I’m bummed out about the new Hawaii Superferry. Superferry, in case you haven’t heard, is Hawaii’s first inter-island ferry system for cars and pedestrians. Great!, you might say. But wait. It was approved without any environmental impact studies. Why is this important? Lets think about this for a second.
Hawaii, before the discovery of Hawai’i by the west, had a unique biological culture. Before that time, the only way new species of plant and animal were introduced was by crossing the pacific. Today, alien plant and pests are invading at about 2 million times more rapid than the natural rate. In 1993, the federal Office of Technology Assessment declared Hawaii’s alien pest species problem the worst in the nation.
It’s not just an invisible problem either. You can see it change right in front of you. For example, I visited Pahoa for the first time in ten years last spring. My friends and I went to dinner at the mexican restaurant in town. The invasive Coqui frogs have taken over that town and the sound they make is deafening.
Coqui are from the Carribean and arrived in Hawaii 10 years ago. They multiply at an insane rate and have no natural enemies in Hawaii. Their populations reach 10-12 thousand per acre and - here’s the worst part - their mating habit is barking all night long at 70 to 100 decibles! It’s ear-piercing, enough to keep you awake at night. It destroys property values and tourism in areas that have been invaded by Coqui colonies. The problem is the worst on the Big Island but they will spread to all the islands and wreck havoc if given easy transport. All it will take is a few frogs, nesting in an undercarriage of a car parked in driveway on the Big Island, to travel to Kauai on the ferry where the frogs will hop off at night and make a new colony.
Now lets turn back to the Superferry that was rubber stamped with no environmental study in a state that has the worst alien pest problem in the nation. The superferry is not financed entirely by private investment. A good portion of the funds needed to make it happen comes from us by way of force - $40 million in taxpayer’s money is going to improve the ports where the Superferry unload the 300 cars and 1000 people per trip. The public outcry is not being heard as far as I can tell and I am outraged.
I am not even focusing on the increase in crime, drugs, pollution, traffic, homeless influx and additional crowds at beaches. These are all concerns too but my primary fear is the invasive species that the super ferry will spread to pristine outer islands like Kauai. In Kauai they have no known colonies of Coqui nor do they have any mongoose like other islands. Mongoose will kill all the ground birds in Kauai when they arrive off the superferry. When the brown snake from Guam arrives, the Superferry will unwittingly spread that too.
Grrrr :/
Posted on August 19th, 2007 by dysinger
Filed under: @home
