at the world or international level– it’s happening all over. The coral restoration efforts I’m most familiar with is the things I’ve seen happening in the United States’ jurisdictions, the corals in the Atlantic/Caribbean side with our sister jurisdictions being those like Puerto Rico, Florida and the U.S.B.I. – all U.S. areas, they have been suffering massive losses in coral, in the past few years, and the recent losses have been attributed to coral bleaching and coral disease. On the Pacific side, some of our sister jurisdictions they have also been suffering some losses with bleaching in the recent years, recent months. Hawaii has been lucky this past few seasons – our waters have been relatively cool – knock on wood and bleaching hasn’t hit us too bad. It’s been happening very bad throughout the other places. So, one of the tools that coral reef managers have been using to respond to these coral reef losses – coral losses – is coral restoration in the form of, growing coral, raising coral or planting coral, kinda like how you can restore a forest with trees or baby trees, kinda taking that approach and bringing it into the ocean. Due to all those massive coral losses on the Atlantic/Caribbean side, coral restoration in that area compared to the Pacific side is much more massive, much more advanced, has been going on a lot more things happening. So, on the Pacific side it’s relatively new, especially in Hawaii. There are a few coral restoration projects happening in the state, I think the majority I would say is on Oahu, some in West Hawaii – Kona side, there’s a few starting up. But the majority is on Oahu. So, because of all this interest and effort and, science happening, and the benefits of coral restoration that we have been learning, we at the State of Hawaii, Division of Aquatic Resources decided to initiate a planning effort for coral restoration. So, in this planning effort we identified three goals: the first one was coral restoration for bleaching – that goal has been completed or that section of the plan has been completed. Currently, we’re kind of wrapping up coral restoration for shoreline protection, and, this one was a very complicated for us because coral restoration for shoreline protection – that brings in a whole other suite of expertise needed, like when you talk about shoreline protection you want to kinda create that structure or thing that causes the waves to break so some of these things had to be kind of big – it all depends on how deep the water is and stuff like that but it requires some like artificial structures and such and once you start putting that kind of stuff down on the reef, then the engineering just goes – yeah – just gets crazy. So that plan, we’ve been struggling through it, but we have identified pukas or holes and knowledge gaps in trying to fill those to further that plan – coral restoration for shoreline protection. So that brings me to our third goal – and this is the goal that I have been asked to talk about today is, coral restoration for fisheries habitat. We at the Division of Aquatic Resources realize that there’s a lot of interest, effort, funds being diverted to coral restoration and we’re trying to figure out a way and leverage it on how we can use these resources to better the fisheries in the State of Hawaii. And so, this is what we kind of came up with. At the core of this plan is we’re trying to engage fishermen and, to be honest and transparent – improve the perception that fishermen have on our agency, to be frank. So we have been going out and soliciting input on this project, we have been talking to fishermen and, the types of questions we ask are like, the design of like – cause in our mind we’re thinking that, coral restoration for fisheries habitat is gonna involve some type of larger scale, habitat structures – more than just replenishing corals – so like getting at the base or the larger puka habitats in a coral reef – those big holes that can house schools of fish such as menpachi, aholehole and stuff like that. So, creating those holes or habitats usually involves artificial materials: concrete, the generic examples are reef walls and such, but I think the technology and 13 science has become much better than just reef walls, so, we’re approaching fishermen, where, how, what kind of structures, what kind of fish we should be targeting to increase habitat for. Mr. Duerr, he kind of put out a blast – citizen input to that questionnaire that we had to kind of garnish input – we have been, like I said, we have been going to fishery meetings, we have, – there’s this guy kind of in charge of doing the outreach or, you know, citizen input from fisherman so he came over to Hilo – he’s on Oahu – he came over to Hilo and did some table sitting out at Tokunaga’s and I think he also went to J. Hara’s Store too – I not too sure – but just to solicit input and kind of met with fishermen and stuff like that – so those are the efforts going on with that project and I’ll pause there before I go on to the next topic – if there are questions. LT: Not seeing any. You can move forward. RO: OK. Shoot. So, the next topic was DAR issues for East Hawaii and, to tell the truth, I never read the agenda till this morning – I thought I was gonna talk about just general updates like I do for this other group but so like what is the issues. LT: Yeah. RO: Yeah, what is the issues and so like for me it’s hard to speak issues in East Hawaii and I, will though – I have a list. LT: Yeah, e kala mai – this one is just the issues on Hawaii Island at the end – so just a general update for the Island – period – no need just be, \[unclear\] the whole Island so… RO: OK. I get those updates, OK, yeah, I get the – let me pull ‘em up. Now I get it. OK. LT: Kona being neglected again. RO: These updates I give come from Oahu – it comes from our rule-making program manager, his name is David Sakoda and, there are rules, OK, the ones that apply to Hawaii Island – that’s the ones I’m gonna focus on, aquarium permit for West Hawaii – from what I understand that is going to the Board this Friday. So that is for final action, so the aquarium stuff is a big deal going on for our division, I mean, I don’t know if you guys follow ‘em that much, but it’s a big deal, so this is just the permits so a bunch of people got together to write an impact assessment statements and now these other guys who had paid for that – now I think so they going pay the – we are moving forward with permitting these guys so it’s gonna be controversial if you get interested into aquarium in Hawaii – that is a controversial topic, but after that we gotta make the rules for that, for those permittees – so that one is, on hold pending the development of the rules – we never fully developed ‘em yet – so there’s gonna be a lot of state code engagement for that one. At least public hearings, the pakukui rules – that’s another one – that is I think for West Hawaii, I think right now, there’s a ban on pakukui harvest in West Hawaii from what I understand, and so they are going to go to the Board, I think this week too – this week Friday too for a plan – but this one is not for final, this is for public hearing so they going ask permission from the Board to go out to do public hearings on some potential rules for pakukui – like I said right now is the ban but I think, it’s gonna be, not a ban moving forward but more rules than had before – I don’t think there was any harvest limits on pakukui prior. I know Milolii just put in some though. Some other things related to updates – these are more statewide things but they 14 gonna affect stakeholders on Hawaii Island too – so there’s a vessel license that’s coming up in a few months, so instead of like each crew member on your fishing boat – if you’re gonna do commercial stuff having to have a license – you can just get a vessel license and that’ll cover all the crew members on your boat. Sometimes you mix and match or whatever’s like that and humbug to get a license for somebody that fishes with you only couple times – but this will help cover that kind of situations – so it increases flexibility. There’s a non-residents fishing license coming out in fall and there is a license requirement for dealers that is probably coming out early next year. So those are some rules makings and stuff like that, and I’ll pause a little bit before I shift into another topic that I think so would be of interest. LT: OK. BL: Brian, District – 4. Fishing licenses, I know they’ve discussed that before and they were saying it was just gonna cover administrative costs, which was just creating jobs for \[unclear\] but it’s, these fishing licenses and stuff are they earmarked for anything being \[unclear\] or is it just going back in the general fund? What are they gonna do with the license fees? RO: I don’t know \[unclear\] so this would be fishing license for non-residents, and I don’t know what they going do with their funds – so it depends – the funds could be just to cover administrative or if the funds higher, then it could be used to cover other things. I don’t know, but I can find out. And this is for the revenue from the non-resident fishing license? BL: Yeah. RO: Sorry, I just want to make sure I get it. I can give another - an example of a revenue program like I said, I don’t know about this particular program, but I know about another program that we just started – it’s called the Ocean Stewardship Fund, Malama i Ke Kai is the tag name for it. And it’s a program where we collect a dollar from commercial user kind of recreation guys – so like people who go charter fish or people who go scuba dive, those charter guys – then we get a dollar from each of those customers, I guess, and that one we got authority to do maybe like a couple years ago from the Leg and it expires – it has a sunset date for about 5 years. But that one we have a spend plan and everything for that one – so a lot of it is gonna go back into stuff like, setting up mooring balls in areas for those people that we, contributing to the funds to use, you know, kind of try and give back to that industry, also some coral restoration potentially making those dive sites more appealing, but some other funds also being used for general coral reef management like giving space for communities to engage and manage also – community management I think is also in there. So that one you can look up online – that’s Malama i Ke Kai/Ocean Stewardship Program. But I don’t know exactly what is going be used with non- resident revenue license. OK. I going move on to the next topic then. The next topic is kind of an update on what is happening on Maui, but it does have implications for Hawaii Island so I going start up with an update on Maui and, kind of tie it back into Hawaii Island. So recently, on Maui we initiated the Holomua process – so I want to say recently – it started in October 2022. And it started out with a few meetings basically, talk-story sessions – we just conducted in Wailuku, Lahaina, and Hana. So we tried to get good spatial coverage with the resources we have, of course, and these initial meetings were meant to compile and better understand issues and concerns with the near shore marine resources for Maui residents, also to determine what a team composition should be to help develop and island proposal to better 15 manage the aquatic resources and generate a list of names of potential candidates for this team which is referred to as the navigation team. So, this group was going to make a proposal for better managing of aquatic resources – fish – stuff like that. So, about 70 names was provided during those meetings and, we reached out to those, I mean, sorry, 90 names was provided and we reached out to those 90 names and 30 of those guys – so 90 guys was \[unclear\] nominated – so I reached out to that 90 and 30 responded back to us and they provided application – after suggestions and feedback on the team composition – the Maui selected panel was created and included, you know, prominent members of the community from Maui Island – Jimmy Gomes, Tamara Palton and Archie Kalepa – I don’t know all of them but I recognize some of those names – the selected panel created a team of 20 members with representation from each moku on the island – so spatial representation – and included fishers such as commercial, recreation, subsistence, tour operators – a tour operator and a scientist. So, they started meeting in February 2023 and right now they kind of finished already. Right now – not finished but they got a steppingstone in moving into the next stage of the process. So, they came up with a proposal and the proposal includes, - this part is on purpose which is kind of vague because they never – the next step is for this proposal to go to the Maui community – so that’s why it’s kind of vague because we want to make sure the Maui community gets to see the real proposal prior to anybody else. So, like I said, it’s kind of vague on purpose – the proposal includes island-wide bag limits and size limits for species considered important or of concern. The proposal also includes seasonal and year restrictions as well. In addition, the group included ideas like improving enforcement by hiring a legal fellow specific to Maui and increasing education and training for prosecutors and judges. And this is related to enforcement actions for aquatic resources. They also include components such as water quality supporting land-based restoration projects, habitat enhancement projects, and supporting community-driven efforts to manage near shore areas. So, this was the Holomua process. The first pilot island was Maui. The next island that is being eyed up is Hawaii Island – this Island – our Island and, so far the conversation within DAR have gone as far as this, that first meeting we talked about that those talk-story sessions. So right now - cause after Maui – we don’t know exactly when Maui going pau – that’s the thing – cause like, you know, some parts of the process can be long, some parts of the process can be short – all depends on how stakeholders respond or how the engagement goes and stuff like that, but after Maui it’s probably Hawaii Island, and, yeah, so we just talking about within DAR we just talking about having these meetings: where to have the meetings, how much meetings to have – and questions that we are in DAR have is this right for Hawaii Island? How do the stakeholder – how do they feel about this process. So we not – we never yet decided if it’s actually gonna happen – we just want to check if people want this to happen, you know, questions like should the Island be one – the planning effort be for the one whole Island – the whole Island or should it be broken down into West and East and if we broke it down – does it run together or does one go before the other, all those things so it’s very early in the process but just heads up that something is happening on Maui and the next place probably – if the stakeholders of Hawaii Island like – is gonna be Hawaii Island. This is all I get for today, but I’ll hang on a little bit in case anybody get questions… LT: Yes, sir, thank you very much for the presentation. The floor is open to the Commissioners for discussion or questions. BL: Brian Ley, District – 4. Hey, I want to jump back to the beginning kind of thing. I had a couple questions when you were talking about shoreline protection – that’s not gonna be sneaky thing where we’re not gonna let people in the water or fishermen offshore cause they might damage 16 the coral fishing or diving? That – what you said – shoreline protection – my first thought they’re gonna start closing the access to the fishermen, and the swimmers and the scuba divers. RO: Naw, not… BL: That’s not a plan for that? RO: We do not have plans for that – when we talk about shoreline protection is, you know, like you think about the shoreline protection in Hilo – Hilo is the break wall – the break wall is a shoreline protection – that thing – but are there ways to accomplish that goal with a more nature-based solution. And no get me wrong, the break wall is excellent habitat, I get that, but, you know, stuff like there’s ways that we do shoreline protection projects that are not good habitat, as like the break wall, what I mean, I not sure we could have designed the break wall in a better way that would make even better fish habitat, what I’m saying, so kind of like incorporating – using one thing to address multiple problems or coming up with multiple solutions with one project, the solution is shoreline protection and fisheries habitat. Some projects you can wrap it up together and like I said, in our goal, in our plan those are two separate goals but at the end we’re gonna try and see if there’s ways to have projects that incorporate these multiple goals, for example, like shoreline protection and fisheries habitat project. BL: Like re-introducing mangrove forests along the shoreline – that were there before? RO: We actually support mangrove cutting down projects – we support the efforts in He’eia on Oahu, and we support the efforts at Honouliuli and both of those are heavy mangroves cutting down projects. So, we trying to move away from that for sure (move away from mangrove planting, in response to Brian Ley’s statement). BL: I got a good question, I don’t know if you were around, but it was a couple of years ago in – I think it was Honolulu they found some coral growing and they weren’t sure if it was released from an aquarium or got there on its own, but they went down there and removed all the coral. So, I was just wondering, why do you remove the coral if you’re not sure that it didn’t get here on itself and was able to thrive with the changing water conditions – that just didn’t make any sense – if we’re trying to propagate coral – does it matter if it’s type A or type B – as long as we have coral and the fish are thriving with it? RO: Well, no, no, that’s a good question. I appreciate the angle and the perspectives, yeah, and, and I – at the time of the project I was working on Oahu so I’m quite familiar with that project or, that effort had been reported in by stakeholders – fishermen from Kaneohe Bay – they rang the bell. They told us about it. They recognized it as something that was foreign and these are fishermen that have fished there for many, many, many, many, many years, yeah, lineal descendants of the area, I guess, some people call them. They rang the bell and they told us – they reached out to Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (HMB) – cause they’re right there in Kaneohe Bay and then we – and HMB reached out to us and, yeah, it was a big effort to figure out first what it was and I think the consensus was they nevah know what it was but it wasn’t from Hawaii – that was the consensus and at that time we decided to take it out - yeah, because there were concerns that this coral was thriving and may take over the reef and this coral isn’t endemic or native to this area. The implications that, something like that taking over is unknown, we don’t know, so, we took it out – that removal effort was a good demonstration of 17 everybody getting together to do something. We pretty much led it but, we called Waikiki Aquarium was there to receive the coral, they wanted it for display or do something with ‘em, I don’t know, but the fishers, the people from the community – the person who kinda reported it and kind of led the community side – she came out and helped us out too, to take out that coral, so it wasn’t like a knee-jerk decision – it was pretty well thought out and a lot of people got involved in it, \[unclear – sounds like Getty Jam Beat for it\] – for example, of the, tried to ID the coral and stuff like that, yeah, samples were sent to some experts who would be more familiar with those species of corals and I think at the end of the day we did get a species name for those corals. BL: OK. But just for future reference – say, with the changing currents and everything else – if something moved in – it’s how everything got in Hawaii – it showed up from somewhere else – so I was just curious on the future thing if all of sudden coral from Australia showed up – would they get rid of it cause it found its way here on the changing currents. RO: They suspected that one – in that incidence – they suspected it was an intentional introduction because there were multiple species in that one place which raised suspicion. RO: OK. Thank you. LT: Thank you very much. Any more discussion, questions? RD: District – 1, Robert Duerr. Thanks, Ryan, for coming. The DAR’s been an exemplary agency with DLNR, especially with your focus on working from bottom up and getting input from the users/fishers/and local people and especially for using your spatial moku program systems program approach, it’s well – and taking Holomua through the years and how it’s evolved and how you’ve gone with the flow of community impact – you’ve really – you and your boss Brian Neilson are exemplary and thank you very much. RO: Right on, thank you, and thank you for all your guy’s input. We always, I always like to listen to hear what the stakeholders have to say, yeah, thank you. LT: Anymore discussion? Questions? None seeing – aloha – Leomana, District – 3. I just have three questions to ask. I’m just gonna name them off first and then you can answer how you like. We had a commissioner – he came inside here last year, and we were talking about bag limits to lobsters, so I just wanted to ask on any update on the lobster – whatever you have. Also, with the lobster we had discussions on opihi because I know the opihi ban went into effect and is there any surveillance or any of the DLNR officers out there patrolling either lobsters or opihi? The second one is the coral in Kailua-Kona Bay that has to do with the moorings for the paddling flags, the canoe regattas – last year Kona had like 20 flags in illegal moorings that has to do with the coral reef over there – so if you know anything about the moorings for the regattas, I think there’s 14 lanes x 3 – so that’s a lot of illegal moorings, and another one has to do with the Bureau of Energy Management and the Clarion Clipperton Zone and what the effects of the sea floor mining – what affects that would have on Hawaii’s ecosystem and our aquatic life – I don’t know how much you know about the metals company and the deep sea mining that’s going on between Hawaii and like kind of Central America but I just wanted to know if you have any 18 information on the impacts of Hawaii aquatic life from the black oxygen mining with the metals? So just those three. Ah, sorry so much, but that’s what I’m thinking of. RO: The first one was about concerns about opihi and lobster and what is our information related to that. You know, I’ll be honest with you – we don’t have much information on lobster and we don’t have much information on opihi and we recognize that and we actually trying to solve that and we’re talking stories within our agency to figure that out, because when you, for example, you look at the rules that have been coming out from communities, there was - the those community-based sustainable fishing areas – and, on Kauai, Kipahulu on Maui and I think sometimes – and there’s couple other, oh, Milolii? LT: Milolii, yeah. RO: If you look at those rules – not all of ‘em but some of ‘em get rules on opihi and lobster, you know, they making more stringent rules on these species and we recognize that, oh, they making rules though, we don’t know much about them, lobsters is hard to, hard to – they kinda scare to begin with and they kinda hard to find, what I mean, like our traditional surveys is, we go out during the day, run a line and count the fish on the reef – that’s the traditional surveys – and, you do capture a lot of information that way, but you as fishermen that’s not the best way for survey or look for certain species, for example, like the things living in the holes – like lobster – you not gonna find them just swimming around. You may be lucky if you find one crawling around sometimes. So that we did an effort with some scientists they went Kalaupapa – someplace was supposed to have plenty lobsters and I guess had decent number of lobsters to try and figure out a method over there so I don’t know exactly how that worked out – I think it didn’t work out as good as they thought, but they trying – we trying to figure out for lobsters, yeah, and the other one is opihi is one mean area, you know, inner tidal zone is one mean area to work in, it’s dangerous, it’s a dangerous area to work in. So, we, I mean, and that’s not, you know, there’s many reasons why opihi information is, I think is lacking. We focus a lot of time on the fin fish, because the other – most people, I guess, statewide eat fin fish but at the same time we recognize the cultural significance – the special thing about opihi – I do for sure – and we, and this is a project that I have been trying to develop myself and, it’s very early but, trying to use technology to monitor that inner tidal zone – map monitor the limu – the haukiuki – the opihi – using like a drone maybe to take pictures of that area, you’re not even, cause the drone – at least you not there – you can fly over that so it’s safer, and then you can get areas with the drone probably better than a person could get to – so, I don’t know, we’ll see, but, yeah, we lack information in that areas but at the same time if there’s committed interest and community support on making, management decisions for those species I think our agency would be open to those discussions, so, yeah, that’s kinda what the Holomua thing is about, what I mean, like for us – the thing that we manage, the thing that we can make rules on is the aquatic resources and by that I mean the fish, the limu, the coral, the hihiwai, the opae – all those things – that’s what we can make rules on – we can make rules on how much you can take, when you take, and what places you can take or no take. That’s what we do – we can make rules about that. But at the other time, we have concerns about stuff like water quality, no doubt, and we do, do things to improve water quality. We have projects to reduce sedimentation, projects to cut down mangroves, improve habitat – we have those types of projects but at the end of the day, you guys had that discussion earlier – we don’t make rules on water quality – we don’t say how clean or how dirty the water is – but we can take actions and do activities to improve the 19 situation, so it – and we try to figure out our role in this – so that’s kind of where we’re at. Same thing, like water quantity, the amount of water in the streams. We don’t manage that – it’s the Commission on Water Resource Management that manages that – they say who can take how much and what and if you gotta put back – but, we in our agency, we recognize how important that water going to the ocean is, whether it be surface water or ground water, you know, that ground water that comes out in like Puna side and Kona side – that it comes out – that’s really important for those aquatic resources – those fresh water dependent species – those fresh water dependent systems – lot of our limu thrive in that areas where the water mixes, so we recognize that – so what we try for do in that areas – we try to study when Sea Worm going like take management actions and put back or take out water in a system – we try to study those processes, what is it like before you put the water back in the stream, what is it like after and when I say what is it like I referring to those biological entities like the fish. LT: OK. Mahalo. Just for – we got 40 minutes, and we have another presentation, but just a fast one – just on the moorings in Kona and then the water pollution due to the seabed floor mining from Clarion-Clipperton. If you know anything about that? RO: The water, you know, the moorings in the regatta, yeah, the moorings in Kona – you that’s Kona side – I don’t know too much about it – I know that they stopped canoe races because of that stuff. I just heard from a friend that that’s still an issue. I don’t think so they having races in that bay but I can get a more detailed report back on that one from my Kona counterpart – cause I have a biologist in Kona – so I can ask him about that. I have that in my notes. To tell the truth – I don’t know too much about the sea floor mining – how those activities that is happening kinda far away from us is impacting us. I not saying it’s not. I just say it’s kinda far but - and it’s big and, I don’t know, I’m sure you’d have to do studies of how currents and stuff and things like that – how things are flowing, yeah. I’ll see what can find out. LT: OK. Yeah. All right. Anything else? Thank you very much for that presentation. I hope, I mean, \[unclear\] that was a lot of information – I know we all loved it, and I hope you come back soon cause I know I want some information like this so thank you very much, sir… RO: No problem, any time, thank you. LT: Mahalo. All right, everybody, sorry that was a long one, you guys can stand up, stretch out. We have one more presentation… RD: Chair, um… LT: Yes, sir? RD: …. I’d like to take this moment to we have a new Commissioner… IKK: Hopefully in two weeks. LT: Eh. So we just got our (new commissioner) who Nani mentioned earlier - that group of hunters – we have one of the group of hunter, the group members who came in earlier and he went to the County Council meeting this morning and so he (Taysen Wong Chong) should be confirmed 20 in two weeks and he’ll be able to jump in the Commission and take action with us, so, mahalo, thank you very much. TWC: Thank you… LT: All right, moving on to item 5c – Wildlife Biologist, Game Section, Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife presenting “Potential Turkey Rule Amendments and the Greater Rule Changing Process.” Ah, Mr. Pang-Ching, aloha. c. Joshua Pang-Ching Wildlife Biologist, Game Section, Hawai’i Department of Land Natural Resources Division of Forestry and Wildlife presenting “Potential Turkey Rule Amendments and the Greater Rule Changing Process”. JPC: Aloha, my name’s actually Joshua Pang-Ching. I think there’s a Jason Omick that’s talked before with GMAC so that may have been \[unclear\]. No problem, yeah, aloha, my name is Joshua Pang- Ching. I’m with the DLNR DOFAW here based out of Hilo,Wildlife Biologist assigned to the Hilo section so… I’ll try to keep this pretty concise and try to see – we have not much longer left there somewhere on the stuff to talk about but, I wanted to talk about, I think – was it the June meeting, there was a topic that came up – Mr. Duerr had talked about a letter that was written by Mr. Hoeffliger about turkey change, turkey rule changes and stuff happening, some of the issues – the main one being, the rumor that we were taking away the Wednesday and Thursday hunt days which are unique to Mauna Kea during game bird season to allow for which helps out \[unclear\] weekends, they can come \[unclear\] season, so we’re not doing that. We’re not taking away – no plan to take away the Wednesdays, Thursdays. I think where maybe the subject might have come up from was the greater discussion of rules being able to be changed for the better or worse, mostly for the better for the hunters, better for the resource – it depends on what’s going on, a year-to-year thing depending cause \[unclear\] can change if there’s like a say a catastrophic \[unclear\] a big fire on the mountain, you know, bird season maybe birds took a hit or something like that, a more adaptive rule changes \[unclear\] but that’s a different subject but \[unclear\] rule changes, what kind of rule changes that talking about would be some things better for the turkey would be – there’s spring turkey and then there’s turkey hunting during the general season so, for spring turkey, we’re gonna open up additional areas, upper Piha in Laupahoehoe. Right now, you can hunt there during spring turkey season because of the 10-20 rule changes \[unclear\] there was a temporary rule change that allows upper Piha and upper Laupahoehoe to be included in spring turkey season. But one great one for the general game bird season that we’re talking about is potentially interest in moving turkey hunting on Mauna Kea during the general game bird season to November – only which is how it used to be for a long time, the main reason being – so Mauna Kea is one of the main areas that people hunt during \[unclear\] general game bird season and spring turkey season, and so, it’s one of the few areas that has a full season for turkeys, right, and so, ah, you know, hunter \[unclear\] in general bird season, if you were to hunt every day and bag out every day – which is 50 something turkeys per hunter, that’s pretty taxing on the resource – the turkeys, game birds is there’s no hiding that they’re not what they used to be for various reasons so, there’s conversation about that because if you have and then during the general game bird season if you’re shooting, jakes, for those who know what jakes are – an adolescent male turkey, an unadult male turkey, hens, toms. You know if you’re shooting jakes then they don’t make it to the spring turkey season where, they’re made it to adult, bearded turkey, ah hens are the breeders and stuff so, that’s 21 something we’re entertaining in the rule change, other small stuff like during spring turkey season you can shoot three turkeys per hunter for the whole season, but right now the way the rules are read, you, a hunter could shoot, could go out there and to shoot one turkey. He sees three toms – he shoots all three toms in one area so we’re adding a portion where it’s one bearded turkey per hunter per day so that someone’s not shooting the whole – potentially the whole male group that’s in that one area, right, so they could come back the next day and we can \[unclear\] that’s, you know, \[unclear\] hunting. That’s mostly for the turkeys – there’s some greyer stuff and, and these are all - we’re trying, we look at mainland rules where, turkey hunting is a big thing, we get a lot of mainland turkey hunters that come in the spring season, cause spring bearded turkey season on the mainland is a huge culture, so we get a lot of people that come here trying to bag a turkey \[unclear\]. As long as we get local hunters too, we’re hoping that it gains more popularity just so our hunters get out - it’s pretty unique \[unclear\]. Big Island is the only – Hawaii Island is the only island that has a spring turkey season none of the islands don’t – mostly because our turkey \[unclear\] other islands. So those are things that we’re entertaining for turkeys. I’ll pause there if anybody has any questions about it, if I might have left anything out from what you presented on… RD: No, that’s good, just one question – District – 1. How are you moving along with the rules? JPC: So, I can go over that one next. RD: OK. Sure… OK, good thanks. OK. BL: I have a suggestion. Like you were saying – there were like 3 tags. Why don’t you just limit – you can buy the three tags, but you can only get one tag Mauna Kea, one tag Puuwaawaa, one tag at another area that way, like you were saying, you’re not getting somebody that’s getting all the turkeys in one area – that’s an option on it. JPC: Yeah, that’s definitely an option. I don’t think we even thought of, you know. Yeah, some people only go Mauna Kea. I guess a limitation of that would be somebody only goes Mauna Kea. BL: Yeah, they would have to go out in other areas. JPC: Yeah. No, I like that suggestion. BL: Yeah, I mean as far as the \[unclear\], l’m always harping on it, you know, habitat. JPC: Yeah. BL: I mean the turkey population is taking a hit from where it’s been and like I said, we should allow one turkey theoretically the guys only saw five turkeys last year and I only shot one. JPC: Um-hum. Yeah, yeah… BL: The opportunities to shoot turkey on Mauna Kea is very limited and I have not seen much in travels this year, so… 22 JPC: Yeah, and then this was something I was gonna bring up as a great rule change.This rule change is not the smoke, it’s not the only management strategy right, and it means like, that he’s saying, Brad’s saying, we’ve got to follow it up with other things right now with that management, water units, providing resources, but the greater rule change, so this whole turkey rule change is part of this greater rule change process that’s happening now and it tends to be - it gets triggered by different things. It’s usually like a five-year process when you might, people like myself, administration, administers within DOFAW I see changes need to be made. Usually, it’s for the better, that is kinda what triggered this and then also like just so many things can change, right, a lot us going, a lot of – most of the rule changes is going on the make it so that it’s clear, right, we get calls all the time from people like - I want to hunt over here, you know what’s the rules on this cause it reads this way. And so, for me as someone that I take those calls – Ian, my supervisor \[unclear\] other biologists above me, we take these calls and we can see – cause \[unclear\] we’re on the inside, right, but the hunters on the outside, they’re gonna read it differently and then that helps us review it – OK maybe it’s being interpreted differently, right, so we’re trying to include stuff like that to make the rules easier to interpret it – easier to understand – easier to follow, right? Areas get included like some portions get added so like part of the \[unclear\] process is adding those areas, and having the accesses, safe things like safety zones change, new safety zones get created and new safety zones get omitted, so that, that’s kind of the gravy, the general process of rule changing. There are some bag limits that are getting lifted, there some areas that are getting added like I mentioned upper Piha and Laupahoehoe are getting added to spring turkey season for hunters to go out and adding seasons cause right now there’s only Mauna Kea and Puuwaawaa. \[Unclear\] so, does that kind of answer your questions you have? BL: Yeah. JPC: Yeah, so, and this is how every island is going through it so – we get together as a big group – look at all the rules, new technologies come about too like right now like air guns, air bows, people are wanting to hunt with bows so how best they include stuff like that. Things like firearms restrictions - making it read better, making it easier for hunters to follow cause nowadays there’s so many different calibers and hunters… BL: Oh, yeah… JPC: …. From using your standard .308, 30-06, 30-30, that’s easy, but there’s so many calibers you can’t even remember. We’re trying to make it easier… LT: We have a question, ah, sir, yes? JA: Justin, District – 9. Quick question on that rule-making change, the notice was sent out in January that there was gonna be a rule change or a notice of a meeting – there was never another publication stating that the rules had been changed by DLNR. It was up to hunters to try and research that or get to a check-in station and then realize, oh, heck, I can no longer hunt rifle at the slice. JPC: Yeah, that might have – that rule change is part of a different process called the 1020 – it’s a temporary rule change process, so what it is, it’s a rule change process that goes in, I think, that goes through, it gets closer on the approval processes. The Board meeting where it’s like a - the 23 Board public hearing, and then it’s a two-year rule change, temporary rule change process. There wasn’t a public meeting, well \[unclear\] DLNR was a public meeting, which was not, it’s not like a sit down with constituents, those rules changes, that rule change was \[unclear\] came about for various different reasons mostly safety, but, yeah, the best way that we had to disseminate the rule change was to postdate it. I think there was an announcement, does that answer your question? JA: No, I found it, but, and spring turkey was part of that rule change as well. JPC: Yeah. JA: But it was not posted as every other hunting announcement is on the DLNR page. They’ve been lacking, I’d say DLNR in general’s been lacking with their announcements, whether it’s aerial eradication on Mauna Kea or whatever, it’s no longer being posted on the DLNR announcement page. JPC: OK. I’ll follow up on that – I thought they got posted but, I can double check and get back to you. JA: I appreciate that. Thank you. JPC: Thank you for bringing it up. LT: Mahalo, that was a good one – no wonder I didn’t see it. Ah, OK. Any more discussion, questions from the Commissioners? RD: Ah, District – 1, a question. Piha fencing, that’s been an issue in front of this Commission – is there a fencing project at Piha. JPC: Ah, no, there’s not, I think the subject comes up and talk about in the greater DLNR \[unclear\] wildlife that Piha is on people’s radar, um, as a potential, as, as an intra-area of interest to get fenced because of the fences around it and, and the resources that, that are out there but,as of now, it’s not occurring, fence project – anything on the ground, anything back in the process to lead up to a fence project. RD: And then the second question is, so Mr. Hoeflinger brought forward that out-of-state hunters are a huge part of what happens with spring turkey. Are you guys getting any feedback from them on how they enjoy Hawaii, how to hunt goes for them, why they come here, how much money they’re spending? You guys have any information on that? JPC: I talk to a lot of ‘em, there’s usually like once, usually from late January definitely into February a lot of people from the mainland start calling about, where to hunt and, some people are trying to figure out how to get their out-of-state license – this and that. A lot of guys come – just vacation – like a lot of guys I found that I talked to they’re coming like on vacation with their family – they’re avid turkey hunters – they wanting to piggy back off of that – bring their rifle or bring their shot gun, and go hunt up the mountain or – so there’s a lot of people – I guess that on the mainland – from my understanding – it’s a huge culture it’s like why kill white tail, spring turkey, I mean, there’s this movement that’s going on – they call it chasing 49 – a bearded turkey in 49 states. Alaska is the only place that doesn’t offer spring turkey. There’s these guys 24 that are trying to get turkeys in every state – Hawaii is one of the, you know, because of our season, a lot of places on the mainland don’t – spring turkey doesn’t happen till like May or, cause it’s not warm out yet till then – so Hawaii’s one of the earlier places in the nation that their season opens amongst others, but, people are trying to come to Hawaii, vacation, come to Hawaii – shoot a turkey, there’s all these breath taking views as you stroll, yeah, popular pictures of certain areas on social media like a guy from the mainland on Mauna Kea next to some silver swords, \[unclear\] turkey, right, ten thousand feet above the ocean, mountain in the middle of the Pacific, right, so, yeah, there’s a lot of, yeah, there’s a lure around it and, there’s a lot of tags that get sold from out-of-state hunters. I’ve talked to a handful of guys, it’s a big deal. Some of the guys I talked to like we end up talking like couple of times, you know, leading up to while they plan things out and I follow up with them later to see how was your hunt when you came. Some guys get lucky first day they shoot their turkey, and it’s kind of icing on the cake for their vacation with their families and stuff, so some guys enjoy it, other guys like I see all these turkeys, know, in these pastures but, yeah, you mentioned you can’t go out these pastures it’s private land, but, there’s plenty turkeys down there. I go, yeah, it’s private land. It’s ranches, are active working ranch so it has more of a turkey’s \[unclear\], and it doesn’t get hunted as much, so it’s the breaks, but people have, the guys that I’ve talked to have enjoyed their trip, a lot of guys, like I said, they’re just coming to hunt and for the experience and they get lucky and – a few guys that I talked to didn’t get lucky at all, they still come and try the experience and they’re like, you guys’ tags are thirteen, you know, compared to the mainland, they’re happy to come on vacation and pay, the small amount for a turkey day and I, but, on the other side, I hope to see more, I hope the culture to some point, starts to spread here or more, um, \[unclear\] and enjoys turkey season as well. LT: Anymore discussion from the Commission. None seeing – Leomana, District – 3, thank you so much for the presentation. I’m not, I shot one turkey in my life down in Kau, Milolii, I ate that thing, and I never ate turkey after that. I don’t get it, right, the turkey – the Kau turkey maybe was dry and skinny, yeah. ?: \[Unclear\] Laughter… LT: Yeah, but, you know, ah, so I don’t really, I’m not a bird hunter. I’m just, I’d rather shoot the clay cause I not gonna eat the birds, but, talking to a lot of the hunters and people around the Island, I guess, people love bird hunting. I didn’t know, I, and they said Big Island was the best bird hunting in America at some points and, I don’t mind us having tourism to go hunt the birds cause I don’t eat ‘em, so, however the GMAC can help in boosting the turkey hunting or the game bird hunting or whatever we can do as a Commission to get us back to all of these stories that I hear, please let us know, cause I want to get us back to the world leader, you know, I don’t mind people taking pictures on Mauna Kea with their turkey if they can help boost our economy, give our hunters some jobs, give our DLNR, our private guides jobs, and even help our birds to get feeders and the water and attention so if it’s social media attention, if it’s news attention, if it’s something that we can do on the Commission just reach out and just let us know cause one of my things is I want to get us back to that leading position in the world cause we are looked at as a, a popular vacation spot for families and then, my family goes to Kona. I take my bow right there in the resort. I mean, it’s illegal but… ? \[Unclear\] Laugher… 25 BL: Take the fifth... LT: Well, I mean, you know… IKK: Don’t do it again. LT: …. \[unclear\] cause I’m Hawaiian so I just, you know, I claim ‘em, I just, you know. Yeah, right, so, I know how important it is to the family unit that maybe the family can go to the beach and maybe the men who enjoy hunting can have that escape in between our mountains and I want to provide that as a host, so, I mean, whatever we can do – just let us know. JPC: Yeah, yeah. LT: Yeah. Thank you very much. Moving on to agenda item 6, New Business, 6a – Discussion and Decision Making: Draft GMAC 2024 Second Quarter Report to Mayor Roth and County Council. 6. NEW BUSINESS: a. Discussion and Decision Making: Draft GMAC 2024 Second Quarter Report to Mayor Roth and County Council. RD: Question? LT: Yes, sir. RD: Do we have the – did Cortney do the First Quarter Report – do we have the first quarter in the bag? th LT: I have one of the reports over here. No, we have the last one, it’s the 4 Quarter Report. RD: Fourth quarter report. LT: Yeah. RD: So, we need first and second quarter reports? LT: First and second quarter reports. So right now, we need the First and Second Quarter Reports, to be drafted up and submitted for discussion by the Council. RD: Ah, Chair, I’ll volunteer to do that and, you know, I can go to Cortney, and be back and run it by her and then do a short report that’s capable of going to the mayor… LT: OK… RD: …. and then you giving to the, ah, you could give to the mayor, you could give to the County Council. 26 LT: Yes, sir. I also think this one is important because not only myself is allowed to go present this to the County Council but I think this will be our official one heading in this direction where we send a representative to the Council and to present each item to our summary report, our quarterly reports so, thank you for taking that first one and if we have any volunteers for the second one? If not, then I will take the second quarter report and then I can work with you a little bit more and we can work on our presentation. RD: Yeah… LT: Do we need to pass a motion for that assignment. Pass a motion? IKK: You can… LT: OK. Can I get a motion passed to assign the quarterly reports from a Commission member please. RD: Duerr, District – 1, I make a motion that Robert Duerr, District – 1, does the First Quarter Report 2024 and then Leomana does the Second Quarter Report for 2024 to give to Mayor Roth and to the County Council. Action: A motion was made by R. Duerr that he would complete the First Quarterly Report for 2024 and L. Turalde will complete the Second Quarterly Report for 2024. Motion was Seconded by L. Turalde. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote with, 5 ayes, and 1 excused. LT: Leomana, District – 3, I second. Any discussion? Ah, OK, roll call vote. District – 1? RD: Aye. LT: District – 2, vacant. District – 3, aye. District – 4? BL: Aye. LT: District – 5, vacant. District – 8? CO: Aye. LT: District – 9? JA: Aye. LT: All ayes. Thank you, guys. Thank you very much for passing that easy, me and Commissioner on District – 1, will work on that ASAP. Moving forward to agenda item number seven. 27 7. COMMITTEE REPORT: a. Investigative Committee: Regulations Affecting Keauhou Bay and Logistical Issues, and Potential Solutions, Committee Chair Natalie Reynolds LT: Sorry about that. We’re moving back to agenda item 7a. Committee Report: Investigative Committee: Regulations Affecting Keauhou Bay and Logistical Issues, and Potential Solutions, Committee Chair Natalie Reynolds. Ah, the Chair is – I think… RD: Chair, Duerr, District - 1. I’m on that committee. Cortney are you on that committee as well. CO: I don’t know if Natalie will actually make it to present anything so perhaps, we can get some guidance on what action we should take, if the chair of the committee is no longer to be attending meetings. LT: OK. RD: We’ve done the details and then maybe Natalie would agree to the details or she could give an approval whether or not she can make it – but we can do a report. LT: OK. Leomana, District – 3, I think the last Commission meeting did we discuss her not being on the Commission anymore? RD: I think Cortney mentioned it. LT: Yeah. IKK: Did she submit a resignation letter or anything? LT: I don’t know. I tried to reach out to her, but I didn’t talk to her. CO: Barbara is saying she hasn’t yet… BK: No, she has not. LT: Oh, OK, thank you, Barbara. You want to give a, a…. RD: What I’ll do is I’ll get with Natalie and find out where she’s at with this and try to coordinate a report, because we have it written… LT: OK. RD: We have the details written. LT: And it would be good to get a full report then. Yeah, yeah, we only have one more. OK, we’re gonna table the report to the next commission meeting so that way we can have a full report 28 instead of a short summary and we’ll check with the rest of the committee on their thoughts on this. 8. ANNOUNCEMENTS: Next meeting will be on September 17, 2024, at 9:00 a.m. at 25 Aupuni Street, Puna Conference Room, #1501, Hilo, HI 96720 LT: Next meeting will be held on September 17, 2024, 9:00 am at 25 Aupuni Street, Puna Conference Room, #1501, Hilo, HI 96720, will all of us here. I will reach out again to our missing commission members and check on an update with them and hopefully by next meeting we’ll have District – 5 taken care of and we’ll find other people who would want to fill in for our vacant positions. If you guys know anybody in the vacant positions, please let them know, if not, I will reach out to Nani again to ask if they had any hunters in the vacant districts who would want to join. IKK: Typographic error… LT: Yeah. IKK: I think it’s supposed to be a different one that I have. LT: OK, sorry for everybody, just a correction on top of the agenda, one agenda has a different date other than the next meeting in September so just follow the September meeting – September 17 and we’ll be all set. 9. ADJOURNMENT: (11:00) LT: If there’s nothing else, can we get a motion to adjourn this meeting at 10:51 a.m.? BL: Brian, District – 4, I make a motion to end the meeting. LT: Leomana, District – 3, I second that motion. Any discussion? None seeing, um, OK, last roll call vote because we’re on Zoom. District – 1? RD: Aye. LT: District – 2, vacant. District – 3, aye. District – 4? BL: Aye. LT: District – 5, District – 6, District – 7, District – 8? CO: Aye. 29 LT: District – 9? JA: Aye. Action: A motion was made by B. Ley and seconded by L. Turalde to adjourn the meeting at 10:51 am. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote with, 5 ayes, and 1 excused. LT: All in favor, mahalo, this meeting is adjourned. Mahalo everybody on Zoom, mahalo to the Commission. Thank you, Barbara. Mahalo e. Respectfully submitted by, Barbara Kossow Secretary 30