Thursday, May 22, 2008

SNIFFING THE RIGHT BUTT

SNIFFING THE RIGHT BUTT: The illegitimacy of the Belt Collins Environmental Impact Statement for the Hawai`i Superferry became all too apparent today with the announcement in the local Kauai newspaper that:

“A private firm wants residents to share their knowledge of Nawiliwili so it can assess the potential cultural impacts from a large-capacity ferry operating at the island’s main harbor.

"Cultural Surveys Hawai‘i will be interviewing community members in the next two months. The public input will be incorporated into a comprehensive environmental study conducted by Belt Collins Hawaii that includes secondary and
cumulative impacts.”


What a sham. It would be bad enough if, as expected, the Superferry EIS examined only the environmental impacts on the immediate geographic area of the ferry landing.

That is a scam tried before for example when the State DOT sought to extend the runway at Lihu`e airport in the late 80’s in order to land jumbo jets before people demanded they look at the whole island and the impacts of an economic, social and cultural nature for all Kaua`i.

And now they’re trying it again. Examining the cultural impacts in Nawiliwili is the proverbial examination of the arboreal specifics without any regard for the collection of flora.

Are they expecting us to swallow this?

The purpose of an EIS is to discover ALL the impacts of those cars off-loading. And guess what- the cars are not going to remain in Nawiliwili.

How they will “mitigate” it is anybody’s guess because guess what- the reason people demanded an EIS is because they could not imagine a plan for mitigation that would really mitigate anything island-wide.

But if you want to scam the process of mitigation it’s a lot easier if you limit it to the most polluted, overcrowded area- down by the docks.

Do they think we’re frickin’ idiots? The answer is quite obviously yes. But that makes the real question “what are we a bunch of frickin’ idiots?”

They sure hope so.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If you believe a few more cars and a few more tourists will destroy the island, then perhaps you are a frickin idiot. Blockade the airport if you want to make a difference.