Amazing Video Clip on the Mountain!

October 3, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

One day when I was on the Hawaii Island Economic Development Board’s Thirty Meter Telescope committee, along with Roberta Chu and Bob Saunders, Bob asked me what my father’s name was. I told him, and he said, “I want to show you something.”

He had a CD of the PBS Hawaii video called First Light, which was about the building of the first telescope atop Mauna Kea. He played it for me and then stopped it and said, “Look at that! What is that?”

I was stunned. It was a video clip of my pop operating his bulldozer on the summit.

(Used here with permission of Leslie Wilcox/PBS Hawai‘i)

Back in 1964 or so, Pop had a contract to help build the road to the top of Mauna Kea. I was away at school then, so I don’t know all the details.

Here’s a clip from the video. Look at the name across the top of the TD 30 there: “Richard Ha.” That was my pop. I’m Junior.

Life really has a way of coming full circle, doesn’t it!

Geothermal, Lowering Electric Rates

Canada, LNG & What Our Electricity Will Cost in Hawaii

September 30, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

Hawai‘i’s utilities depend on liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a “bridge fuel,” which will allow it to lower rate payers’ costs. The cost to rate payers, though, depends on the long-term contract HECO can secure.

Canada is probably the best place for Hawaii to acquire LNG. But Canada has some important decisions ahead. Should they build LNG plants, which will require huge upfront investments in the multiple billions? They will have to make some decisions soon.

Click to read a special report on the subject from TD Bank Group (PFD):

Higher prices abroad and an increasingly promising global demand outlook for natural gas have garnered a considerable amount of attention from North American resource producers, who are interested in tapping into foreign markets, via liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports….

Japan is the highest priced market for LNG, but Japan has not yet made its final decision about whether it will restart its nuclear plants. And the Russia/China natural gas pipeline could take 10 percent of Asia’s demand off line.

What will Canada do? They are wrestling with this decision right now.

Hawaii rate payers will be interested to see what price contract HECO is able to secure. Whatever it is will determine the electricity rates we pay for the following twenty years.

And we don't want to see what happened in the Aina Koa Pono docket – where the price was kept secret.

The Big Island has geothermal as a low-cost base power. What we don’t want here is for expensive LNG to prohibit the development of our low-cost geothermal.

Science

Study of 100 Billion Animals Fed GMO Feed: No Problems

September 29, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

A scientific review by UC Davis found no sign of health or nutrition problems from GMO livestock feed.

From UC David News & Information on September 25, 2014:

A new scientific review from the University of California, Davis, reports that the performance and health of food-producing animals consuming genetically engineered feed, first introduced 18 years ago, has been comparable to that of animals consuming non-GE feed.

The review study also found that scientific studies have detected no differences in the nutritional makeup of the meat, milk or other food products derived from animals that ate genetically engineered feed.

The review, led by UC Davis animal scientist Alison Van Eenennaam, examined nearly 30 years of livestock-feeding studies that represent more than 100 billion animals.

Titled “Prevalence and Impacts of Genetically Engineered Feedstuffs on Livestock Populations,” the review article is now available online in open-access form through the American Society of Animal Science: https://asas.org/docs/default-source/jas-files/jas8124_final.pdf?sfvrsn. It will appear in print and open-access in the October issue of the Journal of Animal Science….

Read the rest

Jon Etine, writing at the Genetic Literacy Project, also talks about this. He writes that "Although there have been more than two thousand studies documenting that GMOs do not pose an unusual threat to human health, questions about the safety of genetically modified foods remain in the minds of many consumers."

He goes on to say: "Estimates of the numbers of meals consumed by feed animals since the introduction of GM crops 18 years ago would be well into the trillions. By common sense alone, if GE feed were causing unusual problems among livestock, farmers would have noticed. Dead and sick animals would literally litter farms around the world. Yet there are no anecdotal reports of such mass health problems." Read the rest

His article is titled 29-year study of trillions of meals shows GE crops do not harm food-producing animals, humans.

Science

General Mills Shareholders Just Say No to Dumping GMOs

September 26, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

This is interesting. General Mills let shareholders decide whether or not the company should remove GMOs from its products, and they said no.

From the Los Angeles Times:

General Mills shareholders reject proposal to dump GMOs

By DAVID PIERSON

General Mills Inc. has made strong commitments this year to natural and organic foods. It took genetically modified ingredients out of its signature cereal brand Cheerios and then doubled down on its organic lineup by striking an $820-million deal for Annie’s, a stalwart of the organic and natural foods industry.

But when the industrial food behemoth’s shareholders were presented with a proposal to dump all genetically modified ingredients from the company's vast lineup of brands, they responded with a resounding “No.”

The Minneapolis-based company said preliminary vote totals from Tuesday’s annual shareholder meeting showed that 97.8% of participants rejected the proposal….

Read the rest

Bananas, Big Island

Spotted: Banana Bunchy Top Virus

September 24, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

We are seeing a real problem with Banana Bunchy Top Virus, which I wrote about here.

The number of cases we are seeing around town is alarming. This is on Kawailani Street in Hilo. The Department of Agriculture has been notified.

This is on Komohana St. in Hilo.

If you see the virus, call the Department of Agriculture.

Lowering Electric Rates, Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Learning From Germany & Others’ Energy Plans: No Free Lunch

September 22, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

Germany attempted to transition to a green electricity generation more than ten years ago. Today, some of its electricity rates are the highest in Europe, and it is using coal for 45 percent of its electricity. The lesson here is that there really isn’t any “free lunch.”

From Bloomberg.com today:

Merkel’s Taste for Coal to Upset $130 Billion Green Drive

By Julia Mengewein – Sep 22, 2014

When Germany kicked off its journey toward a system harnessing energy from wind and sun back in 2000, the goal was to protect the environment and build out climate-friendly power generation.

More than a decade later, Europe’s biggest economy is on course to miss its 2020 climate targets and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants are virtually unchanged. Germany used coal, the dirtiest fuel, to generate 45 percent of its power last year, its highest level since 2007, as Chancellor Angela Merkel is phasing out nuclear in the wake of the Fukushima atomic accident in Japan three years ago.

The transition, dubbed the Energiewende, has so far added more than 100 billion euros ($134 billion) to the power bills of households, shop owners and small factories as renewable energy met a record 25 percent of demand last year. RWE AG (RWE), the nation’s biggest power producer, last year reported its first loss since 1949 as utility margins are getting squeezed because laws give green power priority to the grids…. Read the rest

How is HECO going to both lower our electricity rates and increase intermittent power into the grid? Seems we are going to bet everything on natural gas. At $4/thousand cubic feet (mcf), it is very cheap. In Asia and Europe, it’s more than $11/mcf.

What happens when its price rises in 10 and 20 years? Where will we be then? Will we have a competitive advantage to the rest of the world? Or will we be struggling, like Germany is today?

Where will we be 10 and 20 years from now? We should be paying attention to what people like Marco Mangelsdorf, president of ProVision Solar, and others are saying about the PUC’s request for an energy action plan for the state of Hawai‘i.

HECO’s Response to the PUC’s Orders: Is the Media Right? With Marco Mangelsdorf

Hurricane

Eradicating Albizia at the Farm

September 18, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

Albizia trees are a real hazard; we all know by now that the introduced trees, which spread easily, grow up to an inch a day and can get to more than 200 feet, and are very weak and brittle during storms, are what caused such extensive damage during Tropical Storm Iselle.

I treated all of the albizias on our farm a week ago using the "cane knife and squirt" method. Using a cane knife, you cut four or five slices equal distance around the tree and squirt about 1/5 of a teaspoon of Milestone in each slice.

I find it is easy to hit the tree, and then bend the blade so that it opens up the bark and squirt it in. If I squirt the liquid on the blade, it runs down under the bark very well.

This video shows the technique.

These photos show the trees before and then seven days after treatment. They are starting to turn yellow. Soon all the leaves will fall off.

Lava

How About Mauna Loa?

September 16, 2014 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

photo of current Puna flow, taken from Kaloli Pt. in Hawaiian Paradise Point by Keith Kefford / Hawaii News Now

As lava from Kilauea’s Pu‘u ‘O‘o vent approaches the town of Pahoa – right now authorities estimate lava will reach the town in 20 days – Mauna Loa has been in the news, too.

The Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald reported on Saturday that Mauna Loa “has been rumbling and showing signs of awakening for over a year.”

…An eruption isn’t imminent, and no warnings are being issued, but the towering 13,678-foot mountain is going through the same motions that it did before its 1984 and 1975 eruptions, said Wes Thelen, HVO seismologist.

The activity includes faint, shallow earthquakes to the west of the summit and “deep long period” temblors 45 to 50 kilometers below the surface, both of which point to the intrusion of magma.

“All the signs are there that tells us that magma is moving into the shallow system,” Thelen said.

He said monitoring equipment, much more sophisticated than what was in place in the 1980s, is continually detecting magnitude 0.5 quakes about 7 kilometers below the surface in the same areas where activity was detected in the years leading up to the last eruptions.

Thelen noted he is confident the small earthquakes are a recent development.

He said HVO is seeing the same type of activity “in the same place at the same depth, and that leads us to believe, even though those earthquakes are smaller, it’s probably the same process that’s going on as was occurring before the 1975 and 1984 eruptions.”

According to HVO’s website, the rate of shallow earthquakes at the summit has increased over the last few months. Earthquake activity remains elevated on the Upper Southwest Rift Zone and West Flank…. Read the rest

From Hawaii News Now: Video: What could happen when Mauna Loa erupts?

And from the Hawaii News Now accompanying article:

“When it will happen, no one knows. However, scientists say the chance of Mauna Loa erupting again is virtually 100% and the consequences could be disastrous.

In 1881, lava almost reached Hilo. Princess Ruth prayed to Madam Pele and it stopped. In 1926, a fast-moving flow 50-feet high wiped out the fishing village of Ho’opuloa. In 1950, lava covered homes in pahoehoe. Residents literally ran for their lives.

When Mauna Loa erupted in 1984, media crews and tourists came from around the world. The lava crept within a few miles of Kaumana, glowing at night.

“I stay awake all night tossing and turning… looks like it’s right out the window,” said a nearby resident….”

I can remember wondering, back then, what we would do if the lava reached the ocean. Our banana farm was at Kea‘au; would we have access to the docks?

Mauna Loa erupts on average every six years, according to volcanologist Frank Trusdell—but the last time it erupted was 1984. It came to within about four miles of Hilo.

Here’s a KITV video about Mauna Loa’s past eruptions, and preparing for future ones.

Government

Proposal to Require Upgrading to Septic Tanks

September 12, 2014 Richard Ha

Richard Ha writes:

If you own your home and it has a cesspool, be aware that you may have to upgrade to a septic system. There will be new requirements for farms, too, but we don’t know yet what the new requirements might be.

An alert from the Hawaii Association of Realtors:

DOH Proposes to End Approving New Cesspools and Require Upgrade to Septic at Point of Sale

There will be a public hearing on October 2, 2014, at 10 a.m. where the Department of Health will explain proposed amendments to the Hawaii Administrative Rules for the Clean Water, Safe Drinking Water, and Wastewater Branches. These changes to the Wastewater rules include an end to approving new cesspools for construction and provisions to upgrade existing cesspools to septic systems upon the sale of property.

You can find the proposed changes and the rationale for these changes to Ch. 11-62 for the Wastewater Branch on its website.

Some proposed provisions:

Proposing new language that requires upon sale of any building served by an existing cesspool, the building, no later than one hundred and eighty days after ownership transfer, shall be connected to a sewer or, where a sewer connection is not feasible, the cesspool shall be replaced with a new wastewater system, other than a cesspool.
Requires the owner of a commercial or shopping center to upgrade their wastewater system when they have a new tenant that opens a restaurant.
Imposes new requirements for farms.

The present rules allow for an exemption from a private wastewater treatment facility if the proposed subdivision is no more than 50 lots. After 50 lots, a private sewage treatment plant will be required. The new rules change the exemption to 15 lots. This is totally unreasonable as there is no way to amortize such a huge expense under so few lots. This virtually rules out subdivisions in the 16-50 lot size.

Some of the unintended consequences of the above are lenders will not want to lend on properties subject to conversion or the outcome will likely be that the cost will be born onto the Buyers in the way of higher housing costs. The argument by the Department of Health that Buyers and Sellers will not be adversely affected during the transaction is false speculation and truly misunderstands the real estate industry.

This issue is very important to Hawaii REALTORS® and their clients. HAR believes it is unfair for the government to mandate that a property owner upgrade at the point of sale when the cesspool system was built using DOH standards and approved in writing by the DOH. These cesspools should be grandfathered.

The Hawaii Association of REALTORS® has been discussing this issue in coordination with the Local Boards and will proceed in a coordinated effort, which may include a membership Call-for-Action.

There is an estimated cesspool residential property count of 50,000 on Hawaii, 14,000 on Kauai, 12,000 on Maui, 11,000 on Oahu, and 1,400 on Molokai.

Lava, Where We Live

Inside A Lava Tube

September 11, 2014 Richard Ha 1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

Back in the ‘80s, there was a fire in Maku‘u between Hawaiian Paradise Park and Hawaiian Beaches. It burned all the way down to the ocean.

I used to do a lot of dirt bike riding back then with my brother-in-law Dennis Vierra and Wayne Blyth. When the fire was out, they made some roads around the perimeter, and any excuse to ride the bikes, right? We went exploring.

We went in by an old hunter’s trail that started near the Maku’u farmers market, and we saw something really strange. There were all these really tall trees that weren’t burned. They were green, and really tall. They were growing through a hole in the lava, and it turned out it was the entrance to a lava tube—the top had collapsed and the trees had grown on top of it. It collapsed a long time ago, because those trees were huge.

We went to explore and we found an entrance into that lava tube that was set up with rocks and nice stone work. Somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to fix it really nicely so you could walk into it, but not too many people at once. Maybe so people couldn’t attack it. Or in case someone was guarding the entrance?We thought it was neat and decided to go back again the next week when we would bring flashlights.

So we went back a week later with our mountain bikes and brought gloves and flashlights and we went into the cave, and it was pretty interesting. The first thing we saw were enormous ‘opihi shells. I’ve never in my life seen ‘opihi shells that size come out of the ocean there in Puna. They were bigger around than a coffee cup. Maybe half again bigger. There were quite a lot of them. And we saw charcoal, so it looked like people had made fires there.

We started walking. The cave was maybe ten or fifteen feet high in places. The top had collapsed over time and there was a pile of rubble maybe three or four feet high in the middle, so you had to walk on either side of it.

It wasn’t perfectly round, but it got narrow on the left and right edges and looked like there were shelves, like you could set things there, or maybe hide bodies there, but none of us said that out loud. And we didn’t dare go look.

We kept walking, maybe about a mile and then we came to what looked like a dry waterfall. The shape of the lava went uphill and we could feel fresh air at the top, so we climbed up and kept going.

Toward the end, we found more rock work. At that end, only one person at a time could pass through the narrow opening someone had created rocks. It led to an opening at the top so we could leave the lava tube, and we came out in the forest.

We had absolutely no idea where we were. No idea at all. It was still light out but we had no way to find civilization.

It was pitch dark in the lava tube, but we knew that was the only way we could find our way back, so we went back in. We went back the way we’d come and we started going faster and faster, because it was kind of spooky in there.

About halfway through we realized we could see some diffused light coming from the ceiling. There was a hole in the ceiling where the lava was very thin.

And what occurred to me was that if anyone was walking in the forest above and fell through into the lava tube, they would have absolutely no way of finding their way out. Without a flashlight, it’s pitch dark and you absolutely wouldn’t be able to find your way out at all. That would just be it. It was a scary thought.

I don’t know if it’s a place where people used to hide. Or was it a burial cave? How many hundreds of years ago was that? I couldn’t see any evidence of people having lived in that area – no taro lo‘i or anything. There were no trails there. Who built that stone work? Who did all that work? It was very organized. Was it to protect themselves? Did they have people out there at the entrances?

We only went into it that one time, and it’s still out there somewhere, between Pahoa and Ainaloa on the transfer station side of the highway, and I’m sure there are many others, too. I hadn’t thought about that in many years, but now with all the lava moving through the area and going down into cracks and everything, it came to mind. It was an interesting experience.

From Big Island Video News:

PUNA, Hawaii – Lava is a mere three tenths of a mile from entering Kaohe Homesteads, reports Hawaii County Civil Defense. An evacuation has not yet been ordered for residents of Kaohe but that could change at any time. Civil Defense personnel will be conducting door to door surveys and notification in the subdivision starting today.

Read the rest