Honolulu Weekly

In Hawai’i, generations long past provided all their own food and fuel without help from beyond these shores. But that was prior to 7 million people visiting the Islands annually–way back before folks had a hankering for hot showers and cold air, tofu and Spam, and all those other components of modern Western life that are dependent on stuff that comes from some place else that is invariably far away.

Since those self-sufficient days of old, thousands of acres of productive land have been gobbled up by hotels, highways and homes; gentleman’s estates, golf courses and garbage dumps; shopping malls, sports arenas and supermarkets–in short, all the things that a hungry consumer society demands, except food.

Meanwhile, vast tracts of lowland forest that once supplied wood for imu cooking have largely disappeared, and the plantations that produced electricity from hydropower and burning bagasse have pretty much shut down.

As a result, Hawai’i is all a-buzz about sustainability at a time when our options for achieving it are slim, creating ideal conditions for a growing international debate–should land be used for food or fuel?–to take root in the Islands.

One small step for bio-fuel, one big step back for farmers

Its first offshoot locally is a proposal by Kaua’i-based Green Energy Team LLC to grow albizia trees to help fire Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative’s grid. While it seems, at first blush, like the kind of eco-friendly bio-fuel project that would warm the hearts of conservationists and agricultural boosters alike, it is raising their hackles instead.

The proposal comes at a time when the United Nations has called for a five-year moratorium on the use of arable land for bio-fuel production, and even the International Monetary Fund is questioning whether it is advantageous for rich countries to turn to bio-fuel production in the face of rising oil prices.

At issue locally is whether a 2,000-acre swath of state land mauka of Lihu’e and earmarked for future farms should be turned into a plantation of fast-growing albizia trees–a known invasive species–without conducting an Environmental Assessment first.

‘It clearly states in this plan the land should be kept unforested so we can respond to diversified ag opportunities as they arise,’ says Jerry Ornellas, jabbing his index finger on a copy of the 2003 Kalepa Agricultural Master Plan for emphasis. ‘You don’t use prime ag land with irrigation for this kind of a project.’

Ornellas is a tropical fruit farmer and president of the East Kaua’i Water Users’ Cooperative, which took over Amfac’s plantation ditch system to ensure that agricultural lands between Kapa’a and Lihu’e, including Kalepa, would have a source of irrigation.

‘If this project goes through, we’re going to lose the very best lands in our system,’ Ornellas says. ‘The future of our co-op lies in those Kalepa lands. We’ve put a lot of work into this co-op and we didn’t come this far to be turned back now.’

Trae Menard, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Kaua’i lands, shares Ornellas’ view that albizia, a hardy tree that thrives in poor soil on rainfall alone, shouldn’t be grown on prime, irrigated land. But he’s more worried about the invasive tendencies of albizia, which was imported to Hawai’i from the Mollucan Islands, near Indonesia, to reforest barren lands in the 1930s.

Since then, albizia has spread quickly, especially on Kaua’i, where the winds of Hurricane ‘Iniki helped carry its seeds far and wide. When Menard participated in an extensive weed-mapping project for the Kaua’i Watershed Alliance, he was surprised to find albizia growing in such remote areas as the Alakai Swamp plateau and upper reaches of Wainiha Valley, far from existing stands of the trees.

‘It has the ability to spread a long, long way,’ Menard says. ‘It has the ability to take over a native forest pretty quick.’

Bill Cowern is the president of Kaua’i-based Hawaiian Mahagony Inc., which has teamed up with Green Energy to provide the woodchips and other biomass that will be used in a gasification/thermal oxidation process to produce energy with little or no ash, creosote or stack emission waste.

He thinks the debate over invasive species and prime ag land pales in comparison to a more pressing issue at stake: developing energy alternatives in a state that is almost wholly dependent on imported oil for generating electricity.

‘The real problem here is that people are dealing with this issue from two different directions,’ Cowern wrote in an e-mail. ‘One is wishful thinking and the other is logical. One deals with decisions that have no direct impact, and the other attempts to solve a problem.

‘We just haven’t seemed to pay enough attention to the fact that from 1999, until today, the price of crude oil has increased 1,000 percent. That’s right, I didn’t misplace a zero. In December 1998 the price of crude oil was less than $9. Last week it missed going over $100 by 70 cents. And this increase is not going to stop. The price will continue to rise because supply is not.

‘How is this possible, we haven’t seen anything in the news about shortages,’ the e-mail continues. ‘The answer, our myopic media is far more interested in Paris Hilton’s hairstyle than riots in some third world country. But the inconvenient fact is that more than 30 countries have had riots over fuel, or energy in total, in the last two years. Even Iran has rationed fuel. The rich countries, us, China, India, Western Europe, and the oil exporting countries, are outbidding them. They are the first to fall in the oil shortage scenario.’

But while conservationists and farmers say they recognize the perils of being dependent on foreign oil, and support the concept of bio-fuel, they don’t believe it should be pursued at all costs.

‘We really have to proceed cautiously,’ Ornellas says. ‘If you give me a choice between food and fuel, I think I’ll have lunch.’

Hawai’i has about 1.9 million acres of land zoned for agriculture, Ornellas says, and it takes at least an acre of land per person to produce the average American diet. Given the Islands’ current resident population of 1.3 million, plus tourists, ‘when you really want to talk about self-sufficiency, it’s not so far-fetched when I fight for every inch of agricultural land.’

Although the seven farmers and ranchers who would be displaced by leasing the land to Green Energy currently aren’t producing much food, the 6,700-acre Kalepa parcel, which lies between Hanamaulu and Wailua, is key to the future of food-based agriculture on Kaua’i’s heavily populated eastside, Ornellas says.

‘All the tenants are really worried because if they [Green Energy] can take the very best of Kalepa, you know they’ll come back for the rest of it,’ he says. ‘Once your good irrigated land is gone, what do you have left? If we can’t protect the private land, for God’s sake let’s protect the public land.’

Cowern says the Kalepa location wasn’t his idea. ‘We approached the State Land Board to get 2000 acres,’ he wrote. ‘We did not even designate which 2000 acres. They picked the area and partially because it is a TMK (tax map key) with close to 2000 acres in it Ö we are not able to get a long term commitment on less than a full TMK. You cannot lease a partial TMK.’

Ornellas says that when the state Land Board considered the Green Energy proposal at its Nov. 16 meeting in Honolulu, not a single board member had heard of the Kalepa Agricultural Master Plan, although the Department of Land and Natural Resources paid for it. ‘They were about to make a decision on it and knew nothing about it.’

Honolulu Weekly attempted to contact state land agent Gary Martin, who signed the staff report to the Land Board, to ask why the Kalepa site was selected and no mention of the master plan was included in his report. But his secretary said all media questions must go through Deborah Ward, the agency’s public information officer. The Weekly then posed queries to Ward, who had not provided a response by publication time.

Still, it isn’t just the site, but the plantation product that has prompted strenuous objections to the Green Energy proposal.

Water wars

‘What really concerns me is planting 2,000 acres of it (albizia) directly upwind from the core of our watershed, including our new [Wainiha Valley] preserve,’ Menard says, noting that albizia could quickly displace native vegetation that is crucial to maintaining Kaua’i’s water supply.

Keren Gundersen, project manager of the Kaua’i Invasive Species Committee (KISC), delved into that issue more deeply in an e-mail she sent to Larry Feinstein, who has been working with Cowern on the Green Energy project.

‘I applaud your efforts and research on creating alternative energy here but there is an even more primary need for people living on Kaua’i: Water,’ she wrote. ‘The component most needed for a healthy watershed is an understory to hold and disperse water. In your write-up of this project you state: ‘The downside of growing Albizia is that it is, in fact, invasive. Large trees tend to give off root toxins, which severely limit undergrowth.’ Undergrowth, as I’m sure you are aware, is not only important for capturing water, but for holding soil.’

Menard and others also object to exempting the agricultural aspect of the Green Energy project from an Environmental Assessment (EA). The staff report to the board said the law permits exemptions for ‘operations, repairs or maintenance of existing structures, facilities, equipment or topographical features involving negligible or no expansion or change of use beyond that previously existing.’

At the Land Board meeting, member Tim Johns expressed concern about the EA exemption, since the Hawai’i Supreme Court found the state Department of Transportation erred in exempting harbor construction to benefit Hawai’i Superferry because it failed to consider the secondary impacts of the project.

‘When you’re planting 2,000 acres of an invasive, obviously there’s going to be secondary impacts,’ Menard said at the meeting.

Both Gundersen and Menard said that Green Energy should consult with the Hawai’i Weed Risk Assessment to evaluate the potential invasiveness of plants before choosing one for its bio-fuel project.

Cowern, however, said that other species of trees and groundcovers were tested, but none produced the same quantities of biomass as albizia, He argues that since albizia is already established on Kaua’i, it should be put to a useful purpose.

‘The challenge for all of us today is to accept albizia’s presence and to create a strategy to control its growth, with the understanding that, on Kaua’i, it is simply impossible to eliminate,’ he wrote. ‘The only answer is to create a value for the tree that takes full advantage of its attributes; thereby creating economic incentive to harvest the trees we wish to remove. Meanwhile, any bank needs a committed and guaranteed fuel source to commit funds.’

State land agent Martin apparently agrees, noting in his staff report to the Land Board: ‘The albizia is a major component in the applicant’s renewable energy project’s economics. By using the albizia as a biomass fuel and fertilizer, what is now an invasive species will become a product having commercial value and also create agricultural jobs for Kaua’i.

‘The albizia grown, maintained and harvested on the subject State land will be done under controlled conditions to prevent it from spreading beyond the permit area,’ Martin’s report stated.

But Ornellas and Menard questioned whether that is possible, since the trees will be grown to a height where they are able to seed, and the lightweight seeds are easily windborne.

A question of eradication

In its comments on the Green Energy proposal, the state Department of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) said the firm should prepare a 10-year management plan for harvesting albizia that ‘will also contain strategies for eradicating albizia completely from all state parcels by the end of the management plan period.’

Cowern wrote in an e-mail that although Green Energy did not propose the open-ended DOFAW suggestion, ‘we support it, even though it is not likely to be helpful in the short term.’

Menard, however, believes that such a proposal is meaningless. It would be virtually impossible to cut down existing albizia trees on the remote, extremely steep state lands where they are found. Additionally, the tree canopies are too large to make herbicide use feasible.

‘As to controlling it, that’s what scares me,’ Menard says, noting that no viable eradication methods have been found for albizia. ‘We’re kind of drawing blanks on it.’

And that, Cowern contends, is precisely why his albizia-dependent project should proceed. ‘If the state had any plan to eliminate it, if KISC had any hopes of eradication, if the energy and food problems we face were not such critical problems, I might think differently,’ he wrote.

‘The state wants me to come into their lands and remove existing populations, but not grow enough to develop the industry that would allow that,’ his e-mail continued. ‘They agree removal is warranted and advantageous to the native forest ecosystem but ignore the practical requirements of the economics involved. They have no plan for removal and no intention of developing a plan as it would not be economically feasible but will not look at other models. After all it is invasive and we have a policy that we will not plant invasives under any circumstances no matter how advantageous that might be.’

Gundersen disagrees with Cowern’s stance. ‘We feel that is irresponsible to work counter productive to efforts to control targeted species by planting a known invasive plant,’ Gundersen wrote in her e-mail to Feinstein. ‘By choosing to plant albizia, it would only be fanning the flames that have already been lit by the current distribution of albizia on Kaua’i.’

The Land Board decided to defer a decision on the Green Energy project until its January meeting, and directed all parties with an interest at stake to try and work out a compromise.

That meeting was set for Dec. 3, but the parties weren’t especially optimistic that a win-win solution is possible.

The ranchers and farmers who comprise the Kalepa Koalition say that cattle and horses ‘are adverse to guinea grass grown under albizia trees’ and ‘no useful crop’ can be grown under the closely planted trees of an albizia plantation, according to a letter the group sent to the Land Board.

‘The takeover of the land is also premature as the Green Energy power plant has yet to receive needed government approvals,’ the letter stated.

Ornellas also believes the project is too tenuous to risk on prime ag land. In his testimony to the Board, Ornellas stated: ‘For the first time in nearly a century, decent, farmable land has become available to the ordinary person. Now the state is planning not only to take this land away from the ranchers and farmers and potentially ruin it with vast stands of abandoned albizia, but to do so for a speculative project of unproven economic value.’

Cowern, however, thinks he will prevail in the end.

‘Our energy shortages will come, and the same people myopically looking at this issue will change their tune,’ he wrote in an e-mail. ‘I know that, and the state knows that, it is just a matter of time. I hope the pain at that time is not too severe. End of rant.’